;
TIENTSIN
755
enormous trade in pea-nuts (with Canton) has been created. Coal has come extensively into Chinese household use the foreign residents are developing a first-rate watering place at Pei-tai-ho on the Gulf of Pe-chi-li, and all the various industries of the city have been stimulated.
Brick buildings are springing up in all directions and the depressing-looking adobe (mud) huts are diminishing.
Foreigners formerly lived in three concessions, British, French, and German, which fringed the river below the City and covered an area of less than 500 acres. The Japanese took up a concession in accordance with the terms of the Treaty of Shimonoseki. They filled in land, laid out new streets and built a large number of houses in foreign style. During 1901 Russia, Belgium, Italy, and Austro-Hungary all appropriated large areas on the left bank of the Hai-ho as future Settlements, while the existing concessions extended their boundaries very considerably. These developments have thrown all present and future landing facilities for direct sea-going traffic into Foreign hands. The concessions have excellent and well-lighted roads, with an electric tramway system. The British Municipality has a handsome Town Hall, completed in 1889; adjoining there is a well kept public garden, opened in the year of Jubilee and styled Victoria Park. An excellent recreation ground of ten acres has been developed, and three miles distant there is a capital race-course, one of the best in China, with a grand stand and stables not to be found in any other port. There are many hotels, two clubs (Tientsin Club and Concordia, the latter chiefly German), two excellent libraries and three churches (Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Union). Electric lighting was introduc- ed in June, 1905.
Distilling is one of the largest local industries; it is chiefly from kowliang (sorghum) or millet. Although a spirit, it is called "wine," and is exported to the south in large quantities. The manufacture of coarse unrefined salt by the evaporation of sea water is also carried on near Taku; the produce is stacked some distance down river at the first cutting, where all the salt junks now go. It was formerly stacked on the river bank opposite the British concession, and sometimes gave off very offensive smells, rendering life a burden. The trade in salt is a Government monopoly. In 1908 the export of salt was 1,500,000 cwts. as against some 40,000 cwts. in 1907, the increase being entirely due to shipments to the Yangtse region, which had hitherto been supplied from other sources. Carpets, shoes, glass, coarse earthenware, and fire- works are also made in large quantities in the city, but Tientsin is at present essen- tially a centre for distribution and collection rather than for manufacture. The exports include coal, wool (from Kokonor, Kansuh, etc.), bristles, straw braid, goat skins, furs, wine, etc. The export trade is a creation only some 15 or 20 years old, and is largely due to foreign initiative. Wool cleaning and braid and bristle sorting are the chief industries in the foreign hongs except those of the Russians, who are ex- clusively engaged in the transit of tea. The imports are of the usual miscellaneous nature: arms, tea for the Desert and Siberia, mineral oil, matches, and needles figure next to piece goods. The fine arts are unknown to the Tientsinese except in the shape of cleverly-made mud-figures; these are painted and make really admirable statuettes, but are difficult to carry away, being remarkably brittle.
The export coal trade may be expected to develop rapidly, as the Chinese Corpora- tion has been replaced by a strong combination of British and Belgian capitalists registered as an English limited liability company. The output and sale of the Kaiping collieries is about 1,250,000 tons a year, of which about 280,000 tons annually is brought to Tientsin for disposal to local consumers and to native craft navigating the Grand Canal and other inland waterways. Tientsin is practically the only sea out- let for the entire trade of the provinces of Chihli, Shansi, Shensi, Kansuh, and part of Honan, with a population not far short of 100,000,000, but the trade of the port has de- clined substantially since 1906. Following are the comparative statistics for the years
1906, 1907 and 1908 :-
Net total imports—
Foreign
Native
...
Total exports of local origin
1906.
1907.
1908. Tls. 64,422,439 Tls. 61,208,744 Tls. 35,903,450
""
26,616,808 21,825,308
19
18,317,007 17,253,215
JJ
11
24,724,132 19,144,941
tous
Net value of trade of port.... Tls. 112,864,555 Tls. 96,778,966 Tls. 79,772,523 Tientsin played a great part in the history of China during the momen- to years of the Boxer outbreak; after the capture of the Taku Forts and its own relief from twenty-seven days' siege in June-July, 1900, it became the primary base for the Allied invasion of North China.
As the centre of the
incurred the particular
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