CO129-330 - Public Offices - 1905 — Page 350

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Commercial value of Kunlón-Tali-fu Lêne as a possible Dividend-paying Concern.

10. As to the commercial value of this line our knowledge of the resources of the country is not sufficiently extensive or precise to warrant the expression of a confident opinion. Some general considerations may, however, be usefully borne in mind. The accounts of recent travellers in West Yünnan all go to show that the poverty of that part of the province has been exaggerated and the number of its inhabitants under-estimated. Earlier explorers confined themselves for the most part to the main roads east and west; they travelled in the cold season, which is the dead time for agriculture, and gives the country a more barren appearance than is natural, and they were not trade experts. A far more cheerful picture is now presented to us. Mr. Litton, who speaks with an authority to which no other Englishman can lay claim, estimates the population of Yunnan at 10,000,000 and says that that part of the province which may, under present conditions, be conveniently served by our Burnah route is on the whole considerably more populous than that part served by the French or Red River route. The accounts of unofficial explorers are to the same effect. Dr. Logan Jack writes: "It is patent to every traveller who passes through Yunnan that it is being repopulated by immigration from other provinces and by the natural increase in a country where there is plenty of room to spread out."

To this may be added the testimony of the Yünnan Company's commercial experts. Their full reports have probably not been made public, but it is clear from various utterances of the Company's Directors and promoters that they hold out distinctly favourable prospects of a remunerative trade. With the increase of population is coming a revival of old industries, such as silk spinning and mining, and a creation of new ones. Attempts are being made under the superintendence of Szechuanese immigrants to start cotton weaving all over West Yunnan, notably at Yunchaung and Hoching. Old trade routes are also being reopened, of which the most important is that between West Yunnan and the trans-Yangtse district of Yungpeh. All this seems to point to a coming era of increased prosperity for Yunnan, to which improved facilities of transport would give a great impetus.

11. To turn now to the country in the vicinity of the proposed line. The railway would possess one great advantage in its terminus Tali-fu, or rather Hsiakuan (at the south end of the lake), which may be described as the commercial suburb of Tali-fu. The latest and most reliable description of Hsiakuan comes from Mr. Litton. It is, he says, the commercial capital of West Yunnan, and if we can insist on respect being paid to transit passes it will soon become the largest market in the province. It is important both as a centre of native and foreign trade. The population, which now numbers over It is the resort of dealers 12,000, nearly all engaged in trade, is rapidly increasing.

in foreign goods from Têngyüeh, cloth sellers and opium buyers from Lin An, Canton It is also an important opium buyers, Szechuan pedlars, Thibetans, and Lichiang traders. centre of opium production and general consumption. Half of our imports from Burmah go to Hsiakuan. The Tali-fu plain contains at least 100,000 inhabitants, and to the north and south of the lake there is a series of rich and populous agricultural valleys. Further south are the plains of Menghua and Hungai, each about 20 miles long by 4 or 5 Quite a million broad, and “resembling the valleys of Szechuan in their richness.”

and a quarter persons, and these the best-to-do in the province, are supplied from Hsiakuan.

12. Until the railway line comes to this series of valleys, that is to say, until it has crossed the Rouglan watershed, it passes through no Chinese town of any importance but Yünchou. Yünchou is a town of about 800 houses, and was described by Captain Davies in 1896 as possessing little trade." Mr. Turner, however, who visited it two years later, says that it has superseded Shunning as a distributing centre and "has quite a large foreign trade and obtains supplies from Canton all the way. It has also à direct trade with Yünnan-fu and Hsiakuan, and a very large local trade."

13. The agricultural and animal products of the country traversed are not likely to form the staple of a great export trade. The mule-trading industry north of the lake will furnish business for the railway, and a certain amount of flour will probably come to Burmah from the great wheat-growing plains near Tali-fu, and rice will go back in exchange, but the chief agricultural product of West Yunnan is opium, which is at present excluded from our borders. In regard to the prospect of a large traffic in minerals, there is no sure ground on which to base an opinion. Recent travellers no longer, like M. Rocher, sprinkle their maps of Yunnan thickly and impartially with gold and silver mines, but nevertheless they speak with one voice of the apparent abundance of mineral deposits.

"We found indications of metals almost everywhere," says Mr. Turner, when writing on the subject of

a Kunlôo-Tali-fu rail, "and if Government throw open mines, and fuel can be procured in the province at a reasonable cost, there will be an abundance of carriageable goods." Sọ Major Davies: "We certainly came across mines everywhere, and all sorts-gold, silver, lead, tin, iron, copper, zinc, coal,

and even with the present poor appliances the Chinese make them pay." Coal described by Mr. Turner as "poor," and by Captain Watts-Jones as "good," is mined in at least two places near the line, and irou occurs within easy reach. It is, however, impossible to say whether these or other minerals are likely to pay a steady freight, because under the present difficulties of transport only those mines are worked which are very productive and close to centres of population.

14. To sum them up, the rail will without doubt gather to itself all the caravan traffic of West and Southern Yünnan which is now scattered to Bhamo, to Kengtung, to Chiengmai and other places, and it will greatly stimulate the production and increase the purchasing power of the rich district of which Tali-fu is the centre. It will in all probability create a considerable intermediate traffic, and there is a hope that it may open up and receive a steady freight from minerals which are known to occur at different points along the line and in the country north of Tali-fu. On the other hand, for more than half its length the line will traverse a region sparsely populated and not capable, so far as is at present known, of any very striking development. This matters little--some American railways are carried twice that distance through utterly unproductive desert and mountain -provided that the market on the other side is worth atlaining, And this is a fact which cannot be established with certainty until actual experiment is made. All that can be said is that there are substantial grounds for hopeful anticipation. To the investor desirous of a quick and regular return upon his outlay the Kunlon-Tali-fu line will not appeal, but as a long "lock-up" it is by no means devoid of attraction.

Commercial value of the Kunlón-Tali-fu Line as an Instrument for preserving Trade in West Yünnan.

15. There is another commercial aspect of this matter. The line may be regarded not as a concern the main object of which is to pay dividends as quickly as possible, but as an instrument for preserving and developing a trade which is seriously threatened. The French railway to Yunnan-fu is steadily advancing. The new alignment has just been sanctioned by the Peking Foreign Office, and work has commenced on the China side of the frontier. Already the effects of improved communication by this route have made themselves felt. For some years after the annexation of Upper Burmah, Chinese caravaus with cotton and other merchandize went regularly through from Bhamo to Yünnan-fu and not infrequently to Hui-li, some eight days north of that city. This was the case even after the opening of the Mengtzu Customs, but it is no longer so.

It is now only under special circumstances, such as those described by Mr. Litton last April, namely, a blockage of trade on the Red River, owing to piracies, that Bhamo caravans manage to get through to the capital. Tsuhsiung-fu is probably the present limit of profitable sale of most of the imports from Burmah, and not very long ago some goods which went up the Red River actually penetrated as far west as Yungchang, It seems certain that with every advance of the French railway we must expect to see supplies from this side driven further and further back, and it is difficult to resist the conclusion that when the railhead reaches Yünnan-fu, even if it is never carried further west from that point, cur market will be restricted practically to the valley of the Tapeng and the districts north of Têngyüeh. A railway from Kunlôn to Tali-fu would certainly prevent this serious loss, and would at least secure to us for all time the area of our present trade in Yunnan, an area in which Mr. Litton estimates that Burmah ought to have from 3,500,000 to 4,000,000 of customers.

Railway Survey of Line from Bhamo to Téngyüeh,

16. The preliminary railway survey of a line from Bhamo to Têngyüch was also per- formed by Captain Watts-Jones. The length of the line is 119 miles, and the estimate of cost (for earthwork and bridging only) is 36,30,000 rupees, or rather over 30,000 rupees a-mile. The heaviest work would be on 6 miles of gorge between the Kaugai and Nantien plains, which would cost a lakh a-mile. Then there are 24 miles of gorge-work, beginning at the twenty-first mile from Bbamo. These are estimated to cost 70,000 rupees a-mile. There are no other difficulties, and the cost for the remaining 89 miles averages about 15,000 rupees a-mile. There is no tunnelling or rack. The line can never be carried

[1802 e-2]

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