1
►
May 18, 1903.]
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT. BRITISH TRADE WITH CHINA.
miles, the const range of kills begin to rise, culminating in the great mountain Kinabalu, 13,700 feet high. Apart from their picturesque grandeur, these mountains afford great Swatow, has addressed a letter to the Man- Mr. W. Holland, late 'H.M.'s Courul at possibilities for tea planting and for other prochester papers, advocating what he recently ducts. Some of the native who live on the proposed to a meeting of the London Chamber slopes of Kinabalu raise very good tobacco, of Commerce. He points out that we are losing which is exported to Brunei to the value of some -6,000 dols, yearly. The present export is very
our percentage of trade. small, but cultivation of any kind has always been carried on by the natives of the interior under very adverse circumstance. This tobacco is cultivated at a distance of two days' journey from the coast, and it has to be carried by the natives, on their backs through the jungle. These interior natives also raise a very good rice, but they have had no incentive to grow more than they could eat, owing to the want of roads and means of transport. This is now receiving attention, and may shortly see a great increase in the export of native-grown produce.
There is an estate on the Sekong River in Sandakan Bay, planted by the North Borneo Trading Company in 1898 In May, 1901, the age of the oldest trees was a little over two and a-half years. The girth of the older trees, three feet above the ground, averages about seven and a half inches, and the height, 20 to 25 feet. I did not see a sing sickly tree. These trees were grown from imported plants, and they then numbered 30,000 trees.
The indigenous rubber and guttas of North Borneo are of importance. On the Telicosan River, a tributary of the Padas, in the far interior, the natives cultivate a rubber-yielding creeper called Menugun† am told it grows to a very large size, and fields a considerable quantity of rubber annually. The red gutta growing in the forests round Sandakan Bay is well-known as Dichosis or Pallaquium longifolium. It is valued at over five shillings a pound. A company has lately been formed to plant this and other guttas, also rubber, in
North Borneo.
I have now concluded my paper on British North Borneo. I have tried to give you an idea of the country as it now is under the rule of the chartered company! We have done good by our administration. How much has been done in the last 22 years is difficult to explain, but 60 years ago a forecast was made by Captain the Hon. H. Keppel, whom you all know as Admiral of the Fleet, in his report on his expedition to Borneo in H.M.S. Dido, sixty years ago, which I will read. as it helps me to explain what the chartered company is striving
to achieve,
"Should so fortunate an occurrence ever fall to the lot of Borneo-should a strong and & wise Government ever be established on her shores; a Government that will religiously respect property, and secure to industry the fruits of her labour, that will, by a wise system of laws, protect the peaceable and punish the violator of the laws of a well-organised society; that will direct the industry of the people to useful purposes, and check their propensities to violence and plunder-such a Government, in a short series of years, would behold, as if by magic, a paradise burst from her wilds, see cultivation smile upon her jungles, and Lail a vast and increasing population, blessing the hand that awoke them to life, to happiness, and to prosperity."
being active and formidable, the question arises: "The competition we have to reckon with What can be done to revive our commercial energies and bring British goods once more to the front ? I am convinced that the answer to this query is: Lighten the runtual darkness that exists. The British merchant and manu- facturer know next to nothing of what the Chinese want, and millions of Chinese know nothing of what the British manufacturer can facturer, on being told, for instance, that the produce. The day is long past when the manu. Chinese want cotton piece-goods of a narrow haughtiness, We do not make such goods; width, could afford to reply with supercilious let them take what we send or go without. Our rivals take the trouble to find out just what the Chinese want and to make an article accordingly."
darkness" Mr. Holland suggests starting small With reference to "lightening the mutual exhibitions of British goods of all sorts in cer- tain of the busy marts of China.
very
|
319
GERMAN FIRMS IN CHINA.
the following particulars to his Government
The U. 8. Consul General at Coburg taken from a statement issued by the German Department of the Interfor. We take it from the Journal of the American Anatic Associas
·tion :-**:
During the last four years, the German increased to quite an extraordinary extent. commerce and capital engaged in China have This is particularly noticeable in Shanghai, the emporium of Eastern Asiatic commerce. The number of German firms there has risen from forty-three to sixty-eight. The one German bank in China (German-Asiatic Bank) has raised its paid up capital (Aktienkapital) from Tls. 3,750,000 ($1,248,750) to its charter limit of the rising of the Boxers, the importation of of Tis. 5,000,000 ($2,665,000). In consequence
arms into China has been prohibited, so that a great extent in the hands of German konses, this remunerative branch of trade, which was to has ceased almost entirely; otherwise, German capital and business enterprise are still in- terested in the same lines as in 1898.
•
With regard to the trade in Peking there are two German concerns which do (which is not open to foreign commeres)
a retail trade, their principal lines being articles for daily use and provisions for the foreigners in that city. A German is also interested in a private telephone line between exists at Peking, and an agency of the German- Peking and Tientsin. A German post office
future. Asiatic Bank will be opened there in the near
tance of German firms in the various treaty The following shows the number and impor- ports, German shipping, etc.
落
There are
two firms, with a capital of about 302,000 marks
"Amoy has a German post office. ($71,400), engaged in industrial enterprises.
"Canton has a German post office. There 40,000,000 marks ($9,520,000)—of the total im. are twelve firms which do 50 per cent.—¿.e., about
60,000,000 to 70,000,000 marks" ($14,280,000 porttrade of that port, and 75 percent.-i.e., about to $16,660,000)-of the export traffic. Thirty German coasters and six German river boats make their headquarters at this city; in the
vested interests in any way. When the enor "A scheme of this kind need not interfere with
that there is room for any amount of additions to mous size of China is considered it will be evident
have recommended one exhibition to be opened in our commercial experiments in the country. I Western China. By this I mean some busy town in the rich and populous province of Szechuen, which does not produce its own colton, but grows opium, which is a valuable commodity, and the profit on which enables the well-to-do Szechuanese to buy all kinds of foreign goods which they have a chance goods stands cotton in every shape, the of selling and admiring. Bat chief among such
nation. In the North of China, where the cold Chinese being essentially a cotton-wearing of winter is intense, the natives have taken the West, where the winter is nothing to to flannels and other woollen clothing. But in speak of, the native, if he feels cold, simply piles Consequently, whether in the shape of raw on more cotton garments or quilted clothes. cotton, cotton yarn, or cotton piece-goods, cotton of some kind flows into Western China in a *There is in Foochow one German firm with steadily increasing volume, and chiefly interestedmple capital, the greater portion of which is in this trade are of course Manchester and other invested the tea trade.” German capital is towns similarly engaged in the piece-goods also interested in a factory where duck feathers business. The Szechnenese, being, as I have are cleaned, and in a barge company. The said, well-to-do, would also buy sundries of all German marine service along the coast is irre- kinds, which it would be the business of the gular; in 1901, two German coasters and nine
Imperial mail steamers called at this port. exhibition to bring to their notice.
If it be argued that there is no money to to be obtained before we find ourselves left spare for such a scheme, I reply that it ought hopelessly in the background by our rivals. If the Chambers of Commerce cannot afford it ment should assist them by a grant The which surely is not possible-then the Govern- country spends a large sum of money annually on the upkeep of the consular service and the men-o'-war required to guard the interests of our traders, but what is the use of this expendi- tare if our trade- the sine qua non of our existence as a nation-is gradually going to fall away, as it is too surely doing? In General Chaffee told an American Methodist
the five years up to 1901 we lost 6 per cent. of audience in New York that forty or fifty mis- pushful activity of the Americans and the our trade in China, and, bearing in mind the sionaries cannot do much good in a great country officially supported energy of the Germans and like China. We can hardly suppose that General Japanese, it needs Chaffee is under the impression that there
no, special stretch of is only this small number of missionaries in exceptional measures are taken to revive our
imagination realise that uuless China. Our Directory gives the names of nearly failing commercial energies the time is not so 4,000 Protestant missionaries alone. General very far off when our consular service and Chaffee while praising the work of the men-o-war will have very few interests to guard. missionaries told his audience that he met Those who have our trade interests honestly at many of the most prominent Chinamen while at heart know that my picture, gloomy as it is, is Peking and he was obliged to say that he did not overdrawn, and that our existence as the not meet a single intelligent Chinaman who foremost trading nation of the world was never expressed a desire to embrace the Christian in such danger as it is just now." religion. The entire religious press of the United States, a New York despatchesys, is condemning the General for his attern ce, but the latter takes all of this abuse philosophically and good- naturedly. General Chaffee has shown no inclination to qualify his remarks.
to
some
Baron Mumm von Schwartzenstein, the
German Minister at Peking who has been home on leave, was to leave Berlin for Peking on the 25th alt.
city and its neighbourhood four different German subordinate stations, with a total force of forty. missiopary societies have erected main and
one missionaries.
•
64
.
Hankow has a German post office and tele-
and an agency of the German-Asiatic Bank. phone system. There are nine German firms The capital engaged in business amounts to about 6,500,000 marks ($1,547,000). The Ger- about 12,00,000 marks (32.856,000), and of man share of the export trade amounts to
trade to about 8,000,000 to the import 4,000,000 marks ($714.000 to $952,000). Four million marks ($932,000) are invested in the coal mines of Pingsiang and 100,000 marks ($23,800) in albumen manufactories. Five German steamers ply between. Hankow · and·· Shanghai, one steamer between Hankow and Ichang, and one between Hankow and Swatow.
Shanghai has a German post office. There are sixty-eight German firms besides the German-Asiatic Bank, the yearly turnover amounting to 120,000,000 marks ($28,560,000), which is about 22 per cent, of the total trade of this port. Two German limited companies, controlling a capital of about 2,000,000 marks ($176,000) are engaged in silk and cotton weaving. German capital participates in four cotton spinning mills, with a total investment of 9,900.000 marks (2,356,200); also in sixʼsilk thread manufactories; in three dockyards; in a flour mill with a total capital of 6,900,000 marks ($1,642.200); and in gas works with a paid-up capital of 900,000 marks ($214,200). one-fifth of which belongs to Germans
44
Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, the Shanghai Land Investment Company, the Shanghai Tugboat Company, the Shanghai
German money is also invested in the
!