832
10
11
550
561
Chief
articles of
commerce.
Estimated Lotal trade.
imports living animals have largely increased, while there is a growing trade in fruits, paints, and provisions. In the import trade of the future, timber promises to hold an important place.
Thus, taking all the trade in the direction of the Chinese frontier, we find that the leading exports are raw cotton, cotton twist and yarn, cotton piece goods, provisions, salt, silk stuffs, woollen goods, jade, metals, and other merchandise consisting mainly of manufactured goods. Raw cotton and cotton goods, and in a less degree woollen goods, are among the chief wants of the Chinese. There is an apparently increasing demand in Yunnan for articles of pedlary, such as fans, glass tumblers, lamps, candles, aud curios. These, together with aniline dyes, are mainly supplied from Germany, though France is also in the field with objets de Paris. With regard to imports from Yunnan, raw silk, orpiment, provisions, living animals, hides and horns, fibrous products, rice, tea, fruits, gold-leaf, and timber, together with miscellaneous unmanufactured goods, constitute the bulk of the trade. But the values of imports and exports alike show great fluctuations.
If we take the total direct trade with China at Rx. 375,000, and assume that indirect trade through the Shan States and by less important routes, together with the trade that escapes registration, amounts to one-third of this sum, we get a total import and export trade with Western China of Rx. 500,000, possibly an under estimate. The trade in silk, which comes partly from Ssuchuan through Yunnan, seems capable of expansion, as silk clothes are universally worn in Burma. There is said to be little prospect of growth in the imports of tea, though there will probably be a larger trade in ponies, mules, asses, goats, sheep, pigs, and poultry, and perhaps in cattle and buffaloes. It can hardly be doubted that the present trade is capable of considerable increase in staple articles, although, as the Chinese customers are for the most part poor, their mode of life primitive, their wants few, and their dealings chiefly by barter, trade must for a long time be of small extent and progress must be slow. Apart from railways, much might be done to improve the existing difficult means of communication, and so facilitate exchanges. Improvements of the roads in the Bhamo district and the bridging of the Taping river have produced excellent results by enabling caravans to make more frequent trips. Again, as the Chinese traders make enormous profits on the sale of European goods, a better commercial organisation might do much to extend the market.
It has been suggested by Messrs. Colquhoun and Hallett that this frontier trade, now comparatively insignificant, can be indefinitely expanded by the construction of a Burma-China railway. Mr. Holt Hallett has said that Western China is a field where manufacturers will find markets beyond even their utmost powers to overstock, and that railways will ensure customers for any amount of cotton manufactures. And again, he affirms that if the French anticipate the English in making a railway, the "largest and richest undeveloped market in the world" will pass to them. In the face of such assertions, which have been widely accepted in this country, it appears desirable to investigate somewhat fully the existing resources of Western China, the possibilities of their exploitation, and the prospects of constructing and working railways successfully on a commercial basis.
As Yunnan is the only Chinese province conterminous with Burma, it will be dealt with more minutely than Kucichou and Ssuchuan, the other two provinces of Western China. What little there is to say of Kueichou, which lies east of Yuunan, may be said in connection with the latter province. Ssuchuan, though far more important in itself than the other two provinces, is more remote from Burma, and will be most conveniently studied in connexion with the Yangtze routes to Yunnan.
II. YUNNAN. ITS RESOURCES, TRADE, AND TRADE ROUTES.
(1.) Area, Physical Features, and Population.
The mountain barriers that separate Western China from other parts of Yunnan, the Empire have given its provinces a special character, which has largely determined their commercial as well as their political relations. This remark especially applies to Yunnan, the comparative inaccessibility of which has rendered it more or less independent of India on the one hand and of China on the other. The sway of China over Yunnan has always been somewhat precarious, and has been frequently challenged in fierce rebellions. As a consequence the people have enjoyed a considerable measure of freedom. Richthofen says that the attention of foreigners has been attracted to Yunnan largely owing to its trade routes connecting distant and important countries, and to the rumoured existence of quantities of gold and precious stones.
The area of Yunnan is estimated at 100,000 square miles, but it is Area. impossible to assign an exact area to the province, as its frontiers on the north-west and west are ill-defined.
way
Yunuan forms the lower terrace of the huge Tibetan plateau, and it has Physical been described as an uneven tableland, or as an inclined plane trending from features. north-west to south-east, with a mean altitude of 6,000 to 7,000 feet. From this extensive plateau arise lofty mountain chains that separate from one another the plains in which lie the chief towns of the province. The plateau, nowhere really level, is intersected by deep defiles or cañons eroded by the great rivers which either rise in Yunnan, or traverse it on their to the ocean, the Taping, Shweli, Salween, Mekong, Black River, Red River (Songkoi), West River (Sikiang), and Yangtze (Chinshakiang). These rivers are often impassable, and always difficult and dangerous owing to their precipitous gorges, and the poisonous air they harbour. None of them are navigable in Yunnan itself, because of their rapids and the rocks that bestrew their beds, but they become navigable beyond its borders. All travellers agree as to the broken and tortuous configuration of the country and the difficulties of traversing it. The south-east and south- west corners of the province are almost unexplored. In the north, the south, and the west, the country breaks away steeply to the Yangtze, the Mekong, and the Irrawaddy basins respectively, and more gently to the Red River in the south-east and the West River in the east. In the west the succession of lofty mountains with narrow intervening plaius constitutes the formidable barrier which English commerce has to penetrate.
The population of Yunnan has been largely reduced by fever and plague, Population. and especially by the Mohammedan rebellion which raged from 1856 to 1873 and caused a great destruction of people and property. Before the rebellion the population is said to have been 15,000,000. The official estimate of the population is 12,000,000, while one non-official estimate places it at only 1,000,000. Some writers affirm that the province has been recovering rapidly from the results of the rebellion, and that natural growth of population, combined with immigration from the provinces of Ssuchuan and Kwangsi, has largely restored the numbers of the people. But Mr. Bourne, in his recent report, says that recovery from the effects of the rebellion has been very slow, and that, excepting Yunuan-Fu, the towns on his route looked no better than they did ten years before. It is also said that though great inducements have been held out to immigrants, the people of other provinces dread Yunnan on account of the bad repute of the authorities, the supposed ferocity of the aboriginal tribes, and the alleged unhealthiness of the climate. Most of the people are found in the river valleys. The towns are not usually very populous, but they have large suburbs, and the plains containing towns generally contain also numerous villages, the people of which resort to the town fairs. Amid the conflicting assertions it is difficult to arrive at a conclusion as to the population of Yunnan. But, if one bears in mind the large area of thinly peopled mountainous country and the effects of rebellion and plague, it is impossible to adopt a high estimate of the population. Mr. Hosie and Mr. Turner give 5,000,000 to 6,000,000 and M. Bronier 8,000,000, and it would not be safe