764
TIENTSIN
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 1909 the salt export was valued at nearly six and a half million taels. Carpets, shoes, glass, coarse earthenware, and fireworks are also made in large quantities in the city, but Tientsin is at present essentially 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 exclusively 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 aunually 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 Chilli, 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
1908, 1909 and 19 0:-
Net total imports-
Foreign
Native
Total exports of local origin
1909.
1908.
1910. Tls. 35,903, 150 Tls. 44,299,136 Tls. 53,313,037
24,724,132 19,144,941
26,376,763 28,076,485
17
19,759,167 25,018,151
tous
Net value of trade of port... Tls. 79,772,523 Tls. 98,752,584 Tls. 98,090,355 Tientsin played a great part in the history of China during the momen- 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 foreign influence, and the new learning in North China, it incurred the particular odium of the Boxers, and was the first object of their attack when they left Paotingfu at the end of May. They arrived in the city at the beginning of June
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