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Chambers of Commerce on the Pacific Seaboard" are headed by Mr. Willis H. Booth, an engineering contractor and banker of Los Angeles, president; and Mr. W. H. Gerstle, described as a "transportation magnate," of San Francisco, vice-president. Mr. C. K. Field, of the "Sunset Magazine," is official historian to the commission, and Mr. Charles N. Bennet, secretary. Mr. Hamilton Butler, United States vice-consul at Tion-tsin, is attached to the party as official interpreter, and Mr. A. P. Wilder, the American consul-general at Shangbai, accompanied them as far as Peking, apparently in his official capacity.
The delegates were not, as stated in Mr. Moore's despatch, invited by the Chinese Government, but by the Associated Chinese Chambers of Commerce. The idea of the visit originated, I believe, with the Shanghai branches of the American Young Men's Christian Association and the International Institute, whose memberships is largely composed of American missionaries and returned students educated in America. It is doubtful whether the promoters of the tour and the American business men who accepted the invitation foresaw that the delegation would be treated by the Chinese authorities to all intents and purposes as an official mission from the United States to China. Yet this is what has happened: not only have the delegates been entertained by chambers of commerce, press associations, and kindred societies, but they have been officially received by the highest Chinese authorities, acting evidently under instructions from the Central Government, in every city they have visited; their progress, to which the epithet "triumphal may well be applied, culminating in the unprecedented honour of an Imperial audence in Peking.
The following is a brief summary of the commission's tour up to date -
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Shanghai (four days).Visits to local manufactories, flour mills, cotton, woollen, and paper mills, &c.; Chinese waterworks and Government dockyard. Receptions and banquets by Young Men's Christian Association, American community, Shanghai Taotai, chamber of commerce, and International Institute.
Hangchow (one day).--Visits to Bore and Lake. Banquet by chamber of com- merce, presided over by Governor of Chekiang. Journey from Hangchow to Shanghai by rail made occasion for popular demonstration of welcome all along the line arranged by Chekiang Railway Company.
Nanking (two days).-Visit to exhibition, official reception and banquet. Tea party to ladies of mission by wife of Viceroy; dinner at Viceroy's yamen, Receptions and luncheons by provincial assembly, educational and military authorities. Visit to Naval School, Polytechnic, King Tombs, &c.
Hankow (three days).-Visits to Hanyan iron works, waterworks, &c. Banquet by chamber of commerce: luncheon with Viceroy.
Palace: reception at Audience with Prince Banquet by Board of
Peking (four days).-Visits to Great Wall and Summer American Legation. Banquet by Chinese Press Association. Regent and visit to Winter Palace. Luncheon at Wai-wu Pu. Agriculture and Communications at Botanical Gardens.
The above programme hardly bears out Mr. Gerstle's statement, quoted in the newspaper cutting enclosed in Mr. Moore's despatch, that "There will be nothing of junketing about this trip: it will be the commercial, not the social side of China we shall be interested in." For this change in the character of their tour the delegates themselves can hardly be held to blame, but they will doubtless be prepared to admit that the uninterrupted series of receptions and entertainments has seriously interfered with the "series study of the commercial situation in China," which forms the ostensible object of their journey. As a matter of fact, it does not seem probable that any tangible results in the direction of increased trade between China and the United States will accrue from this visit: speaking generally, no direct relation exist or are likely to exist for some time to come between the American manufacturer and the Chinese consumer, and vice versa. The trade is in the hands of the merchants or middlemen of San Francisco and the Pacific Coast ports and their correspondents in Shanghai and the large treaty ports of China, and it is the lack of American business houses of good financial standing and repute in Shanghai, Hongkong, and indeed throughout China, which accounts, I believe, for the comparatively slow development of American trade with China. Large American firms in Shanghai and Hongkong can be counted on the fingers of one hand, and I think I am not mistaken in saying that British firms are the largest importers of American goods in China. This remark also applies to exports, trade in which is liable to be handicapped by sudden changes in the American tariff.;
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I append a table showing the comparative value of British and United States trade with China during the past ten years.
The tour has been made the occasion for an outburst of speech-making, which has Chinese astonished even those accustomed to the flights of American oratory. Ministers of State, Viceroys, Taotais, gentry, and merchants have vied with the members of the commission in giving expression to their mutual sentiments of esteem, admiration, and friendship. If any one speaker may be said to have deserved the palm in this friendly contest it is the American consul-general at Shanghai, Dr. Wilder, whose statement that "this embassy is a unique and monumental landmark in the history of China" may be accepted as typical of the strain in which both hosts and guests have discussed the mission and its labours.
Yet, making all allowances for that exuberance of diction which Chinese orators of the present day, more especially those who have been educated in the United States, share with their American prototypes, and for the festive nature of the occasion on which these speeches were delivered, one cannot help being struck by the under- current of sincerity which runs through so many of the speeches, and reading between the lines, one perceives on the part of the Chinese a recognition of the possibilities which the disinterested friendship of one of the great nations affords, joined to a feeling of naïve gratification at the public praise bestowed on China's moral and material progress; and on the part of the Americans a sense of real pleasure, not unmixed with surprise, at the cordiality of their reception by a people reputedly anti-foreign.
As was to be expected, no opportunity has been lost of reciting America's claims to the gratitude and friendship of China. The return of the Boxer indemnity, the abstention from territorial encroachments, the educational facilities so generously offered to the youth of China, and the assistance rendered to the people of China in their crusade against the opium evil have been referred to again and again by speakers on both sides, and through the foreign and native press re-echoed all over China.
In the ears of those who remember the American boycott of 1905, and the agitation against the "unforgettable wrongs heaped upon the people of China," a movement inaugurated and maintained by that same Shanghai Chamber of Commerce which has taken the lead in the present demonstration, the frequent references to America's "traditional and uninterrupted friendship with China and her people" must sound a discordant note; and the president of the Nanking Exhibition's reference to the Canton-Hankow Railway fiasco, in which the American Development Company played so discreditable a part, as "America's opening of China's trunk lines must have struck many of his hearers as singularly unhappy.
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In one respect the delegates have undoubtedly done harm: I refer to their exaggerated aud indiscriminating praise of Chinese railway construction and manage- ment. This was particularly noticeable on the occasion of their visit to Hangehow, when one of the delegates referred to the Shanghai-Hangchow Railway, a line whose construction is notoriously faulty, as being "equal to the very first class of such work on American lines," and another speaker assured an audience of local officials and gentry that he had "examined the railways of Germany, England, and America, and found that none of them surpassed the Chekiang Railway system." These statements have found their way into the native press, and will, it is to be feared, not only encourage the people of Chekiang in their opposition to the Government in the matter of the control of the railways now being constructed in that province, but will be cited by other provincial railway companies in support of their claim to build and manage their own lines.
HARRY IL FOX, Acting Commercial Attaché.
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