Directory_and_Chronicle_1914 — Page 780

762

CHINA

Treasure. The estimate of treasure movements between Hongkong and non-Chinese ports is the best obtainable, but it is not offered as more than an approximation.

Silver was drawn from Europe (Hk. Tls. 1,080,000), from San Francisco (Hk. Tls. 10,393,774), from India (Hk. Tls. 10,437,000), and from Japan and French Indo-China (Hk. Tls. 4,500,000); while some small shipments were sent to the Straits and Siam. Gold was sent to Europe (Hk. Tls. 1,285,000), the Straits (Hk. Tls. 6,352,000), and India (Hk, Tls. 1,660,000); but was received from Australia (Hk. Tls. 3,787,000), Japan (Hk. Tls. 11,382,000), and America (Hk. Tls. 124,000).

Balance of Trade.-An increase of about 8 million taels is shown in the excess of imports over exports; but this is more than balanced by smaller net importations of treasure and by the effect of high exchange on the total charge for loans and indemni- ties. The position is not essentially changed, as the following statement proves :-

Liabilities.

Value of merchandise imported in 1912 Net import of treasure to commercial area. Loans and indemnities............ Invisible liabilities (estimate of 1909)

Assets.

Value of merchandise exported in 1912 Invisible assets (estimate of 1909)

...........Hk. Tls. 473,097,031

11

""

31,606,715 50,000,0 0 33,350,000

-588,053,746

Hk. Tls. 370,520,403 150,500,000

-521,020,403

With occasional checks and temporary discouragements the course of exchange was steadily upwards throughout the year. Beginning at 2s. 6d. in January, the demand rate for the Shanghai tael touched 2s. 1td. in December. The belief, surviving repeated disappointments, in the early conclusion of a "sextuple" loan was among the principal reasons for the rise.

RAILWAYS.

A

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. 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

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