उठा 31859
[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
CHINA RAILWAYS.
CONFIDENTIAL.
co 25 SEP 09
[August 23.]
475
SECTION 2.
[31802]
No. 1.
Acting Consul-General Wilton to Sir J. Jordan,--(Received at Foreign Office, August 23.)
[Inclosure in Mr. Wilton's despatch No. 11, Confidential, of June 28, 1909.]
(No. 26. Confidential.) Sir,
Yunnan-fu, June 26, 1909.
I HAVE the honour to invite reference to Mr. Carlisle's despatch to the Foreign Office, No. 2, Commercial, of the 20th May, copy of which I have the honour to enclose herewith. I have been unable to procure a copy locally of the revised railway rates which came into force on the 1st May, nor does this consulate-general possess a copy of the Tonquin colonial tariff, but I hope, with the assistance of His Majesty's consul at Hanoi, to be shortly in possession of both these publications.
I believe that I am correct in stating that, under the system prevailing in Tonquin, goods of French or Indo-Chinese origin pay no duties if destined for Yunnan, whereas foreign goods pay 20 per cent. of the colonial tariff. This weighs heavily on certain classes of goods, e.g., tobacco; nevertheless, speaking generally, it may be said that foreign goods hold their own against those of French or Indo-Chinese origin at Yunnan-fu at the present moment. From the French official attitude in Yuunan it seems to me that, once the French railway to Yunnan-fu is completed, an effort will be made to still further favour goods of French or Indo-Chinese origin by means of preferential duties and easier railway rates. I propose, therefore, to offer some remarks of local significance on the West River route from Hong Kong as an alternative to the passage of goods via the French railway to Yünnan-fu (see map enclosed).*
The local manager of the French firm MM. Charrière et Cic. informed me some days ago that he had been appointed agent for the Anglo-American Tobacco Company. He had written, he said, to Messrs. Banker and Co., a British firm at Wuchow, for details as to the water carriage of merchandise from Hong Kong to Pose. If a favourable reply were received, he would attempt to import tobacco and other articles, on which the French colonial duty was burdeusomie, via the West River and thence by mule transport either to Pohsi, a station on the French railway, or direct to Yünnan-fu.
In January-February 1907 I travelled from Wuchow on the West River to Nanning by steamer. No steamers were running at that time beyond Nanning, and I continued my journey by native boat to Pose. Comparing my experiences on the upper waters of the Yang-tsze and the Miu River in Szechuan, I see no reason why a shallow-draft steamer should not be able to run from Nanning to Pose for at least nine months of the year (March to December). At Pose cargo can be transhipped into smaller boats to Po-ngai on the Kuanghsi-Yunnan border, thus avoiding 33 miles of painful mule track. In my subsequent remarks I will take Po-ngai as the limit of water carriage of goods from Hong Kong via the West River.
On the 24th June, Liu-hsiao-tsu, who is Taotai for the Encouragement of Trade in Yunnan, referred in conversation to various proposals he had put forward for bettering the means of communications in this province. He told me that he was an opponent of the proposed railway from Yunnan-fu into Szechuan, and had advocated another method of spending money by utilising the Niu-lan River from Tung-ch'uan to Yang-lin for navigation, and constructing either a light railway or a cart road thence into the provincial capital. I will not dwell further on this scheme- which strikes me as a good one-as it can be dealt with more suitably in another place. Taotai Liu called my attention to the high colonial tariff and the exorbitant railway rates. I thereupon introduced to his notice the question of the West River route, and he grasped at it with some eagerness. I explained to him that a good cart road from Yunnan-fu to Kuang-nan-fu, 225 miles in length, appeared to me quite feasible at a very moderate cost. From the latter place to Po-ngai, five mule stages, a cart road
* Not reproduced.
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