318
16
troyed crops estimated at $400,000,000. This year Chilli, Hunan, Kiangsi, Fukien and Kwangtung Provinces have reported floods, the total damage of which will probably never be estimated.
These catastrophies that so frequently occur in China are partially due to the ignorance of the masses in destroying the forestation about their localities, and partly to the lack of the attention that should be paid' to the waterways, which are gradually being blocked, from causes that are too apparent to need mention.
If the Indemnity funds returned by Great Britain could be mada available for the improvement and conservancy of the principal drainage system of the country, agricultural pursuits would be made the more de- pendable and, as the masses of the Chinese are agriculturalists the further- ing of their interests would at once bring about a change in the standard of living throughout the country that would be a gain to the world in general.
With such a change taking place, the commercial activities that would follow would be more commensurate with the immense population of the country. Sir Robert Hart was heard to say when he was in Peking that there was no reason why China trade should not increase tenfold if it was nourished, and Viceroy Li Hung Chang is reported to have said that were the Chinese to reduce the length of their long coats by a foot. half of the cotten mills in England would have to close. The statements of these two eminent men indicate the trade potentialities of China, and the effect of the reduced or increaed consumption of goods among a mass of 400,000,000 people in the world at large.
As it is the intention of Great Britain to so employ the Boxer In- demnity funds as to give the greatest results beneficial to both countries, the first call for it would be to build up the purchasing power of the Chinese by eliminating the wide-spread floods that perennially overtake the country. The flood of the Wei basin four years ago reduced a population of probably 35,000,000 to a condition from which they have not yet recovered, and the floods which have overwhelmed various provinces this year are a visitation of far larger extent. This periodical reduction of the purchasing power of the population of China must have a severe effect upon trade, both local and overseas.
As instances of how trade was developed following conservancy work,
17
I may mention the operations of the China International Famine Relief Commission in recent years.
Near Hankow there was a district that was continually subject to floods, making livelihood there most difficult. The Commission spent about £70,000 there in dyking and making general improvements, with the result that to-day the conditions of those living there are such as had never been known before, so that the trade there has tripled in value in consequence. The Province of Henan is now being improved in its riverine conservancy through the efforts of the local committee of the Commission, which is gradually giving new life to those who have suffered so much in the past.
There are a large number of districts throughout China known to ther Commission which could be improved by modern engineering, and if they were taken in hand it would mean a new epoch for China. The Yangtze River, the Hunan and Kiangsi Waterways, the Pearl River of Kwangtung, the Min River of Fukien, and the Chihli River systems would require millions of pounds to put in order, but once done the trade of China would take a tremendous jump, as the districts there have a total population of about four times that of Great Britain.
With these improvements brought about, a future China that will have an international yearly trade of say $5,000,000,000 instead of the pre- sent trifle of $1,800,000,000, should be of great concern to countries which at present have idle mills and long lists of unemployed.
The extension of the railway systems in China, it is true, will mean the indenting of material from abroad, and would to a certain extent promote trade, but no impetus to trade could be greater than systematically to increase the purchasing power of the millions in China by stabling their conditions that make for dependable crops and prosperity.
The £11,000.000 of the returned Indemnity, though large, will hardly cover more than a portion of the urgent engineering projects referred to above. It will, therefore, be necessary to apply it on the basis of loans repayable by the districts that have been benefited, on terms that would be agreeable to all, so that it may be re-employed elsewhere. By such a process of working it will not be so very long before the crying physical evils of China might be past history.
In the meanwhile, educational work may be taken in hand as a side issue, as, with China improved physically, she should also advance intel-
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.