CO882-6 — Page 220

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

TTIC.O. 882

لنسائي

6 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC.

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resulted in a saving of $2,500 a year, it seems impossible to carry out the arrangement now, as the Royal Engineers, who would have taken over charge of the lights, are now under orders to leave Wei-hai-wei.

No lighthouse charges are made by the British Government on steamers or junks, and the Chinese customs collect no special light dues, the lighthouses in China being maintained out of the general customs revenue.

47. The mail subsidy of $800 a month paid to the Japanese steamer running between Wei-hai-wei and Chefoo is likely to be a permanent charge, as there is not a sufficient amount of passengers and cargo traffic to pay a company to run a boat between the Settlement and Chefoo. It is hoped that a better boat than the present one may be subsidized in 1902 to carry out this run. As a matter of fact, mail subsidy aside, it would be almost necessary to establish some steam service between Wei- hai-wei and Chefoo, to keep up constant communication with Shanghai and the other China Treaty Ports, because it is only during the summer months that the steamers of the Indo-China, Jardine, and Butterfield and Swires lines call in at Wei-hai-wei with any regularity.

48. After the authorized roads are completed and the present authorized public works are finished there will be no other public works to carry out here. The roads will not cost more than two thousand dollars for upkeep, as the Chinese are too poor to use carts on them; and only surface, dressing after rain, snow, and sandstorms

is necessary.

49. For future calculations, say for 1904-1905, and onwards, the revenue and expenditure may therefore be safely estimated to be approximately as follows:--

Approximate expenditure:--

Civil Establishments

Local Police Force (if established)

Works and roads, upkeep and repair

Lighting harbour and mail service

Approximate revenue:-

Total (say £8,500)...

Land taxes, licences, customs, and fees of court Parliamentary grant-in-aid

Total (say £8,500).

$50,000*

10,000

10,000

15,000

$85,000

$15,000

70,000

+

$85,000

Possibility of Increase of Revenue in future.

50. It may be well here to add a few remarks on the question of any possible increase of revenue in the future.

As far as can be gathered from very careful enquiry, there appears to be no such possibility, and His Majesty's Government must face the fact that this distant dependency is always likely to be a financial burden-though a small one-on the Imperial Funds. From the inhabitants of the leased territory it is impossible to raise any more revenue without being unduy harsh, and at the certain cost of creating serious discontent and disturbances.

If the 120,000 inhabitants of the leased territory, now contented, law-abiding and well disposed to the British, are made discontented, lawless, and hostile by in- creased taxation, it would become necessary, sooner or later, to create a large police force to prevent and suppress disturbances. Apart, therefore, from any question of the inexpediency or unfairness of taxing these Chinese higher than the Chinese Government did before the Convention, it is clear that any such attempt would defeat its own ends.

Naturally a large increased expenditure on a Civil Police Force would absorb any increased revenue that might be anticipated from new taxes.

The internal trade of the Settlement consists merely in the exchange of agricul tural goods for household necessities, such as oil, matches, cotton, cloth pieces, utensils, &c. There are no local industries established here and none of the Chinese have any capital to establish such. There are, moreover, no attractions here to induce Chinese from other places to come here and settle and introduce local industries.

• This could be still further reduced later to about $40,000, but if the Military forces are withdrawn, it will not be possible.

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Chefoo offers better advantages for carrying on local industries than Wei-hai-wei, and has the advantage of being an old established and flourishing port.

There were formerly small bean-oil factories here, but they closed years ago, as there was not sufficient capital here to make it pay, and because the local supply of beans failed so often. A few silkworms are reared here in one or two villages, but the cocoons are all collected by the Chefoo agents for the filatures there. The straw braid industry cannot be started here, because the soil is so poor that the Kao Liang stalks do not grow a sufficient length for good plaiting. Fruit growing has been tried and failed, owing to the extreme sandiness of the soil. As regards the external trade

of the Colony, it consists chiefly of foodstuffs and sundries, and is entirely in the hands of native junks.

Foreign steamers very rarely find any export cargoes here, and never bring any imports except those for the use of the fleet, the War Office and the Europeans settled here. The Chinese junks import about 60,000 piculs of maize (value approximately $250,000) and export salt fish (to the value of about $60,000) to South China yearly.

There are two British merchants in the island but the business is almost entirely a commission and banking one, and they export nothing. There is no European merchant on the mainland. The country for a hundred miles odd round the Wei- hai-wei Settlement is, perhaps, almost the poorest in the whole of China, and it is in vain to look for the rise of any trade or business likely to lead to an export trade. As the country has no commercial or agricultural resources, and as the people are so abjectly poor that it is impossible to increase taxation, it is difficult to see how the revenue is to be increased. On the contrary, the small local revenue now raised is likely to decrease a little if the Chinese Regiment is disbanded and the other military forces withdrawn.

From mining there appears to be little prospect of satisfactory results, and no one has even yet ventured to prospect and bore the country scientifically.

The fact that Wei-hai-wei is a free port does not help it. It is also fairly certain that if Wei-hai-wei were to begin to draw any of the trade of Chefoo away, the Chinese Government would surround the Settlement with customs barriers to check its growth. All comparisons of the prospects of Wei-hai-wei with the free port of Hong- Kong are much beside the mark

Hong-Kong is a barren rock like Wei-hai-wei, but behind Hong Kong is the richest province in China, whose trade and people make Hong-Kong their shipping port, and general trading mart for doing business with the rest of China.

Hong Kong, too, is of course the great coaling station of all the mails and steamers that ply between cast and west, and the third largest port for shipping in the world. To Hong-Kong free trade is, therefore, of some importance.

But nothing is ever likely to be produced locally for export from the Wei-hai-wei districts, and if anything were produced, it is probable that the Germans in the south would divert it to Kiao Chao by their railway, or that the Chinese in the north would attract it to Chefoo. Railway schemes from Wei-hai-wei inland are forbidden by international assurances given by Great Britain to Germany. If Germany should ever withdraw her objections to such railways being made, it might be possible, with the assistance and goodwill of the Chinese Government, to make Wei-hai-wei a chapel of ease and port of export, so to speak, for part of the trade of Tientsin. The bar at Taku outside Tientsin is becoming shallower every year, and the difficulties of loading and discharging cargo there is increasing.

In the winter, too, the whole of the trade is suspended, owing to the freezing of the river, and the closing of the port.

At the same time Tientsin is rapidly becoming the distributing centre of the trade from the north and north-west of China and the bulk of the trade now centreing there for distribution by sea to other parts of China and to foreign countries is increasing yearly. The congestion of goods, however, in Tientsin is verv great, and a railway to another port free from ice would relieve this, enable the Chinese and foreigners to carry on their business through the winter as well, and open up the country through which the railway passed on its way to Wei-hai-wei.

Wei-hai-wei possesses the finest harbour in the north of China, and if it should become necessary for China to find egress to the sea by rail for the trade of Tientsin, Wei-hai-wei is the port that offers the best natural advantages.

In 1898-1899 (see China Blue-book, No. 1, 1900, pages 175 and 190), a concessic:1 was obtained from the Chinese by an Anglo-German Syndicate to construct a railway

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