Directory_and_Chronicle_1906 — Page 689

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CHINA

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. The railway from Shanghai to Woosung was re-opened in 1898, as forming part of a line to Soochow which the provincial authorities had obtained permission of the Throne to construct. Several important lines are now in course of construction 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 Kin- chow and Newchwang on the Gulf of Liao-tung, on the other.

This road was only completed in the early part of 1900, and during the summer months was, between Kinchow and Newchwang, largely destroyed by the Chinese so as to preclude the advance of Russian forces on Peking via Manchuria. 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, in October, 1899, was handed over by the British con- structors to the Belgian Syndicate as an integral factor in the great trans-continental road from Peking to Hankow. These roads were all more or less deliberately and in some parts completely destroyed by the Chinese during 1900. The Railways, as foreign innovations, were particularly hateful to the Boxers, who in many cases attacked the lines with a fury as intense as it was insensate; burning the stations, destroying bridges, firing the sleepers and carrying off the metals. Later on, track destruction was a strong feature of the strategy of the Imperial troops, and from their point of view wisely so. It was the cutting of the Railway that was the sole cause of Admiral Seymour's failure in his gallant attempt to rescue the Legations. All the lines in North China were attacked and badly cut. The terminus at Peking has been brought inside the Chinese City and is at the Chien en or Southern Gate of the Manchu City. A branch line has been made from this terminus to Tung Chow, the head of the water- ways; and both the French and Germans have pushed on the trunk lines being built under their exclusive auspices in Chilli, Honan, and in Shantung respectively. Railway vandalism was the first evidence of the savagery and magnitude of the Boxer sedition. It is significant that the Imperial Government was so inert in protecting its own property.

A Belgian Syndicate has constructed 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. The line is now said to be more French than Belgian. In Honan the railway crosses the Yellow River on on › of the longest bridges in Asia, but it is an open secret that mistakes have been made as to the character of the available foundations and the requirements of the traffic to be carried on have been seriously misjudged. The American- China Development Company obtained a concession for the construction of a line from Wuchang, on the southern bank of the Yangtsze immediately opposite to Hankow, to Canton. A branch line from Canton to Fatshan and Shanisui was completed in 1904. It became known about this time that Belgians had acquired a substantial interest in the concession, and the announcement aroused so powerful an opposition among the Chinese of the provinces to be traversed by the trunk line that the concession was cancelled by the Chinese Government who agreed to pay to the Amer- ican China Development Co. the sum of $6,750,000 (gold) by way of compensation. The money for this purpose was lent to the Wuchang Viceroy by the Government of Hongkong, The British-Chinese Corporation has a concession for a line connecting Canton with Kowloon, but though seven years have passed not a sod has been turned. Last year, however, the Hongkong Government had the route surveyed to the boundary of British territory and an early commencement of the work of construction is expected. German concessionnaires secured the right to construct two lines from the German Settlement at Kiaochau to Chinanfu and Ichou in the interior of the Shantung province. The line to Chinan, the capital of Shantung, was com- menced in 1900, and is now open for traffic over the entire length of 247 miles. An Anglo-German Syndicate has been authorised to make a line from Tientsin to Chin- kiang, the Germans having charge of the northern portion of the undertaking and the British of the southern. The British-Chinese Syndicate, which has amalgamated with the Peking Syndicate, secured the right to construct a line from Shanghai via Soochow to Nanking and north-westward to join the Lu-Han line