without leaving any appreciable trace".
Will the prolongation of the Langson Railway into the Chinese Province of Quang-Si create any considerable traffic with Tonkin? This theory is the explanation of all Monsieur Gérard's recent negotiations at Pekin but the answer, in the writer's opinion, is by no means certain.
Those parts of the Chinese provinces of Quang-Tong, Quang-Si and Yun-nan which march with Tonkin are admittedly poor and incapable of providing food supplies to the inhabitants. Longtchen, which is represented as a great trade centre, owes its fame to its proximity to the Tonkinese frontier, and derives all its importance from its trade with the Langson-Caobang district.
In an official report drawn up by the Customs Director of the Protectorate in 1895, it is stated that the hilly districts over the frontier are shut to French importations viâ Tonkin.
The region of Langson-Caobang, in spite of the opening of the Railway in 1894, continues to receive all its supplies from the Chinese town of Quang-Si, and indirectly from Canton.
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This same region continues to send the whole of the local production (rice and timber) by the same route and "from an economic point of view, this region may be considered as an annex to the Chinese Empire".
... an unsatisfactory return for the six hundred million francs (£20,400,000) spent on Tonkin since its annexation.
The writer asserts that Longtchen situated at the confluence of the two rivers rising in the Tonkin hills in the Langson-Caobang district, receives all the export trade of this French district, and is the emporium to which the frontier districts look for its supplies.
The railway may effect a change; goods may be forwarded in transit from Longtchen to Hong Kong by the railway instead of as now by the Sikiang river route; but even if the line is pushed on to Nan-Ning and Taiping it is doubtful whether it will be able