551
Samuel & Co, the only British firm in Formosa doing general import business of the possibility of the Goverment requiring electric cranes for Takow so that forthcoming orders may not be relinquished to Germany or America without a struggle. I would also venture to suggest that H.M. Commercial Secretary might perhaps mention the matter to British engineering firms in Japan. Nor is this the only matter that
merits the attention of these firms. The semi-
official Formosan Hydro-Electric Company with its huge capital of Y en 60,000,000 will require very large and costly supplies of electrical machinery
and I propose in due course to address to you a
separate despatch dealing with an incident which has
already arisen in this connection.
I have already mentioned the breakwater which
is being built out to the south of the harbour
entrance. To have built such a break-water on the
the ordinary plan in a zone so subject to typhoons
and on the shifting sandy bottom which exists off
Takow, would have been an exceedingly expensive matter and, as already explained, finance is an important con- sideration with the e gineers. Mr. Yamagata, therefore, evolved an idea which, he assures me, is original.
His plan is to build a breakwater of separate concrete
caissons, each of which is 80 feet long by 40 feet
broad by 50 feet deep and weighs 8,000 tons. These caissons will be sunk in the sand of the sea bed and, being without fixed foundations, will sway with the
force of the sea. I gather, however, that it is
calculated that the dead weight of 8,000 tons will
be