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PUBLIC
RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
C.O. 882
6 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO
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Ports and give life to our Settlements, while in Tsingtao the Chinese coolie is relegated to a special quarter, a couple of miles inland, and only invades the new German city when work or business calls him there. For German official " thorough- ness" is exhibited at every step in their new possession and having planned a town for Europeans, they have been careful to maintain the Settlement purely European by expropriating the original Chinese inhabitants in a most thorough fashion."
Thus the original villages on the site of the new town have all been pulled down, their ruins being still visible in many places, the owners being paid a liberal money compensation besides having had new ground allotted to them at a distance, in which roads and drains have been built at the Government expense and in which sanitary needs are strictly enforced-much to the disgust, if not to the benefit, of the Chinese; certainly the benefit to European residents is indisputable and one can but regret that similar enlightened measures were not originally adopted in Shanghai and Hong Kong, and still more markedly in the neighbouring port, and should-be sanatorium, of Chefoo, in which cities the interests of landowners and land speculators have been allowed to set aside those of the general public, whose health and comfort have been sadly impaired by being compelled to live amidst a dense Chinese population, brought around them by their own activities. government that, unlike our own municipalities, has no landowning interests to A paternal serve is thus not without its advantages, however much as it is the fashion to decry, if not to despise, German officialism-which appears at its best in Tsingtao-at least if we may judge by outside results to-day. Chinese merchants, however, do not appear to be excluded from the Settlement proper, for there are several Chinese stores and the shop of the noted firm of "Cheap Jack and Sons" is conspicuous on the sea front not far from the landing stage. The leading German firms in Shanghai and the Deutsch-Asiatische Bank have also branches at this port, and are mostly established along the sea front, while a branch line from the new railway has been run along the rear of their premises by which goods can be shipped straight from the godown on board the railway trucks, a privilege that will prove valuable as trade develops: so far the trade is only of a retail character but with the extension of the railway Tsingtao is bound to become the port of supply for the province of Shantung and the main outlet for the productions of the province as well as possibly of Honan beyond-to the detriment of Chefoo, as long as that now flourishing treaty port has no railway connection of its own with the interior districts.
Tsingtao already possesses two good hotels: one, the "Prinz Heinrich," a really first-class establishment: cottages have also been built to let to summer visitors, the bathing from the sandy beach of the Clara Bucht, a small bay to the east of the Settlement, amply supplied with the familiar seaside bathing machines, being ex- cellent and safe. There is a fine public day school for boys, boarders being taken by the masters, while a good education for girls is provided by the sisters of the Roman Catholic convent. A first-rate military hospital has been erected which is open to civilians though the climate is naturally so healthgiving that little need for such an institution exists. There is also a well-frequented Seamen's Home as at Shanghai: it contains, besides the usual reading and billiard rooms, fine lecture hall with a theatre stage and numerous bed-rooms; these latter are let for the night at a charge of 40 cents for petty officers, two in a room, and of 20 cents for seamen who have each a separate cubicle. The barracks for the garrison and the accommodation for the large administrative staff are, it goes without saying, as roomy and convenient as it is possible to make them, and their architectural features are among the chief adornments of the town.
As a harbour Tsingtao has the drawback of being open to easterly winds, and when these prevail in strength, vessels may lie for days without being able to discharge their cargoes, owing to the heavy sea that then rolls into the bay: but this defect is being energetically remedied by the construction of a large inner artificial harbour a short distance higher up the bay and round and behind a pro- jecting rocky point in which vessels will lie alongside wharves and godowns as in a dock at home, and whence the railway will convey their cargoes direct into the interior of the province. A similar harbour on a small scale has already been con- structed under the shelter of this point for junks and cargo-boats. Dredging is being carried on vigorously, a peculiarity of the Kiaochou bay being that, large as is its area, it is being ever choked with sand which the short-lived but heavy summer rains wash down in impetuous torrents from the steep mountains of friable granite which surround it on all sides: to the mighty work of these torrential rains is due the picturesque outlines of the hills, renamed Iltis Gebirge. Printz Heinrich Gebirge
and others which add so greatly to the beauty of the site. Well-made macadam roads now lead
up and over the former range and are being constructed in the direc- tion of the latter. These with the easier graded roads leading into the more level interior form a great attraction to the bicyclist: indeed, the distances even in the town itself are so great that the slow-going ricshas are a tedious means of getting about, and we would advise every visitor to bring his wheel with him.
But of all the many works undertaken by the German administration during the four short years of the occupation, the attempt to reäfforest the barren mountains of Shantung is that likely to prove of the greatest benefit to the Chinese. If only they are capable of profiting by the example set them! Dwarf pines, rarely over three feet in height and spreading laterally from want of shelter, already covered the hills in the less exposed spots; their low growth is due to the Chinese habit of annually docking the tops for fuel it remains to be seen whether the foresting department will succeed in acclimatising a true forest growth on these bare slopes. Of course, when the forest is once there it will in time furnish its own soil, but immense care and toil is required to make the start. So far the old indigenous growth has the best of it, especially now that it is religiously protected from the rapacious fuel collector. We have seen, in other parts of China, promising planta- tions utterly destroyed by that all-pervading pest, the small boy (and small girl too) sent out from home in the morning to collect, by book or by crook, a load of brushwood before evening. It is worth a journey to Tsingtao for a China resident to enjoy the sight of trees-small though they be-growing on the hillside un- molested. The administration is very strict; sign-boards with the word "Schonung surmounted by a black eagle abound, and we were told that only the other day a lady and gentleman were fined ten dollars apiece for inadvertently stepping off the path. The new trees oaks, acacia, horse-chestnut, sterculia, cryptomeria, paulownia and others that we saw, were only a few inches above the soil and so, at present, make no show amidst their ancient Chinese predecessors on the ground, but the start has been made, millions of young trees have been sown and planted and, in a few years' time, the result will be seen, and youngsters yet in Shanghai may live to see another Bournemouth in China where now is nothing but yellow clay intercepted by ravines, the beds of now dry watercourses.
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A marked feature in the great work now proceeding at Tsingtao is the regulat- ing of these watercourses with a view of holding back their water and distributing it more evenly over the ground. With this object a succession of barriers has been carefully built athwart the course of each torrent from its source to the sea, begin- ning with an unsubstantial row of small stones high up near the source and ending with solid dams of masonry,as the streams gain in volume and approach the sea. Behind these, ponds are collected which serve for irrigation, natural and artificial. It is a most interesting experiment and based, as it is, upon experience gained under similar conditions in other parts of the world, should prove successful; in which case it will be an invaluable object lesson to this empire of floods and drought. The occupation of Kiaochou seems to us justified by this work alone, even if it fail to serve the purpose (and there is no reason to expect it will fail) of promoting trade generally and of enriching the impoverished province of Shantung in particular..
Great expectations were founded upon the connection of the Weihien coal- fields with the new port, but so far these have not been realised. The reasons given to the writer were: first, that the German Mining Company find it more profitable to sell their coal locally; second, that the railway has few coal-trucks: time will doubtless correct both these causes of short supply in Tsingtao. As to the quality of the coal we heard various opinions, and ourselves had no opportunity of seeing and judging it. The revenue of the town, drawn from local taxation, reached last year a total of half a million marks, say $307,000, the product of land-sales forming one-third of the amount. The subvention granted by the home government for public works for the year 1903 is about treble this amount.
In taking leave of Tsingtao we must again express our admiration at witnessing the great results achieved in so short a time and the good taste and practical sense displayed in laying out and building up the new city. The architecture of the public buildings is of a high order and agreeably varied; it ranges from antique German to the newest renaissance. The Seamen's Home, to which we alluded above, is^a fine specimen of the former style. A bay is being built out in the sea-wall front, on which is to be erected a monument to the memory of the first Governor, Jaeschke, whose sudden death was an irreparable loss to the young colony. Another reflection that cannot but force itself upon a Treaty Port resident visiting Tsingtao is the