Directory_and_Chronicle_1909 — Page 883

Directories & Chronicles 香港指南 All

726

CHEFOO

communication is maintained by the Indo-China Steam Navigation Company, the China. Merchants S. N. Company, the China Navigation Company, the Russian East Asiatic Steamship Company, the Nippon Yusen Kaisha and the Osaka Shosen Kaisha. In 1876 the Chefoo Convention was concluded at Chefoo by the late Sir Thomas Wade and the former Viceroy of Chihli, Li Hung-chang. An enterprise has been recently established by a Wine Company of substantial standing; the soil of the locality lends itself to such an industry and the future success of the proprietors of the first Far Eastern wine growing concern is a matter of considerable interest. Chefoo is noted for its large and increasing fruit growing industry, supplying Shanghai, Vladivostock, Kobe and other Eastern ports with foreign fruits, which grow well with care and attention in that part of Shantung-the native fruit growers having received foreign instruction, so that which was at first a hobby is now a paying industry. Other very important industries are the manufacture of foreign silk and hand-made silk laces, which in the hands of foreigners promise to assume large proportions. Silk thread and silk twist are largely made and exported from here to France, Germany and America. Chefoo uses a large percentage of the cocoons from Corea and Manchuria. which come to China. Chefoo was in 1900 connected by telegraph cables with Tientsin, Port Arthur, Weihaiwei, Tsingtau and Shanghai.

The trade of Chefoo, which is increasing, is principally in Beancake and Beans, of which large quantities are annually exported to the southern ports of China. In 1906 the net export of Beancake amounted to 1,144,814 piculs, as against 1,233,180- piculs in 1905, 1,117,658 in 1904, and 1,192,948 piculs in 1903. Silk, Strawbraid, Ground- nuts, and Vermicelli are the other chief exports. The import of Opium was 603 piculs. of Indian brands, as no supplies came from Manchuria. The net value of the trade of the port for 1906, after deducting re-exports, was Tls. 34,740,267, as compared with Tls. 39,131,384 in 1905.

Chefoo is much in need of railway communication as well as improvements in the harbour, and both of these undertakings are under contemplation by Chinese capital- ists. These improvements, in the estimation of business men, will greatly develop the importance of Chefoo as a trade centre. An extensive work known as the Chefoo City Bund and Reclamation Scheme is expected to greatly improve the port, and if present intentions are fulfilled, the first model town under native jurisdiction will arise on the reclaimed land. Chefoo is an important port of call for large numbers of regular line and tramp steamers, being in the line communcation between Indian, South China, Japanese, Corean and Manchurian ports and the ports north. During the season from March to December as many as thirty to forty steamers per day often enter and clear the port. The cable and telegraph offices with chambers for employes, are the most substantial and imposing buildings of the kind in China, excepting the Shanghai buildings. The port supplies Vladivostock and Siberia with upwards of one hundred thousand coolies annually; the coolies leave for Vladivostock during the spring months and those returning reach Chefoo in the latter part of the year.. This movement of coolies furnishes business for numbers of steamers.

Directory_and_Chronicle_1909 — Page 883

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