Page
September 29, 1897.]
will be fully approved by shareholders. In connection with adjustment of account with the lite Amoy agents I think it right to mention that the firm referred to is that of Messrs. Russel & Co. By an oversight the name was omitted in the printed report and accounts. In conclusion I have only to add that the steamers' earnings so far since June are well up to the average, but unfortunately the price of fael has advanced considerably and there is no prospect of any reduction, at any rate for the present. I shall be pleased to answer any questious that shareholders may ask.
There were no questious and the CHAIRMAN moved the adoption of the report and accounts.
Mr G. C. Cox seconded. Carried.
Mr. GILLIES proposed the re-election of the Consulting Committee:-Hon. J. J. Bell-Irving, and Messrs. A. Ross, C. A. Tomes, and D. Gubbay.
Mr. BARLOW seconded. Carried.
The re-election of the auditors, Messrs. J. H. Cox and W. H. Gaskell, was proposed by Mr. MICHAEL and seconded by Mr. BAILEY, and agreed to unanimously.
The CHAIRMAN-That concludes the busi- ness of the meating. I am much obliged to you for your attendance. Dividend warrants will be posted on Monday next. (Applause).
·CORRESPONDENCE.
[We do not hold ourselves responsible for the opinions expressed by our correspondents.]
COPENHAGEN'S FREE PORT AND, ITS CHARGES.
>>
TO THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY PRESS. DEAR SIR,-A. friend of ours has sent me a copy of your valued paper dated June 21st, in which you deal with our little handbook Copenhagen and its Free Port." You men- tion same in kind expressions, for which please accept our best thanks. Nevertheless some of your words need comment and therefore I beg admittance to your columns for a few re- marks. You write in your article:-
❘
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
MERCHANT IN CHINA,
257
In many quarters, some of which one would think ought to be better informed, there seems to be a growing tendency to ascribe the absence of progress in China to a want of enterprise on the part of the foreigners engaged in the trade of the country, and the British trader in parti-
at once occur to a practical engineer acquainted | THE DECADENCE OF THE BRITISH with the localities named. A suspension bridge or railway, or any structure on the suspension principle, having a large span, requires the piers or pillars to be of great strength, and therefore of great weight, and the foundations, of whatsoever description-screw piles, cylinders, or masonry -must be carried down to the rock, or at least to hard gravel. If such a foundation can be got on the delta of the Yangtsze, the accumulated silt of ages, on which Shanghai stands, it will be news to many. I fancy M. Chollet could get some interesting information on this point from the New Dock Co., whose wooden dock is sinking surely but not slowly, and from other factories on the Pootung side.-I am, sir, your
obedient servant,
AN OLD CONTRACTOR'S
ENGINEER. Hongkong, 25th September 1897.
THE JAMESON-HOOLEY LOAN.
Shanghai, 20th September.
On Saturday Mr. Frosell, the agent of the Jameson-Hooley syndicate, absolutely settled with H.E. Shêng the loan for £16,000,000 on the conditions previously arranged in Peking except that the discount is to be £94 instead of £95. The contract as drawn up by Mr. Platt, of Messrs. Johnson, Stokes and Master, is business-like and satisfactory for both sides, and the security given is considered ample. The sum of £9,000,000 is all ready in Lon- don to be handed over to the representative of the Chinese Government, and the balance will be paid before the 20th of December next. Mr. Frosell has secured the construction and financing of the railway that is to run from Shanghai through Soochow to Nanking, and the ultimate extension to Honan, besides the line from Soochow to Hangchow, and there are prospects that this will include, conjointly with the Chinese Government, the exploitation and development of coal deposits which are known t exist in Honan. It is expected that Major J. Eustace Jameson, M.P., will arrive in China early next year accompanied by a staff of English engineers to survey the country, and arrange all the details for properly carrying out the whole scheme in which the syndicate is interested. Mr. Frosell and his Secretary, Mr. T. Arnold, with Mr. Platt, leave for Peking to-night in the steamer Anping, which has been placed at their disposal be H.E. Sheng. They will be accom- panied by Mr. Chu Pao-fay, the Chief Secretary of Railways, who has been closely connected with the negotiations throughout, and who proceeds to Peking at the special request of Li Hung-chang and Weng Tung-ho, for the final ratification and theImperial edict approving of the loan. When at Peking Mr. Frosell will at once deposit the sum of £100,000 with the government as a guarantee for the observance of the various payments as agreed at the due dutes. Frosell, and all concerned with him in negotiat- ing this loan, may be sincerely congratulated on completing a most important business trans- action with the Chinese High Authorities with a celerity that is perfectly marvellons consider- 304.72 16 18 7 ing the usual methods of this country.-N. C.
Daily News.
It
"At Copenhagen a vessel of 1,000 tons register pays £26 4s.; at Hongkong the same ressel would pay under the present scale of light dues something less than £2 10s. is true that at Copenhagen the dues cover wharfage, but if a vessel coming to Hongkong desires wharfage the Wharf and Godown Com pany will accommodate it for a good deal less than half the amount charged at Copenhagen." As correctly quoted by yon from our above- named pamphlet, a vessel of 1,000 tons register will have to pay here about £26 4s., but this amount is composed of various items, which are specified as follows:
Wharfage (quay dues) 163 ore per ton Kr.168.66=£ 9 5 3 (vide our book page 36). Pilotage.. Kr. 69.72 £3 17 6
Towage
Ferriage...
Clearance fees.
54.00 3 0 0
16.00 0 17 9
Kr. 60 £3 6 8 to 150.00- 8 68 Patties
15.000 18 8
Kr. 471.38£26 3 10
Thus it will be seen that the only charge on the vessel encashed by the harbour authorities is wharfage (£9 5s. 3d.) and this, certainly, for a vessel of 1,000 T. R., must be called a very low figure.-I am dear sir, your obediant ser- vant.
C. D. HAGE,
Secretary,
The Copenhagen Free Port Company, Ltd. Kjobenhavn, 20th August, 1897.
SHANGHAI AND POOTUNG SUSPENSION RAILWAY,
TO THE EDITOR OF THE "DAILY PRESS.
15
Sir,-In your issue of the 25th inst. your leading article was mainly a criticism of an essay by M. Chollet, the engineer of the French Municipal Council at Shanghai, on "A Practic- able Method of joining Shanghai with Pootung by a Pont à Transbordeur, System Arnodin; that is to say, by a suspension tramway raised High enough to clear the shipping. To this scheme there is a serious objection that would'
cnlar is receiving severe criticism in the matter. In a British Consular report of a few years ago. the fact was deplored that the British merchant in China had fallen to the position of being little better than a commission agent working for Chinese. When I was at home a few years back, I myself listened to a lecture (by an old China hand, though unconnected with business) on trade with China in which the lecturer roundly abused British merchants in China, and more particularly those in Shang- hai, for their want of enterprise, saying that we appeared to have lost all the trading instincts of a previous (his) generation; again, I have reason to believe that the members of a recent commercial mission to China have expressed themselves in somewhat the same way, and though the importance to be attached to their utterances is to be gauged by their want of experience, still the energy which attached to their work (work of a most useful nature) will doubtless give force to such opinions as they may express tothe public at home. Under the circumstances I think that the time is not inopportune for the British trader to make some rejoinder to the criticisms which are being levelled at him, and I do not think that the task of defending his case is a very difficult one.
In the very able report recently made by Mr. Brenan upon the " State of Trade at the Treaty Ports in China," there occurs the following passage:"A long and painful experience of effect on foreigners in China that a condition thwarted efforts has had such a discouraging of stagnation has come to be accepted as in the nature of things." This remark of Mr. Brenan's auentirely true, but it seems to me that it forms th appropriate text for a few remarks upon ieis long and painful "experience of thwarted fforts," and as to why we have come to accept the stagnation of China as in the nature of shings."
if
of them.
From my own (most limited) study of our history in China, I believe that I am justified in saying that the present generation in Shang- hai is not fully alive to this question of our 'long and painful experience." We know that things are wrong, and we express ourselves in forcible Anglo-Saxon at their being so, but the discouragement" to which Mr. Brenan alludes has in an experience of many years led us to accept facts as they stand and to make the best In fact, to again quote Mr. Brenan, to move on the line of least resistance;" nor For some can we wonder that such is the case. Mr.
sin attaching to my progenitors, I have been reluctantly led into reading up the British merchant's long and painful experience" in China, and though I do not for a moment claim that I have mastered more than the rudiments of so complex a question, yet I do think that the rudimentary knowledge which I have ac- quired is fully sufficient to dispose of the " want of enterprise" argument.
**
We understand that the greater portion of the Hooley-Jameson Loan to China will be
We all of us know the Treaties of 1842 and paid over through the medium of the Hongkong
1858, and the rights of trading in China, and Shanghai Banking Corporation, about one-
which, if the English language has any mean- third of the sam, that which is to be applied to railway construction, passing through the handsing, those Treaties conferred upon us; again, of the Imperial Chinese Bank.
It is belier ed
also that the Russo-Chinese bank will have a finger in the pie. The term of the loan is 50 years, after 10 years of which the Chinese will commence to pay back the principal.-China Gazette.
The Korean Independent says:--Mr. W. McC. Osborne, Commissioner of Customs, left in the steamer Hyenik for Chiunampo to organise a Customs office there. Mr. Eg. Penguet will be put in charge and his staff will consist of Messrs. Han, Kim, and Matsumoto. Mr. Penguet has been transferred to the Korean Customs only recently from the Chinese staff, and it was a pleasant surprise to his many friends to hear of this promotion. We extend our hearty congra- tulations to Mr. Penguet and trust that under his charge the Customs revenue and business at Chinnampo will rapidly increase.
|
we all know how we have been.dealt with as regards the interpretation of those Treaties according to the proclivities of this or that party in power in Downing Street. In dealing with a country such as China a settled and well- defined policy is as necessary as a permanent staff in a government office, but unfortunately our interests are a long way from home (they. China are getting very much nearer), and the "
has up to recent times not got. question further than the dignity of a name--a shuttle-cock to be played with between political parties. The intention of the framers of the Treaties has been interpreted according to the political exigencies of the party in power; ac- cordingly we find that in 1868, with a Conser vative Government in power, Sir Rutherford Alcock, the then British Minister in Peking, addresses the Foreign Office to this effect:- "China has, in consideration of a fixed payment
$