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January 18, 1909.]
SHIPPING NOTES.
The Kitano-maru will be launched from the Mitsu Bishi Dockyard, Nagasaki, on the 24th January. The vessel is the last to be launched of the four ordered by the Nippen Yusen Kaisha for its European service.
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In consequence of the depression prevailing in business circles both at home and abroad, the number of steamers lying idle at Yokohama, Kobe, Osaka, and other ports is gradually increasing. There were recently twenty steamers
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CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
THE CHINAMAN AT HOME.
BY A BRITISH CONSUL.
Mr. H. A. Little, the British (onsul at Ichang has managed to write a report which has received in the Home papers far more attention than consular reports usually get. He gives in his report not merely the statistics of trade, but an idea of the life lived by the people of the country. The Consul writes on rents, incomes, salaries and wages, hours of labour, dwellings,
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houses, and thus giving the appearance of the presence of a large force. The custom com- memorates this event.
"It is perhaps not generally known that the Dragon Boat Festival, now observed all over the empire, originated in connection with an occur statesman of the kingdom of Ch'u, which then rence in this district. Some 20 centuries ago a occupied this region, was dismissed by his master, and in despair drowned himself in the Tung-ting Lake. Being a native of the district off to rescue him, each striving to reach the and much loved by the people, many boats put
of laid up in these ports, four of them being furniture, dress, food and cost of living, fuel, and / spot first. The festival, which is a sort of boat
steamers of over 4,000 tons.
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The President of the Board of Posts and Communications at Peking has instructed the Commissioner of Shipping Affairs to draft a set of navigation rules for the river boats. vernacular contemporary states that His Excellency has also decided to levy dues on all such vessels for conservancy purposes and to prohibit the dumping of cinders ann rubbish into the river.
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In the month of March last year the Cantonese merchants home and abroad, at formed a Naviga- tion Association with a capital of $10,000,000 to ran steamers, open a bank and an insurance company. It is reported that the capital has been partly subscribed. They have purchased & block of houses in Sap Sam Hong, Canton and are going to build offices there in European styles.
general conditions of life at the port. Following is some of the information imparted:-
The land is generally still held in small holdings of from half an acre to five or six acres, at a rent of about £2 68. an acre, paid sometimes in kind, and the entire set of implements can be bought for about 30s. There are at Ichang no lawyers, or notaries, or architects, or veterinary surgeons. The so-called doctors are about twenty in number, two or three of them earning from £7 to £11 per month, but the majority being content with much less-sometimes with but 13s. 6d. per month. The shop assistants get about 13s. per month. with food, and the artisans earn from 54d. to 1d. a day, with food. The rents of dwellinghouses range from 1s. 6d. per month for a labourer's cottage, to £3 10s.❘ per month for a merchant's house of some 25 or
30 rooms.
Food is of the simplest description, fish and meat being little eaten; milk. butter. and The steamers Shawmut and Tremont well-bread not at all, and rice and vegetables known in Far Eastern waters, have been pur- chased by the Isthmian Canal Company from the Boston Navigation Company to be used in transporting supplies for the Panaina canal, For the purchase of two steamers for the Isthmian Canal Commission Congress in 1907 appropriated $1,500,000. The owners of the Shawmut and Tremont, it is reported, at first asked exactly this amount for the vessels, but finally agreed to take for the two X1.157.300. which they state is 33 per cent. less than they cost five and six years ago. The owners agree to deliver the vessels at New York without cost to the United States Government. These vessels will be used for carrying supplies to the canal and latter will be turned over to the Navy for
service as colliers.
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One of the most enterprising of the French steamship companies, the Chargeurs-Réunis. has to acknowledge an indifferent year. It is the old story of increased expenditure, only partially balanced by augmented receipts. The inauguration of a round-the-world service was highly creditable to the enterprise of the company, but it corresponded, as it happened, with a period of dear coal and indifferent freights. The service is consequently to be bi-monthly in fature, instead of monthly, and somewhat smaller boats are to be employed in it. says a Home paper. It is interesting to note that the requirements of the new French law are adding considerably to the cost of wages on French ships. Thus, it is not only British shipowners who are called upon to pay more by reason of legislative enactment. The share holders of the Chargeurs-Réunis have to go without a dividend this year; but, if report speaks truly, they will merely be in the same boat as those of some of the best of the German companies.
· INDO-CHINA FINANCES.
The Governor-General of Indo-China opened a session of the High Council of theolony at Hanoi, last month when he delivered a speech, showing the unsatisfactory condition of the finances, now that all loan money had been spent. The burden of interest presses heavily on the Budget for 1909. The Yunnan Railway had landed the olony in for enormous expenses, and the fall in silver had proved to be a sore embarrassment. The balancing of the Budget depended upon the strictest economy next year. Any fresh loan raised will be spent for the special purposes of the borrowing and for nothing else. There had been too much slackness on this point in the past. His idea is to do without borrowing as far as possible, so that the Colony might soon stand on its own feet, and might get on without outside financial help.
forming the staple diet. The expenditure on food ranges from about 2s. to 3s. per month in the case of the working class, to about 25s. to 30s. in the case of the well-to-do. There are no roads, no carts or carriages, no municipal government, no public lighting of the streets, na- police, no fire brigade, no shops as we know them, no hairdressers, no trams or railways, no libraries or reading rooms, no places of amuse- ment-nothing, in fact, which we associate with the idea of a modern town. There is a lifebout service maintained on account of the danger of the Yangtze river, which saves about 1.000 lives every year, and there are three theatrical troups, consisting of from 20 to 60 performers, who visit house, etc. and charge from £1 to £1 10s. per day. There are also about 19 inns. where the usual charge is about 1s. a day, including food, but no bedding is provided. Banking is commonly transacted through cashi shops, which issue their own notes, and advance money on 12 to 15 per cent. interest per annum. and there are two pawnshops, which charge about Jd. per 1s. 6d. per month.
Native houses are "as a rule, very bare, and the general run of middle-class people do not spend more than a few hundred laels (say £50) pn furnishing. A rich man may, however, spend as much as £1,000 to £1,250. A taste is growing up for foreign articles of furniture, especially beds. The richest man in Ichang is contemplating the erection and furnishing of a mansion in foreign style.
On marriage a woman of the upper class spends several thousands of taols on her wardrobe, but subsequently only a few teus every year. In Ichang there my by 15 or 20 persous of this position. The jewellery worn at one time may be worth £950 to £375. A single dress may cost from £25 to £27, for furs to £3 158., or £5 for silk or satin, the price for good everyday clothes being from £1 5s, to £2 10s. Strange to say, men are more extravagant in dress than women. Chinese ladies often spend a great deal of money on trousseaux and layettes; has any for igner ever tried to do business in this line? The price of a suit of summer clothes for a labouring man is 2s. 4d. to 3s., and he requires two suits a year. Wadded winter clothes cost 4s. 8d. to 6s. 2d.. and will last two or three years. The lower classes mostly go bare footed; the ordinary shoes, which are generally soled with cotton cloths, cost about 1s. 6d. per pair.
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A curious custom is observed at Ichang in the seventh moon of suspending at night a burning rushlight on the top of a high pole up at the front door of the houses. It seems that many centuries ago a neighbouring State threatened to burn the town, but the attacking army was frightened away by the inhabitants burning as many lights as possible in their
race, is intended to recall this incident."
FAR EASTERN TELEGRAMS.
KOREAN EMPEROR'S VISIT TO FUSAN.
Tokyo, January 10th. The Korean Emperor's progress on his visit to Fusan has been most auspicious.
It was taken on the initiative of Prince Its with the object of allaying fears regarding southern disturbances.
Cordial felegrams have been exchanged between the Emperors of Japan and Korea, and the Mikado has expressly ordered the first and second squadrons to Fusan in honour of the Royal višitor.
AMERICA AND ANTI-JAPANESE LEGISLATION.
Tokyo, January 14th. The introduction in the Californian Leg- islature of anti-Japanese measures has aroused the Tokyo press.
President Roosevelt in a commumcation to the Governor of California described the measures as most un-just.
SHIPPING ACCIDENT AT
SINGAPORE.
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THE POLYNESIEN CUTS A DUTCH STEAMER IN TWO.
Singapore, Jaunary 12th. The French mail steamer Polynesien, 88 she was leaving here for China, got caught in the current through the snapping of the tug cable, and cut the Dutch steamer Djambic in
two.
She also tore up the wharf.
The British India Co.'s steamer Teesta in trying to avoid the Polynesien got ashore
and is still fast.
The Polynesien proceeded after a few hours delay.
Eight coolies who were on the Dutch stermer at the time of the collision were drowned.
THE RIE CROP.
The Second General Memorandum on the Indian Rice crop of the season 1908-09 says that the total area under rice in India and Burma reported amounts 51,198,900 acres ag compared with 52,888,200 last year. This represents a net contraction of 1,689,300 acres or 32 per cent. This is more than accounted for by the contraction of 1,900,700 acres in the winter crop of Bengal, while the winter crop,of Eastern Bengal and Assam also shows a decline of 795,000 acres. These losses, together with those in the summer and autumn crops in Bengal, are to some extent compensated by a substantial increase of 646,700 acres in the autumn crop of Eastern Bengal and Asaam, with smaller increases in Lower Burma and in Mudrus.
The British Consul at Bangkok says that the present rice crop in Siam is reckoned to be the largest on record, the general opinion being that over 1,000,000 tons all told will be available for export. So far as the season has gone, there is, he says, every reason to believe that the export will reach the figures of the above estimate, but deliveries will be regulated to a certain extent by the results of work in the fields during the time that the new crop is being cultivated, as it is customary to hold back heavy reserves of grain in the event of serious damage to growing crops.
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