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completed. These additions are being made by hard-headed business men who are not likely to invest their capital without counting the cost; but I shall speak of this later when I deal with Tairen.
An English merchant at Newchwang bitterly complained to me that on indenting for cotton goods on samples sent out from England he was informed in reply that the goods could not be supplied for a year or more, and then only at prices higher than quoted with the samples. I am forwarding with this Report samples of Japanese sheetings, which are finding great favour in Manchuria, owing, it is alleged, to the readiness with which they take the dye as compared with British or American manufactured goods, and I may mention here that I have good authority for stating that Japanese merchants, in order to capture the Manchurian market, not infrequently mix their own inferior cottons with English goods at, if not under, cost price.
Japanese Railway to Tairen.
I left Newchwang for Tairen at 8:40 p.m. of the 27th September, and arrived at 11:30 A.M. the following day; but, after accomplishing the 13 miles between Newchwang and Ta Shih Ch'iao on the main line, I had to wait at the latter from 9:25 P.M. till 1:46 A.M., when I caught the down, or, as it is called by the Japanese, the up train from Mukden. It is a somewhat weird experience to enter a railway carriage in the middle of the night and find nearly all the seats fully occupied with recumbent figures closely wrapped in white cotton blankets, which are such an eyesore to the British manufacturer of woollen goods. In each 2nd class carriage there was one, and in each 3rd class carriage two, Japanese railway guards fully armed, marked by wooden labels with the characters for "escort's seat," but the men stood to attention the whole time. They were relieved at various stations. A third rail was being laid down in places to the standard gauge, and here and there the track was being widened for the double line to be constructed between Tairen and Mukden.
Tairen (Dalny).
An excellent view of Tairen and of Ta-lien Bay, along whose southern shore it is built, is obtained from the hills which run east and west behind the town. I had previously visited it as Dalny when in Russian hands, the administration quarter of the town, on high ground on the north-west side, was still uncompleted, and the harbour works were in course of construction. The administration quarter, which was built on a lavish scale, still remains the best part of the town, for, although a considerable part of the area laid down in the Russian plan has been and is being built over, the houses are inferior, many of them mere lath and plaster hidden by cemented exteriors. The passenger station is situated near the administration quarter, but the railway opening out into numerous sidings is continued through a cutting, over which a rather pretentious brick-cemented bridge is almost completed, to the docks and wharves. The population was given to me by a Japanese friend, formerly Consul-General at Shanghai, who did much to satisfy my inquisitiveness, as 30,000, of which 20,000 and 10,000 were Japanese and Chinese respectively; but Mr. Parlett, His Britannic Majesty's Vice-Consul, discounts the total by about 5,000. Streets on the Asiatic side of Russia are notoriously bad, and, although those in the administration quarter may be described as fairly good, Japan has had neither the time nor the money to put this part of her house in order. Tairen is still too evidently in a state of transition, and it will be some time before the town can be made presentable to a European eye. With the exception of four small Chinese hand-worked bean mills, there are as yet no industrial undertakings in Tairen; but a large bean mill jointly Japanese (Mitsui Bussan Kaisha) and Chinese (from Newchwang) with foreign machinery is in course of construction. That the Chinese are from Newchwang, and bean-mill owners there is a significant fact. The foreigners resident in Tairen are fourteen all told. There are two British firms, one which has laid claim to be British, but has failed to satisfy the proper authorities in Tairen and elsewhere in Manchuria of its genuineness, and a German; but they do little business, and are more steamer agents than merchants. The town is full of small Japanese and Chinese retail shops, but genuine wholesale Japanese traders number less than a dozen. Regulations of the Kwantung Government now in force do not tend to encourage foreigners: they fail to provide for fixity of tenure, without which firms are unlikely to start business, and, although the authorities profess that there need be no fear of ejectment, they decline to put it in writing. Nor is any encouragement held out to the Chinese to take part in the development of the port, for the Japanese authorities, without any warning, may and do demolish Chinese houses on the ground that they are insanitary. Under such conditions Chinese traders are scarcely likely to take up their residence there. My Japanese friend informed me that Japanese banks and traders are treated in exactly the same way, and an endeavour is being made to have the Regulations revised and amended.
On the day of my arrival in Tairen there were four steamers outside the breakwater and one large British steamer—the "Indravelli," of Liverpool—two smaller Japanese steamers, and a number of small craft and tow boats alongside the wharves. The quay is lined with corrugated-iron godowns surrounded by railway sidings, and a double track on which laden trucks were standing occupied the quay itself. In a word, there is every possible railway facility for the shipping and discharging of cargo from and to the interior of Manchuria. But, as in Newchwang, times were dull; the godowns were far from full; and the extent of the trade since the opening of the custom-house on the 1st July may be gauged by the amount of revenue collected. In July it was 14,000 Haikwan taels, in August 7,000, and the September collection up to date was poor; but, as I have already stated, Tairen is in a state of transition, and it is yet too early to judge of its effect on the trade of Manchuria. It has the natural advantage of being open to steamer traffic all the year round, while Newchwang is closed by ice for four months. It has the railway facilities for handling cargo not possessed by Newchwang, for at the latter port cargo has to cross or ascend the river to be forwarded by the Chinese or Japanese lines, and transit costs money; and although railway freight to stations south of Mukden is heavier by the Japanese lines from Tairen than from Newchwang, the cost of transit mentioned above must go far to discount the difference, while the equality of freight to places north of Mukden, where the great producing and distributing centres are situated, is strongly in favour of Tairen. It is true that the Imperial Railways of North China are competing successfully with the Japanese line from Newchwang to Mukden; and had the British Concession on the north bank of the Liao been acquired, steamers could have loaded and landed their cargoes from and into godowns close to the Chinese railway which desired the right of way into the proposed Concession when the negotiations were being carried on in 1899.
The Japanese are continuing the work of afforesting the hills south of the town which was begun by the Russians, and on the lower slopes the pines have attained a height of over 6 feet. There are extensive nurseries full of pine saplings raised from Japanese seed which were being carefully tended by Chinese under Japanese superintendence, and there is an experimental farm in which dry rice was being treated in separate plots with different chemical manures, the other cereals being the millets known as Holcus sorghum and Setaria italica so common throughout Manchuria. Of fibre plants, hemp (Cannabis sativa), abutilon hemp (Abutilon Avicennæ), and cotton from American seed were all being tried, and the Japanese Superintendent informed me that the cotton was showing signs of being an excellent crop. The sugar beet was also a success. Several varieties of cabbages, turnips, taros, and melons were also the subject of experiment; the brinjal or egg-plant gave poor results, and a Japanese capsicum splendid results; peppermint showed a fine bushy growth; and there was a plot of young mulberries which in Japan are manured with macerated bean-cake. A tuber from Japan called "Gobo," which is unknown to China, was also being cultivated. Flowers of many kinds and varieties were being tried; but the soil of the Kwantung territory is undoubtedly the poorest, as it is the stoniest, part of the Liaotung Peninsula and of Manchuria generally.
The accompanying plan of the town and harbour was issued by the Civil Administration Office of Tairen during the present year.*
Tairen to Chemulpo.
Tairen is an expensive place, as indeed is the whole of Manchuria at the present time, and it may be a slight exaggeration to say that a house proprietor is able to recoup his initial outlay by a couple of years' rental. My room with board at a Japanese hotel cost 10 dollars a-day, and as I found that I would have to wait about a week for a steamer to Antung, I resolved to take the first ship to Chemulpo and proceed by rail to Seoul, Ping-yang, and Hsin Yi Chou on the left bank of the Yalu River, 14 miles below the City of Antung, which lies on the right bank and in Manchuria.
* Not reproduced.
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