C
C
547
Total.
Tons. 225 410,225
266 395,488 246 328,141
240,496.
Japanese Ships.
Foreign ships.
No.
Tons.
NO.
Tons.
No.
1916. 1917, 1918. 128 1919. 92 (Jan-May)
141
239,700
114
170,525
141
226, 474
125
169,014
186,959
118
141,182
126,590
82 113,906
174
The year 1917 appears to have been a record one
both as regards shipping and value of trade and lust
year showed a falling-off in both respects, due
chiefly to the scarcity of tonlage. At the beginning
of 1919 there was a huge accumulation of Sugar awaiting
shipment at Takow but since February the Yamashita Kisen
Kaisha have put several steamers on the Yokohama-Takow
Tun
The Osaka Shosen Kalsha has also increased the
number of its steamers calling at Takow with the result
that the pre sent year promises to show largely in- creased figures of trade and shipping.
Formosa as a whole exports more then it imports and this is especially the case with Takow which is
pre-eminently the sugar port of the Island. In addition
to the export of this commodity (which with the present soaring prices should reveal huge figures for 1919),
large quantities of Brown Sugar are now imported from
the Dutch East Indies for refining at the Formosan
mills during the slack season. This trade has been made profitable by the high price of sugar in Japan, normally the import duty makes it a doubtful enterprise.
Unlike Hongkong and some other great ports in the
Far East, Takow is not a natural harbour and has only attained its present prosperity by unremitting labour and the expenditure of large sums of money. Lying as it does right in the track of the devastating byphoons of the south China Seas from which it can at best be
only