224
16 there
mercial fields that must be still lying fallow in China for lack of adequate communica- tion with the outside world.
year; not
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND Spencer, materialism, and utilitarianism export trade swelled from £1,569,718 to and we credit them with the common sense £2,100,436; while re-exports jumped from that is necessary to the consideration of the £83,091 to £159,266. All Swatow transac question, Is the game worth the candle ?tions are done in Mexican dollars and, as Their enjoyment of the game must have the bulk of the exports go to silver using been considerably keener than was Russia's, countries, the rise in exchange can and they were left with an inch or two not be credited with the enhanced alight while Russia's was guttering and returns. It has not affected the price of stinking in the socket; but as the other local products, at any rate, and Mr. WILLIS player in the darkness seemed to have suggests that "the marked development of lost
idea of the enormity of the the export trade is due to more permanent waste, Japan had to have sense for causes.' Swatow, of course, directly taps both.
This new agreement helps us to the trade of the important cities, Chaochoufa understand Japanese shrewdness, and to and Sanhopa, and its history affords a see the progress they have made since typical illustration of the immense com- they entered upou the war. If ever a war was a war of self-de'ence, this, so far as Japan was concerned, was such. It is amusing to those who remember the nervous misgivings with which they con- templated the first step to read that was no certainty of success"-the speech of a latter-day apologist for the peace terms. There certainly was no certainty of that sort apparent in Tokyo: only the conviction that it must come, that the people would do their best, and that thrice-armed with a just quarrel, they had a right to hope that the outcome would not be disastrous. As Marshall YAMAGATA has admitted, they were even "prepared for partial discom- fiture." The position then Was that Japan was threatened, directly menaced, like a person with an incipient cancer. It had to be the surgeon's knife then-or subsequent yielding to the lupus. It is only necessary to compare Japan's present position with her position before the war, to see whether she has lost anything material in the diplomatic engagement in America. The Coreau question is settled in ber favour:
the Liaotung peninsula is regained; the menace in Manchuria removel. What is more, as this Anglo-Japanese agreement shows, Japan has at least ten years in which to mind her own affairs, secure from all menace in that quarter.
Cotton imports to Swatow increased from £270,695 werth in 1903 to £287,403 Inst decidedly satisfactory in view of the fact a big increase, perhaps, but
that the high prices ruling must have checked the demand, and that Shanghai has taken away much of Chaochoufu's indigo dyeingindustry. Indian yarn worth £526,554 was imported, and only £2,994 worth of Briti-h. The latter was a drop from £9,254 in 1903; but Indian had increased much more than correspondingly; and here again in view of the higher prices, the symptoms of a healthy, growing demand afford grounds for satisfaction. Mr. WILLIS notes that opium imports are generally regarded as an index to the prosperity of a district, and as the prosperity was very much in evidence, he considered it "somewhat curious" that there should be a decline in the value of foreign opium imported. In 1903 were imported 785,473 lbs. worth £575,650; last year it
was only 646,555 lbs., worth £475,363. The fulling off was in Malwa; he admits that Patna and B-nares showed n "considerable advance" ('ogether 371,040 lbs. in 1903 as against 523,048 lbs. last year); and as the imports of the native drug rose from 79,599 lbs, in 1903 to 199,518 lbs. last year, it is evident that as an indes of the prevailing prosperity, the consumption (Daily Press, 39th September.)
of this luxury shows no inconsistence. It The trade of Swatow for the y ar 1904, ment's alleged restrictius upon the pro shows, per aps, that the Chines Govern according to Mr. Acting-Consul WILLIS, duction of the native drug have not been "has proceedel along its normal channels with results that cannot be considered
so rigorously made as the missionaries otherwise than satisfactory."
were led to hope. The increased constump- ment appears most mod sta dcon ervative, doubtless explained by
This con- tion of certain kinds of foreign o ium is when read in conjunction with the st te
following paragraph from te report: "The manu- ment that the gross value of the year's acture of prepared opium by mixing the trade, whether expressed in taels or sterling. foreign with the native drug is a large and was "the highest on record since the open-flourish ng industry in this district, and it ing of the port" that is to say, the highest recorded in forty-six or forty-seven years. It amounted to Tls. 50,850,864, or
THE TRADE OF SWATOW.
£7,211,713 at the average rate of exchange for that year. Notwithstanding natural disadvantages, such as its exposure to typhoons, and its indifferent harbourage and shipping facilities, Swatow is rapidly increasing its importance as a trade port. This is sufficiently shown in a table given by the ACTING-CONSUL, in which it appears that the gross trade in 1896 was worth over twenty-seven million taels, nearly twenty. nine millions next year, nearer thirty-six millions in 1898, forty-five millions from 1899 to 1903, and now over the fifty millions. Thus in one decade it has nearly doubled itself. To cope with this, extensive reclamation work has been more necessary even than at Hongkong. The increase was well distributed over imports and exports, although the big business done in re-exports is responsible for the biggest increase. Foreign importations rose from £1,855,928 in 1903 to £2,048 185, and native imports from £2,344,892 to £2,909,826. The local
tuo
the
wore
[October 2, 1905. in the Dutch Indies. The c contract for building the line, which is to be 32 miles in length, with seven intermediate stations, and for the supply of rolling-stock, was given by the concession- line commenced in September last, but, owing naire to a Japanese syndicate. Work on the
to the marahy nature of the ground in the vicinity of Swatow, proceeded but slowly, until in January, 1905, it was delayed for some three months by an unfortunate outbreak at Anpo, a market town of considerable size about 10 miles workmen were killed and the property of several distant from Swatow, in which two Japanese Chinese in the employ of the railway o`mpany, together with some railway material, destroyed. The matter is now settled and work is resumed, the concessionnaire having been required by the Viceroy to provide 200 guards for the railway.
would seem that the boiling shops are attempting to dispense with cheaper varieties." The number of emigrat expensive Malwa opium in favour of the
ing colies has decreased to the normal the ACTING-CONSUL thinks, to the increase quantity of about 100,000 annually, due, of rates consequent on the inc rporation of the Rickmers' steamers in the N.D.L. fleet, and the withdrawal of the British India boats. The general prosperity would nis account, we imagine, for some reduction. None of these emigrants were for South Africa, by-the-way. The withdrawal of the British India line, and the sale of the counted for the decrease in British shipping, Douglas S. S. Company's steamers, ac which still, however, heads the list by a brave margin. interesting extract from the report, which We conclude with an speaks for itself :-
=
The Chaochonfu prefecture, more especially as regards the Kityang and Lufeng districts, and it would appear that the local authorities still continues in its state of chronic disorder, have not sufficient force at their disposal to maintain order.
In Swatow itself a police force of some 300 men has been recently enrolled, the cost of which is paid by voluntary subscriptions."
CANALS.
(Daily Press 30th September). The saying about the whirligig of time and its revenges will be brought to mind by a recent English proposal to revive canal traffic. After the STEVENSONS had astonished the public with their steam carriages, and time showed that they were not mere toys, the fickle world made haste to be off with the old love-the stage.coach, so dear still to the romancer; and with the stage-coach went the canal barges and boats. The canals of England are now for the most part stagnant ditches. Within the last two months, the Woking, Alder- shot, and Basingstoke Caual was sold to a private purchaser for a comparatively small Sum.. this is where we, close neighbours of a vast The canal company is no more; and Empire to which its canals are at present the national vascular system, may note the presence of the whirligig. Rapid transit. That is what we keep telling China she needs, if her commercial life is ever to be quickened, and her natural prosperity Chinese road for all traffic is still, as it has afforded room for development. For the
been from time immemorial, on the water. The path of the passenger from one distant plac to another, and of produce
lies
on that slow medium. There are those
and merchandise, but easy
who look for ard to the time when all Chin will be covered with a network of rails as thickly as is. England; and who say, as the soap alvertis nent says of the striving infant, that she won't be happy practically two centuries of railways, there still she gets it. Yet even now, after
are those who believe, as the Times rays, be more thriving than they are, that cost "that the industries of the country would of production and transport would have been sensibly diminished, if canal com- munication had been developed." Their idea is that the British Parliament should devote greater attention to proposals for improving existing canals and making new ones, to form a chain of water-ways between the principal ports.
Our Homburg to Germany and the enterprising canal correspondent has more than once referred
service there; and these modern agitators
Water carriage, they say, want to see England with as fine a system. is the cheapest possible; and it is this attention to what the English have treated with neglect "The concession for the long-mooted railway between this port and Chaochouta which, in their opinion, has conduced to the has been, as mentioned in my preceding report, granted to one Chang Yunan, a Chinese is different there, of course; the Elbe, notable industrial progress of Germany. It merchant who has for many years been resident the Weser, and the Rhine have to