CO885-6 — Page 219

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

C.O. 882

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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

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Hong-Kong has few manufactures, produces nothing, and only imports necessaries and luxuries for local European and (limese use, All the rest of the trade is transit and commission business, and free trade is necessary for such a state of things.

Free Trade, however, is not the sole or direct cause of the great commerce of Hong-Kong. It is the wealth, brains, and enterprise of China and the Europeans there that make the port prosper. This is lacking in Wei-hai-wei, and there is no prospect of ever collecting a rich, enterprising, pro-foreign Chinese community at Weihau wei like that which Camton supplies to Hong-King. There is nothing in Wei-hai wei to offer to Chinese traders and enpitalists interested in British business, to induce them to emigrate from more prosperous places to try to develope the Settle- ment. The Government, 160, has no means of assisting. There is no Crown land to give away; and there is no getting over the objection that all Chinese merchants apprached in this way raise at once, viz., that Wei-hai-wei is badly situated for Trade, and that nothing em be de ne till a railway connects it with the interior. Neither is Wei-hai-wei ever likely to be used as Hong-Kong, Penang, or Malacca are used by the Southern Chinese ns' a place to settle down in retirement and spend the fortunes they have won in trade in scenrity without fear of molestation from native officials, le cause its future is too uncertain.

Little possibility of development of local Industries.

any

63. Very careful enquiry has been made as to the possible development of local trade or as to the prospect of creating local industries. Many leading Chinese in Shanghai, Chefco, and Tientsin, connected with British firms or otherwise interested in British enterprises, have Leen interviewed with reference to investment of capital here, and promised every assistance by Government. Nobody, however, has made any response to these invitations, and after three years' experience there seems to be little likelihood of any Chinese coming here to invest capital or develope indus-

As a matter of fact, the prospects of trade are most discouraging. The soil is largely sund and stone, covered with artificial manures, and does not produce more than one crop a year, barely enough to keep the people alive,

tries.

is none.

There is hardly a village in the district that does not depend upon emigration to Manchuria, or North China, to relieve the over population. Capital and credit there There are no native bankers and no large pawnshops. Cheap labour is, #deed, the only commercial aset of any value. Enquiries have been made into the possibility of establishing fruit-growing, wild silk cultivation, bean-oil factories or Straw-braid making. The Chinese who have been invited to interest themselves in these matters do not think the enterprises likely to be successful. As to fruit-growing, the soil is too poor, and though the trees grow well, the fruit, apples, pears, plums and grapes, do not fully develope, and are woolly, hard and tasteless.

A low Chinese in the district grow a little native fruit (peaches, Chinese goose- Terries, pears, &c.), but the fruit is quite unfit for a European market. The best Fruit-growing districts lay north, south and east of Chefon in the Ning Hai, and

• specially in the Lai Yang district, where the soil is loamy and free from sand. For De fruit, Emoptan and Chinese, grown there, Chefen is the nearest and best market. A certain amount of wild silk is cultivated in the two districts of Wen-Teng and Yung- Cheng, of which the leased territory forms a part. In the leased area some thirty vlinges cultivate the silk worm; the scrub oak leaves are used to rear the silkworms and many of the hills here are covered with these trees; the few cocoons obtained Here are all sold at Chefoo, vs there is little spinning done in the two districts in question now. The fact is that it would be almost impossible to compete with Chefoo in the matter of making coarse Shantung silk. In that port, Chinese silk filatures are now firmly established and it would not pay any one to move the business to Wei-hai wei. "The supply of cocoous to be obtained" at Wei-hai-wei would be very small, and the rest of the silk is grown in the Ning Hai and Chi Hsia districts, which age nearer to Chefoo than Wei-hai-wei. Besides, the Chinese silk filature factories Lave silk agents who travel about buying up the very little silk there is to be had at the market towns in Wen-Teng and Yung-Cheng, so that it would be very diffi-

•ult to get enough coccons to keep even one small spinning business working for any length of time at Wei-hai-wei,

The amount of this coarse silk manufactured in Eastern Shantung has always been limited, and in the leased area there is no more land available for its cultivation. The be 1 Shantung silk comes from the west of the province.

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As to the straw-braid plaiting industry, so successful at Chefoo, the poverty of the soil in Wen-Teng and Yung-Cheng militates against success of the trade, as the Kao Liang straw here does not develope to sufficient length for plaiting purposes. No straw-braid plaiting has ever been done in this extrenie eastern part of the province. Chefoo derives all its straw braid from the more fertile plains of the north part of Ching Chou and the districts of Lai Chou and Tung Chou skirting the shore of the Gulf of Pechiit, for all of which places Chefoo is the nearest and most convenient port. As regards making bean-oil factories, this business could be made to pay if there was any certainty of being able (owing to failure of crops through drought) to get a continuous supply of beans. This trade was originally carried on in Wei-hai-wei by the city people, but failed twice, and has been abandoned now for some twenty years. There are three small oil factories in the villages of the lensed area, but they cannot get enough beans from the surrounding country to make the business pay. This bean oil was largely used at one time for illumination, but now kerosene oil is cheaper than it, and the demand has, therefore, fallen off too. It is not likely that any one would invest a large capital in bean-oil making factories in Wei-hai-wei when there is every advantage and convenience for doing this--and a certainty of a lucrative return--in Manchuria, the greatest bean exporting country in the world.

Cart Roads on the Mainland.

64. Cart roads on the mainland made and making are of course useful, but it is doubtful whether there is any place where cart roads are less necessary, except it be granted that they are made for the convenience of Government Officers and foreign visitors moving inland. The existing rough native roads and paths answer all pur- poses for native traffic, which is carried on either by wheelbarrows pushed by Chinese or in panniers and baskets strapped on donkeys and mules.

65. The people have not the capital to buy or make carts; they have no horses, and very few have mules or donkeys; cart carriage, even if it were established, would not be convenient for the villagers, as carts can only move on the cart roads, whereas the wheelbarrows, pack-mules, and donkeys can wend their way through the number- less small paths and hill tracks in and out and through some 300 scattered villages. A good trunk cart rond, beginning somewhere where there is trade and lead- ing to somewhere where there are prospects of trade, will always pay, and prove a profitable undertaking; but the cart roads in the leased territory cannot extend outside the leased area, and are, therefore, only the connected links of a local chain of native paths and tracks, that, before there were cart roads, served all the purposes of transport for the agricultural produce of the simple village folk. The chief roads repaired by the Government are the roads which were originally made solely for military purposes by the Chinese Government to establish easy con- munication between the Chinese forts on the coast and to connect with the naval seaport of Chefoo. The part of the military road to Chefoo lying outside the boundary is now abandoned by the Chinese, who naturally do not wish to repair it, and to see any of the trade of Chefoo go to Wei-hai-wei by means of such a trunk line. The Esplanade roads made round the bay both on the island and round the shores of the bay on the mainland are necessary for the use of Europeans and summer visitors, but it seems doubtful whether the system of making cart roads inland should be ex- tended or even continued further than they have gone at present. The Chinese are quite satisfied with their present ronds, paths, and tracks, and Government cannot expect to get back the money spent on making these cart roads. A few mule tracks on the hills have been improved, or fresh paths with better gradients made, and the Chinese have greatly appreciated these small improvements. These cart roads and mule tracks have not been macadamised, and this explains why the roads have been built so cheaply. In the winter and wet season, the snow and rain convert the roads into mud banks which are difficult to travel over till they are dry again. The disinte- grated granite earth with which the surface of the roads is dressed has, however, the peculiarity of drying very quickly, and becoming hard and firm again the day after Bad weather.

Afforestation.

66. There is no timber in the territory; whatever is wanted for building pur poses is imported by the Chinese from Manchuria, and by Europeans from America or the Southern Archipelago. Many of the hills are covered with scrub oak and dwarf pines, but these are cut down every year for firewood. On the plains, except round

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