CO129-428 - Public Offices - 1915 — Page 173

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REPORT ON GERMAN TRADE

IN CANTON.

169

The city of Canton is so preeminent among Chinese

cities in prosperity and external evidences of wealth and

the surrounding districts are so productive that it is

somewhat disappointing to observe the relative unimportance

of the few foreign firms established in the port and their seeming blindness to the possibilities of the market which

lies at their doors. It would perhaps be unfair to attri-

bute this state of things solely or even mainly to the

apathy of the local merchants or to draw too severe a con-

trast between this port and Hankow or Tientsin. There

are two circumstances to which a share of the blame must

be attributed the deadening effect of traditional methods

of trading, applicable also to Hankow and Tientsin but very

much more apparent here, and the proximity of the Colony

of Hong-Kong.

The latter factor has a parallel in the case of Hankow and Shanghai, where, as was pointed out in the

Report on German trade in Hankow, subservience to prin-

cipels in Shanghai, enxious to preserve as much business

as possible in their own hands, has such an adverse effect

on the development of direct trading in imports at Hankow.

But in proportion as Canton is closer to Hongkong than is Hankow to Shanghai, so the evil is greater and more apparent.

Principals in Hongkong ere able to get to Canton by rail in from three to four hours, and accordingly appear to con- sider it sufficient to maintain here a very small staff and to appoint a junior with naturally little powers of in-

itative to take charge. In certain branches, such as piece

goous, there is something to be said for this policy, for

Hongkong,