CO129-559-1 Canton - Hankow Railways 15-1-1936 - 23-6-1936 — Page 44

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also are run by Government, and passengers have to pay the

high rate of 5 cents per mile. Passengers are all of one

class, and the buses stop at various stations situated at

villages along the route. They run to a time schedule and

do not pick up passengers except at these stations. There

is no connection between this highway and the one running

between Heng ohow West and Changsha. The northern highway

is broken by the siang River which has to be crossed by

ferry boat.

36. By making use of the bus connections it is now

possible to complete the journey from Canton to Hankow and

vice-versa in 3 days 14 hours. A through passenger would

have to take a train to Lok Chong, spend the night there,

take a train the next morning to Ping Shek where he would

transfer to a bus and proceed to the provincial border,

transfer to another bus and proceed to Heng chow, cross the

river at Heng chow and spend the night there, proceed by bus

the next morning to Changsha, spend the night there and

continue by rail the next day to uchang.

37. The principal products of the country traversed

by the railway are cereals, eggs, wood oil and minerals.

I passed through hundreds of square miles of rice and saw

quite a lot of trees grown for the manufacture of wood oil.

In addition to rice there were sweet potatoes, peanuts,

sugar cane and wheat, Antimony and wolfram exist and there

is a considerable quantity of coal. The Ping-Shiang co al

mines are well known. The coal obtained near Leiyang (mileage 299) is now being exploited on a larger scale and

the Construction Administration are buying this coal for

their locomotives and plant at a cost of slightly under

$5.00 per ton. I understand that Leiyang coal compares

quite favourably with Kaiping.

38.

A constant stream of merchants were observed