30
and the balance includes hides (188,0001), native marine products (182,000), silk piece goods (71,000), pepper (66,0001.), and a variety of comparatively unimportant products such as woods other than teak, sticklac, raw silk, cotton, live bullocks, &c., &c.
Owing to the position of Singapore and Hong Kong, it is virtually impossible to trace the ultimate destination of the shipments of Siamese products. It is noteworthy, however, that while the direct imports from the United Kingdom into Siam amount to 20 per cent. of the total, the former country only takes 5 per cent. of the direct exports of produce, and is surpassed in this connection by both Holland and Germany.
Rice. The bulk of the great rice shipments from Bangkok is consigned to Singapore (38-7 per cent.) and Hong Kong (34 8 per cent.), and this trade is entirely in the hands of Chinese. The balance of the rice crop is handled almost entirely by British firms, with the exception of one Gerinan rice-milling concern trading under the name of A. Markwald & Co.
The best Siamese white rice is sent to Singapore, whence it is distributed through the Malay Archipelago and the countries adjacent thereto. It commands a better price than the produce of French Indo-China and of Burma on account of a local reputation which it has acquired. The ordinary Siam White rice is mainly shipped to China, and in years of scarcity to Japan. Cargo rice, that is rice which has been roughly husked but not properly milled, is shipped mainly to Europe, Germany and Great Britain taking the greater portion,
The total exports of rice from the country in 1913-14 reached the large total of 1,174,000 tons. This export shows a great advance on previous years, but there is little doubt that with the extension of State irrigation works, cadastral surveys, land registration, and a vastly improved land revenue administration, a large increase in the area under cultivation will be brought about. The rice lands of Siam are no less fertile than those of Burma, and the Siamese is as intelligent a cultivator as his Burmese neighbour. With netive and scientific State encouragement, it would appear to be mainly a question of time for Siam to take its place alongside of Burma, which is, at present, the first rice-exporting country in the Far East.
The Arracan Company, Ltd., of London and Burma, head the list as the largest shippers of rice from Siam, the trade being conducted by chartered steamers. Messrs. Steel Bros. & Co., Ltd., of London and Burma are also established at Bangkok and make large shipments to Europe direct.
Teak.--Bangkok had exported a certain quantity of teak for many years, but it was not until the closing of the teak forests of Upper Burma in 1885 that the Siamese trade assumed important dimensions. Up to that time the traffic had been chiefly in the hands of Chinese merchants, and the timber sent out by them was so unreliable in quality that Siamese teak was little in demand. The investment of European capital in the industry, and the consequent employment of trained European foresters, together with the inauguration of a Government Forest Department, soon had the effect of increasing and regulating the output, and at the same time of improving the quality, so that Siamese teak is equal to the best produced elsewhere. The quantity yearly available for export fluctuates, as the supply floated out from the forests and rafted down to Bangkok on the annual floods depends largely upon the quantity of the rainfall in the interior.
India is by far the most important consumer of Siamese teak. The shipments to the principal destinations in 1913-14 were as follows:-
Hong Kong
£
111,518 squares, scantlings.
India
The United Kingdom
88,092 squares, planks, scantlings.
46,578 squares.
28,462
1+
22,669 21,855 21,834
17
Cevlon
China
France
Italy
>>
}
planks.
The teak export trade is very largely in British bands, the principal houses being the Borneo Company, Ltd., the Bombay-Burma Trading Corporation, Ltd., the Siam Forest Company, Ltd., and Messrs. Denny, Mott and Dickson, Ltd. The first three companies work important forest concessions in the interior and operate their own sawmills at Bangkok. The last-mentioned firm confines itself to sawing, preparing, converting, and exporting the timber, and for this purpose operates an extensive
31
modern plant in Bangkok. The principal European competition is experienced from the Danish East Asiatic Company, who hold concessions from the Government over some of the finest forests in Siam, and operate a large sawmill at Bangkok. This enterprising firm, whose head office is in Copenhagen, is active throughout the Far East as exporters of produce. They were the first company to carry Siamese teak to Europe by steamer, and operate their own vessels, five in number, which have been built specially for the teak trade, and maintain a regular monthly service from Copenhagen, Middlesburgh, and Antwerp to Bangkok, and from Bangkok to London and Copenhagen. The firm conducts an important import business in building materials, especially cement, of which 30,000 to 40,000 casks are imported annually. They have also developed the trade of the east and west coasts of the Gulf of Siam by means of a line of coasting steamers, and have enlarged their interests on the Malay eoast by starting forest works at Bandon and erecting a modern sawmill there.
The remaining products exported from Siam are not of great value, and the trade is largely in the hands of the Chinese.
Overland Trade.-The overland trade of Siam is small and remains practically stationary. It is carried on with Burma on the east and with the British Shan States, French territory and China on the north. The total volume amounts to approximately 400,000 to 500,000l. per annum, of which amount teak, floated down the Salwin from Northern Siam to Moulmein in Burma, contributes about one quarter. Siam exports teak, viâ Moulmein, to the extent of about 20,000 tons a year, or nearly one-fourth part of the total annual export of this product. The other exports are cattle, silk goods, and treasure.
The imports overland are almost entirely European goods brought from Burmna for sale in Northern Siam. Most of this import trade is in the hands of regular merchants having houses at Chienginai, but a steady business is done by Shan and Burmese pedlars, who carry packs containing cotton textiles and sundry articles, perambulate the country, and replenish their stocks periodically at Moulmein or Rangoon. It is probable that with the penetration of the railway to the chief towns of Northern Siam the overland trade with Burma and China will at last disappear, for though teak will still be exported to Moulmein, the wants of the people of the interior, so far as European goods are concerned, will then be much more cheaply supplied from Bangkok. The railway line is open to traffic as far as Bun Pin, and it is hoped that the remaining 124 miles to Chiengmai will be completed within another
two years.
Dependence on Singapore. Inasmuch as Siam lies away from the direct route from Singapore to China and Japan, a very large proportion of both imports and exports are transhipped at Singapore, and are conveyed by the regular services of steamers maintained by the Norddeutscher Lloyd and other companies, which ply between the two ports. Siam is, in fact, the most important commercial dependency of Singapore. The close trade relations existing between Bangkok and the Colony are cemented by the fact that the foreign trade of Siam is very largely in the hands of Chinese merchants, most of whom are offshoots of Straits Chinese firms, and a large proportion are British subjects.
The Chinese Trader.-In Siam, as elsewhere in the Far East, the thrifty and enterprising Chinese trader practically controls the wholesale trade, both foreign and domestic, of the country. The number of Chinese in the kingdom is estimated at 400,000 out of a total estimated population of between six and seven millions. The Chinese number approximately one quarter of the inhabitants of Bangkok, but this proportion diminishes rapidly as the distance from the capital increases and, except where the tin mining and rice milling industries have caused the formation of separate colonies, as at Puket and Potriu, is an almost negligible quantity in most of the rural districts. There is, however, a strong infusion of Chinese blood in the Siamese themselves, more especially among the townspeople and the upper classes. Chinese marry freely with the women of the country, and after three or four genera- tions their descendants cannot be distinguished in outward appearance from the pure Siamese. The Siamese, like the Malays, are a thriftless people, and the energetic and frugal Chinese have been able gradually to nonopolise the trade and industries of the country, and to amass considerable wealth.
The
The rice trade is mainly in Chinese hands, and with the exception of two or three British, and one German mill, they own the whole of the modern rice-milling plants in Bangkok. They are also largely interested in the teak sawmills. The Chinese are the middlemen between the European merchant and the native. They
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