Directory_and_Chronicle_1900 — Page 574

CHINA

113

The gross Coast trade in vessels of foreign build amounted to Tls. 273,192,029 outward, and Tls..311,759,269 inward, the net native imports (that is goods not re-ex- ported) at the Treaty Ports being Tls. 101,680,963, and the exports to Treaty Ports Tls. 71,296,364.

The Imperial Maritime Customs revenue for the same year amounted to Haikwan Taels 22,503,396, and was derived from

Foreign Native.

Imports Exports Coast T'de Opium

Duty. Duty.

Duty.

4,943,268 6,054,002

677,369

786,640 2,249,809

507,432

Duty.

1,226,859

Opium Tnage Transit Lekin. Dues. Dues. 3,266,990

551,398

744,236

716,192

61,463

Total

5,729,908 8,303,811 1,184,801 1,971,095 3,983,182 612,861 717,738 Although China is traversed in all directions by roads, they are usually mere tracks, or at best footpaths, along which the transport of goods is a tedious and difficult undertaking. It was owing to the imperfect means of communication that such a fearful mortality attended the last famines in Shansi, Honan, and Shantung. The enormous mineral wealth of Shan-Si is practically non-existent for the same reason, and there is every reason to fear that the present year (1900) will see in this province a repetition of the famine horrors of the Eighties. A vast internal trade is, however, carried on over the roads, and by means of numerous canals and navigable rivers. The most populous part of China is singularly well adapted for the construction of a network of railways, and a first attempt to introduce them into the country was made in 1876, when a line from Shanghai to Woosung, ten miles in length, was constructed by an English company. The little rail- way was subsequently purchased by the Chinese Government and closed by them on the 21st October, 1877. Since that time the principle of railways has been fully accepted and several important lines are projected, while some are already in operation. A tramway a few miles in length, begun in 1881 to carry coal from the Kaiping coal mines, near Tongshan, to the canal bank, has been extended to Tientsin and Taku on the one hand and to Kinchow, in the N. W. corner of the Gulf of Liao-tung, on the other. This road is now being rapidly continued from Kinchow to Newchwang ; the year 1,900 will probably see the two Northern Treaty Ports connected by rail. A line from Peking to Tientsin was opened in 1897, the Peking terminus being at Machiapu, a point two miles from the Tartar city, whence a short electric line connects it with one of the principal gates; the traffic developed so rapidly that in 1898-9 the line had to be doubled. From Lukouchiao (or Marco Polo's Bridge) a line of about eighty miles in length has been constructed southward to Paotingfu, the capital of the province of Chihli this line is now in running order, and in October 1899 was handed over by the British constructors to the Belgian Syndicate as an integral factor in the great trans-continental road from Peking to Hankow. A line from Shanghai to Woosung, some fourteen miles in length, was opened in 1898, twenty-one years after the first line between the same termini was torn up. The total length of the railways already in operation is about 450 miles. A contract has been let to a Belgian Syndicate for the construction of a trunk line of about 650 miles in length from Hankow to Paotingfu, where it joins the existing Paotingfu and Lukoachiao line, thus giving through communication with Peking. Work on this line has been commenced at both ends, and large numbers of Belgian engineers arrived in 1899. The bridging of the Yellow River and the crossing of the Fuh Niw Mountains in Honan, may offer some engineering difficulties. The American-China Development Company has obtained

a concession for the construction of a line from Wuchang, on the southern bank of the Yangtsze immediately opposite to Hankow, to Canton. The British-Chinese Corporation has become associated with the American-China Development Company in this project, and the same corporation has obtained a concession for a line connect- ing Canton with Kowloon (Hongkong.) German concessionnaires have secured the right to construct two lines from the German Settlement at Kiaochau to Chinanfu and Ichou in the interior of the Shantung province, and an Anglo-German Syndicate has been authorised to make a line from Tientsin to Chinkiang, the Germans having charge of the northern portion of the undertaking and the British of the southern. A British syndicate has also secured the right to construct a line from Shanghai via Soochow to Nanking and north-westward to join the Lu-Han line (as the Hankow-Peking line is called), and also a line from Soochow via Hangchow to Ningpo. A line from Canton to Chengtu, the provincial capital of Szechuen, has also been mentioned. Surveys have been conducted with a view of finding a practicable route for a railway to connect Burmah with the Yangtsze region