498
L.
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"The problem is essentially not one of isolated local improvements. In its broadest aspects it is a single problem, but it may probably be separated into at least two main divisions, one from Tibet to Ichang, the other from Ichang to the sea.
The material alteration of any point between Ichang and the sea is likely to affect advantageously or otherwise the districts above or below it. Therefore one most important essential in dealing with it is unity of control.
That brings me to the position of the Customs. One sometimes hears it said, why do not the Customs make this or that improvement, but the question is based on ignorance of the circumstances.
Actually the Customs have recently been doing a great deal more than they were able to do in earlier years. It is not so long ago since the onus of providing aids to navigation on the Yang-teze fell almost entirely on the harbour masters of the treaty ports. More recently the Coast Inspector's office has been extended to deal with this work and improvements have been and are being effected to the advantage of navigation,
But let it be recognised at once that such improvements are matters of local detail such as the marking of channels. Their function is mainly concerned with keeping navigators informed of what the Yang-tsze is doing not with suggesting what she should be made to do. It has, therefore, little or nothing to do with Conservancy work and indeed it is patent that they have neither the staff nor the funds which Conservancy work would demand.
The difference is an important one and therefore while recognising and appreciating the increasing activities of the Coast Inspector's office we must not look to them for the larger aspects of Conservancy work.
"I would ask you to consider what procedure a concern responsible for the future conservancy of the Yang-tsze should follow. I do not think that at the present stage they should appoint a large Commission to consist of representatives of the Chinese Government, of the Provincial authorities and gentry, of the Customs and of Chambers of Commerce assisted by a body of International experts each of whom might arrive at quite different conclusions.
"I suggest that they should as a first step endeavour to secure the services of an acknowledged world expert on Conservancy matter, the best man they can get. They would tell him that they want a report in a reasonable period of time-say three years and they would leave him a reasonably free hand both as to the appoint- ment of other experts to assist him and a secretarial staff, and also as to the procedure he would adopt.
"It is, therefore, not necessary at the present time to go into detailed sugges- tions as to the staff which will be found necessary, still less to anticipate the method of procedure and to raise the controversial point as to whether a complete survey of the whole Yang-tsze and its hinterland is a necessary first step. If you get the best man available you can safely leave these details to be discussed in consultation with him.
"Of course it would necessitate a definite grant from the Chinese Government, but the cost of such a preliminary investigation would be comparatively small. exceedingly small in comparison with the advantage to be gained,
"The objection that such a world expert might be ignorant of local conditions would I think he quite irrelevant and more than compensated by the fact that he would be unprejudiced by any local considerations. He would of course be likely to have the benefit of the assistance of men with local knowledge on his staff.
י.
We must leave to future consideration the constitution of a Conservancy Board with executive powers and the provision of funds to carry out whatever proposals may finally be made, but I venture to hope that you will agree that our present proposal constitutes an essential preliminary step, the most economical, the most practical that can be devised for initiating at least the possibility of getting something done."
In supporting the motion moved by Mr. Humphrys, Mr. Clennell, His Majesty's consul at Chinkiang, who represented the Chinkiang Chamber, said :-
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The situation of Chinkiang is really so unprecedented and so extraordinary in consequence of the neglect of conservancy work that I feel I am not out of place if I explain to you exactly how matters stand. You will recall that the city of Chinking stands on the southern shore of the Yang-tsze at its junction with the Grand Canal. A little bit above the town there is a rocky hill known as Golden
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Island. I have it on universal testimony that no longer ago than 1842 the British fleet, then engaged in bombarding Chinkiang, anchored between the hill of Golden Island and the southern shore of the river. But now we find that Golden Island is on the southern shore and that all this space in which the fleet was alleged to have anchored in 1842 is now paddy fields or lotus ponds and on it are a flour mill, a match factory, two or three villages and a railway station. In less than eighty years this has taken place. During the last fifteen years or so the change has been more rapid than before. I would point out that about 11 or 12 miles above this port there is a place called Shiherwei. From Shiherwei to a spot about 4 miles above the port there is a cut-off and an island. That channel was a large and big channel in which the greater part of the Yang-tsze flowed and washed past the front of Chinkiang so that no very great deposit of silt took place. That channel began to silt up and the consequence was that the whole force of the current of the river was thrown into the southern channel, and coming to another creek called the Nien Yü Tao Creek has tended to block that also.
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The result was that the creek which comes in front of Chinkiang became insignificant and the main current of the river was thrown on to the northern bank. I have not brought maps and charts with me, but I remember seeing in the harbour master's office in Chinkiang a very interesting map showing the outlines of the river from year to year. Since 1905 something like 5,000 ft. of the northern bank has heen eroded away and a spit of sand 34 miles long and half-a-mile wide has growIL up outside the British Concession of Chinkiang.
The result is that only one of the jetties on the Concession can be used by steamers and that only in the high water season. We find ourselves in this position that during the coming winter instead of drawing our water supply from close to the British Concession we shall have to lay 5,750 ft. of piping right out across the spit into the northern channel of the Yang-tsze instead of a pipe 1.000 ft. long it will have to be nearly 6.000 ft. I mention all this as an interesting illustration of the sort of thing which can happen to a port through the neglect of proper river
conservancy.
I am not an engineering expert and it is not for me to criticise or express my own opinion as to the various proposals that have been brought forward to remedy this state of affairs. Yet, I should like to enumerate some of them. I find there is a very widespread opinion that the necessary work can best be done by training banks and by bringing back the Yang-tsze into a channel something approximating its old channel. Others say you cannot do that that the only remedy is for Chinking to move somewhere else, either lower down past the next headland or else to the northern side of the Yang-tsze where the northern branch of the Grand Canal comes into the river. I find that this matter of the silting of the southern shore of the Yang-tsze at Chinkiang and the erosion of the northern shore, although it looks as if it were a local question, is not universally regarded as such. It is pointed out by some people that if this erosion goes on much further all the dykes which protect the low country to the north of Chinkiang will be eroded away and there is a possibility that the Yang-tsze may go bodily away from her present course and go to the north-east and abandon her present estuary entirely. The idea is that the Yang-tsze would come out not along the present channel, but near the mouth of the River Huai-two degrees to the north of its present latitude and then where would Shanghai be as a port of world-wide importance she would come to an end.
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I wish to give my entire and most cordial support to the remarks made by the proposer of this resolution as to the necessity for unity of control. It happens that I had the I have seen a good deal of working in China of Conservancy Boards. fortune to be at Newchwang for a number of years, and a large part of our activities in Newchwang was in trying to keep the Conservancy alive. We had quite a unique experience of the difficulties which Conservancy Boards encounter in the country, and it taught me several things. It taught me something about the probabilities of a river diverting its course the river with which we were concerned at Newchwang adopted another channel to a very great extent. Some twenty years ago there was a flood, and in order to drain away the flood water the people cut a channel from the Liao River to another, and they took no adequate measures to regulate the flow from the Liao. Now a great deal of the water of the Liao does not pass Newchwang and unless something is done Newchwang will be left high and dry.
"I entirely agree also that the great thing is to have a thorough survey made of the whole problem, and when that is done you must leave the whole thing to your expert."
[5815 c-3]
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