CO882-6 — Page 228

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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Appendix II.

COLONY OF WEI-HAI-WEI.

Statement showing Revenue and Expenditure for the year 1901-02.

Licences, &c.

Revenue.

Fees of Court, &c. ...

Municipality Liu-kung-Tao

Total

Establishments, &c.

Miscellaneous

Mail service

$14,921 205

6,062

⚫ $21,188

Expenditure.

Works

Lighting harbour

Municipality Liu-kung-Tao

Total

Appendix III.

$39,023 480

4,576

80,554

14,285

7,644

$126,862

THE GERMAN RAILWAY SYSTEM IN SHANTUNG IN CONNECTION WITH WEI-HAI-WEL A General Note on the German Railway Policy in Shantung, and its bearings upon the question of developing Wei-hai-wei by means of an Inland Railway. To understand German railway policy in Shantung, it is necessary to know the nature of the country which the German railways are intended to develope.

A few words or explanation, therefore, as to the general condition of trade, agriculture and mining in this province are necessary.

The province of Shantung contains about 35,000 square miles. The population is roughly 30,000,000—it is one of the most thickly populated provinces in China, and the density of population is greatest in the west.

It is ruled by a Governor, assisted by three Tao Tais, ten Prefects, nine Sub- Prefects and ninety-six District Magistrates.

The provincial capital is Chinan, and it is here and in the Western Prefectures that the wealth of the country chiefly lies. Chefoo and Wei-hai-wei lie in the Ting Chou Prefecture, and Kiao Chou lies in Lai Chou. The population is densest in the Chi Nan, Tai An, and Yen Chou I'refectures in the west of the province, where the country is covered with rich alluvial plains that produce most of the better class of Shantung silks, tobacco, rice and other cereals. This is the wealthy part of the province, and a great deal of the trade now goes north to Chili and south to Chin Kiang along the Grand Canal. One of the chief aims of the German Shantung railway system is to divert some of this valuable trade to Kiao Chon. In the cast of Shantung, the only two products available for foreign export in any quantities are beans (with its derivatives, bean cake, bean oil, vermicelli, &c.) and straw braid.

From Teng Chou Fu a certain amount of fruit (chiefly pears, apples, apricots, persimmons, walnuts and dates), are exported via Chefoo. The fruit is mostly woolly an tasteless, but the grapes planted round Chefoo by foreigners have always been the best procurable in China.

The eastern part of Shantung is too cold for rice planting. Millet is the common food staple. For European cotton goods there is always a steady demand, but the people in the east are very poor and prefer wadded clothing, skins and furs to all woollen goods. Shantung silk is the largest foreign export. There is a large foreign demand for this strong silk for covering umbrellas and making covers and linings to clothing, &c. The greater part of it comes from the west and centre of the province,

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and is exported via Chefoo. It is centred in the Lai Chou Fu Prefecture, and the town of Sha Ho is the centre of the industry. The braided straw is all sent to Chefoo for export. There is no straw braid trade east of Chefoo in the districts round Wei- hai-wei, and the soil here is too poor to produce the length of stalk required.

The native Chinese imports into Shantung are chiefly cotton and paper, sugar, rice and pepper. In the eastern part of the province there is a large importation of grain from Manchuria, as the local crops cannot feed the population there. The inland communications in Shantung are very bad, and it is certain that the German railways will improve transport and increase trade, In the first place, there are no navigable rivers east of the Grand Canal flowing into the Yellow Sea and Gulf of Pechili, of any use to commerce. There is practically no coasting trade either along the whole Shantung coast, although there are several small harbours along the coast of the promontory.

The Grand Canal runs from the walls of Pekin in the north to Soo Chou in the south, through the Province of Shantung. At its junction, however, at Shou Chang with the Yellow River, it has now branched off into several lakes and marshes, and is sometimes unnavigable in dry weather.

"China's Sorrow," the Yellow River, is only navigable for a few miles from its mouth by big junks, and there is a bar at its mouth which is rapidly silting up. As there are practically no good river communications in Shantung, the Chinese have been compelled to take to land routes largely, over which the goods of commerce are carried in panniers by mules and donkeys. This is a very expensive method of transport, and causes great damage and loss to valuable commodities. The German railway is system- atically planned to follow the present three* great central provincial roads and carry the present trade along the railway to Kiao Chou for shipment.

It is almost inevitable that in the future the German railway line will divert some of the trade of Chefoo to Kiao Chou.

In 1898, foreign merchants at Chefoo foresaw this, and proposed to build an opposition line from Chefoo with a branch line to Wei-hai-wei, in order to bring out the trade direct to Chefoo and Wei-hai-wei for shipment there.

Further, if a railway were made by the British to run parallel with the German line from east to west to Chi Nan through the centre of the province, such a line, if successful, would, as in the case of the German line, similarly divert trade from Chefoo to Wei-hai-wei; but as most of the trade in Chefoo is British and American, these vested interests would not suffer much by being transferred to Wei-hai-wei. China, however, would taboo any Wei-hai-wei inland railway scheme that proposed to cause her loss of revenue on customs duties at Chefoo, and it would be necessary to come to an arrangement about this first.

It would be of little service building any local ine from Wei-hai-wei inland to capture the trade of Teng Chou Fu and take it from Chefoo, although this could be done probably with Germany's consent (for this line would not clash with her overland Chinan-Kiao Chou route), China would be sure to oppose it, as it would divert all the native and foreign trade of the Shantung Promontory to Wei-hai-wei.

Any attempt to attract trade to Wei-hai-wei from the rich western portions of Shantung by means of a direct line from Wei-hai-wei to Chinan making Chinan a junction with Chili by a branch line to Tientsin must, however, run on parallel lines for over a hundred miles in direct competition with the German railway that

goes from Chinan to Wu Hsien, and it is perhaps possible that the interests of these two parallel lines would clash. To avoid any clashing with German interests, however, it might be possible to run the British line from Wu Hsien due north-cast through Wu Tung Fu over the Yellow River to Tientsin, instead of running it parallel with the German line from Wu Hsien to Chinan.

If survey showed that it was practicable for the railway to cross the Yellow River and avoid being inundated by that river. this alternative line, though passing through a poor country like Wu Tung Fu, would run some distance outside the sphere of the German railway line. and so avoid disagreement and competition between the two railway companies. On the other hand, any attempt to make a railway inland from Wei-hai-wei without infringing on any part of the German route now fixed, can only be done by stopping short before arriving at Ping Tu, and this means that only the poor districts of Teng Chou would be open to British railway enterprise, and it is doubtful whether it would pay to make such a line at all.

• These three roada run from Chinan dne East passing through Tron Ping, Ching Chou Fu. Ping Tu, South from Chinan through Tai and to I Chon: from I Chou to Chu Chou and Wu Halen.

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