Directory_and_Chronicle_1909 — Page 802

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CHINA

“Balance of Trade--The excess of net foreign imports (c.i.f. value) over exports abroad (f.o.b. value) in 1907 was 57 per cent., as compared with 74 per cent. in 1906- and 97 per cent. in 1905. With this reduced disparity between imports and exports of goods, there has been an exceptional movement of treasure abroad, so that the ex- cess to be accounted for by reference to the surplus of invisible assets and the outward trade over land frontiers is only 46 per cent, as against 73 per cent. in 1906. These percentages have to be increased by the amount of the unrecorded net inward trade through Dairen and other ports for the first six months in 1907 and for the whole year of 1906. The course of exchange has been highly erratic. Beginning the year at 37 pence, the Shanghai tael fell in March to 34.50 pence, to rise again in May to 37 pence. From June to September there was less fluctuation; but in October there was a headlong drop from 36 to 33.25 pence, and the decline continuing, with a slight check in November, the tael fell below 29 pence for demand towards the end of the year. This is the lowest point reached since 1904, and the fluctuation of 7 pence, or some 20 per cent., in three months is perhaps, without precedent. The power of so unstable an exchange to injure legitimate trade, whether in imports or exports, is well illustrated by the fall during those closing months. Importers, believed to be the majority, who carried their goods on a sterling basis, and who could with difficulty obtain fair prices even at the higher rates of exchange until then prevailing, were suddenly confronted with a 20 per cent. rise in the silver prices which must be obtained in order to cover the sterling outlay. Exporters, on the other hand, and notably exporters of silk, who had contracted for goods and fixed exchange in advance, found themselves unexpectedly in competition with produce secured later at a sterling cost 20 per cent. lower. The collapse of silver is attributed to the financial stress in the United States, throwing silver on the market, and to the fear of impending agricul- tural disasters in India.”

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 famines in Shansi, Honan, and Shantung, as well as the famine in Kiangsi in 1903, when the scarcity of food was so great that in numberless instances men even publicly sold their wives and children when powerless to meet the responsibility for feeding them. The enormous- mineral wealth of Shansi is practically non-existent for the same reason. 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. 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 permis- sion of the Throne to construct. 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 line from Peking to Hankow. These lines 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, tiring 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 Admired