552
General remarks
on Kongmoon. The Kongmoon
by itself.
52
I-Political and General.
The Hsin Hui District, in which Kongmoon is situated, seems to be marked off in many respects from the rest of the province. Its most conspicuous feature is the district cultivation of the fan-palm (Livistona Chinensis), which will not grow elsewhere in this region, though several attempts have been made to acclimatize it. This is attributed by the natives to a subterranean river, running from Tonking, having, in ancient times, impregnated the soil with sea-salt, which is well known to be beneficial, though perhaps not indispensable, in palm culture. That some conditions of this kind may have existed seems to be substantiated by the local tradition that crocodiles were once numerous in the West River delta and were driven back to more tropical latitudes by the building of a pagoda constructed with that object.
Kongmoon City and Treaty port.
Custom-house.
Land purchase.
Foreign firms.
Postal arrangements.
Absence of telegraph line.
Regulations respecting steamers,
Kongmoon City (Chiang Men), from which the newly-opened Treaty port takes its name, has a population of about 100,000, and stands on the south side of a creek flowing into the West River, 4 miles from its mouth. At the mouth of this creek, on the south bank of the West River, is the foreign Settlement, consisting at present of three unfinished houses and numerous mat-sheds, standing on some filled-in ground in the mulberry fields, which extend along the river banks and a considerable distance inland. Most of the foreigners live in boats moored to the banks on the west side of the mouth of the creek.
The custom-house, temporarily located in a hulk anchored opposite the land purchased by the Imperial Maritime Customs, would seem to be situated too near to the mouth of the creek. Launches coming out of the creek, towing one or more heavy passenger boats, which on this river are always about four lengths behind the launch (probably to facilitate navigation in narrow parts of the creeks and rivers), have often to describe a circle in the harbour in order to reach the custom-house, both when coming out of the creek and when approaching from the river.
The harbour is already crowded with shipping of all kinds, especially in the early morning and in the evening, and, as time goes on, and the shipping further increases, the launches will probably find the safe navigation of their tows to the custom-house by no means an easy matter.
Considerable purchases of real property have taken place since the opening of the port. A Macao Syndicate has bought and bunded several hundred yards of the river bank near the creek, and on this, the first row of houses in the foreign Settlement is in course of construction. The Imperial Maritime Customs have purchased a small hill and a piece of ground for the erection of a custom-house. Besides these, the remaining portions of land along the riverside have been taken up by native purchasers, chiefly from Canton. There are only two hills suitable for foreign residences near the river. On these, the British Consulate and the residence of the Commissioner of Customs will probably be erected when the scruples of the native owners as to parting with ancestral property have been overcome.
Two British firms—Messrs. Rafeek and Co. and Edwards and Co.—have started business. They are at present principally engaged in doing a small import trade and supplying to the Chinese the foreign stores, &c., formerly purchased direct from Hong Kong. The remainder of the imports are dealt with on arrival by Chinese agents of foreign firms located in Hong Kong.
As the trade is still in its infancy, as little as possible, regulations have been made locally, and provisionally approved by the Hong Kong Government, under which the steamers deposit their registers at the Consulate and enter and clear only once—that is, enter when they start running on the West River route, and clear when they finally go off therefrom, the interval being regarded as one long journey, instead of as a number of short journeys, each of one day's duration or less. This plan, though not without its advantages, seems to be the only practicable one at present. With this exception, and the deviation of 28 miles to Kongmoon required of the direct Hong Kong–Chow steamers in order that they may report at the custom-house, the shipping of the port is carried on under Treaty and Inland Water Regulations in a manner apparently satisfactory to all concerned.
The number of foreign-built steamers now regularly visiting the port is seventeen. There are also some launches running to Macao and Hong Kong. Nearly all these steamers visit the port twice every other day. The combined Companies—Messrs. Butterfield and Swire, Messrs. Jardine, Matheson, and Co., and the Hong Kong, Canton, and Macao Steamboat Company—own the largest and quickest of these boats.
Opposed to them are several flying French, Italian, and Chinese flags, the latter being in the majority.
Native shipping is represented chiefly by launches flying the Chinese flag having one or more passenger boats in tow. These run to Kumchuk, Kan Kong, Lung Kong, Samshui, Wuchow, Canton, and other places. The number of native cargo and passenger boats under sail or drawn by trackers is exceedingly great, and, as regards numbers of boats and men employed, forms the principal part of the shipping on the river.
II-Commercial.
The one conspicuous feature since the opening of the port has been the enormous passenger traffic by foreign steamers to and from Hong Kong.
For this, the combined companies above-named compete with the Chinese and other companies, and, by reason of their large capital, will probably in time absorb the whole trade. The San Ui (Hsin Hui) District has long been the starting-place for migrants to Australia and America. In Kongmoon, it is a common experience to be addressed in excellent English or American as one walks along the streets. The bulk of the passengers carried daily by the foreign steamers are, however, bound for Hong Kong only on a visit, or are proceeding, via Hong Kong, to other places in China. They strike one as being exceptionally clean and orderly. The passenger trade will undoubtedly be, at least for some time to come, the mainstay of the newly-opened Treaty port.
The import trade has made some progress, but is still hampered by the surreptitious levy of li-kin, which the natives pay because they have apparently always done so, and in ignorance of the change of status the place assumed on the 7th March. I have succeeded in stopping this in some cases which have been brought to my notice, and hear that the levy may soon cease entirely by order of the Canton Viceroy. The principal imports are rice (the quantity produced locally representing only one-third of the amount required), beans, tiles (from villages around Canton), cotton goods, kerosene, matches, flour, and sundries.
Postal matters are in the hands of the Chinese Imperial Post Office. On my arrival, I found that mail matter sent by foreigners living in the Settlement was sent first to Kongmoon City (where there was a branch office of the Imperial Chinese Post Office in Canton), and then forwarded by one of the passenger launches to Canton, where it was put on board one of the river steamers for Hong Kong. This meant that a letter for Hong Kong posted after 2 o'clock took three days to reach Hong Kong, the time required by direct steamer being from ten to twelve hours. A branch post-office has, however, now been opened at the Settlement, and mail matter is put on board the Hong Kong steamers, which leave about 6 P.M. every evening except Sundays.
There is no telegraph line in the district.
The steamers from Hong Kong reach Kongmoon mostly about 6 A.M., and leave in from ten to thirty minutes (unless they have cargo to discharge) for up-river ports. They return about the same hour in the evening, and clear for Hong Kong. By Treaty, these steamers should enter and clear at the Consulate twice a day, and pay an extra fee for doing so before and after office hours. But, in order to hamper the trade as little as possible...
The cultivation of the fan-palm causes palm-leaf fans to be the principal article of export. Several millions of these are produced annually, and some hundreds of Chinese firms and thousands of workmen are engaged in collecting, manufacturing, binding, and colouring them. The fans vary greatly in size and quality. The largest, which are taken from trees thirty to forty years old, are 5 feet long and 3 feet broad. The best quality of fan is called "glass fan," from its delicate texture and transparency. The trade centres in the city of San Ui (Hsin Hui) (population 250,000), also famous for its superior oranges.
Other exports from this district are raw silk, which is mostly sent to Canton to be manufactured, grass-linen (said to derive its peculiarly glossy whiteness from being bleached with the spring water found in the meadows to the east of San Ui), lichees, bean-oil, lung-ans, and tobacco leaves.
An idea seems to be prevalent that had Kongmoon been opened to foreign trade some years earlier, the Samshui trade would have been transferred to this port, and some think that this may in time follow as one of the results of the opening of Kongmoon. To have had the portion of the trade of the Upper West and North Rivers which centres at Samshui in addition to its own would doubtless have been...