Directory_and_Chronicle_1916 — Page 1107

MENGTSZ

Mung-tsz

This is a district city in south-east Yunnan, and together with Man-hao, a village on the left bank of the Red River, was opened to trade by the Additional Convention to the French Treaty of Tientsin of the 25th April, 1886, signed at Peking on the 26th June, 1887. The town is two days' journey from Man-hao and about six days' from the frontier of Tonkin at Laokay, and beautifully situated, being built on a cultivated plateau twenty miles long by about twelve miles in breadth, encircled by picturesque mountains, and is 4,280 feet above the level of the sea. It has a population of about 11,000 persons, but was a place of much more importance before the Mahommedan rebellion, as the numerous well-built temples, many of them now in ruins, still testify. It is, however, a considerable commercial emporium even now, and is becoming an important centre for the distribution of foreign goods imported via Tonkin. The French Consul hoisted his flag at Mêngtsz on the 30th April, 1889, and the Customs station was opened in the following August. The net value of the trade of the port for 1914 was Tls. 16,153,775 as compared with Tls. 19,678,916 for 1913, Tls. 19,569,689 in 1912, Tls. 11,395,062 in 1911, Tls. 11,464,929 in 1910, Tls. 10,943,248 in 1909, Tls. 10,095,114 in 1908 and Tls. 9,536,444 in 1907. The Chinese merchants avail themselves largely of the advantages offered by the transit pass system. The value of goods sent into the interior under transit passes during the year 1914 was Tls. 4,916,171. The value of the trade of the Yunnan-fu, Pishihchai, Hokow, - Mapai and Manhao branch office is included in the Mengtsz Custom returns. The climate of Mêngtsz is temperate and salubrious. Plague has been absent from Mêngtsz since 1899. During the winter good sport is obtained, snipe and wild fowl being abund- ant in the plains, and some pheasants and partridges in the hilly districts, but the presence of a large number of sportsmen of all kinds is making all game scarce.

A new French Consulate was finished in 1893, new dwelling-houses for members of the Customs service in 1894, and a new Custom-house in the spring of 1895. All these buildings are outside the East gate of the city. On the 22nd June, 1899, a riot occurred, in the course of which the Custom-house and French Consulate were looted. The Compagnie Lyonnaise Indo-Chinoise in 1899 opened a branch to Mêngtsz. Others have followed in their footsteps and four large commercial houses in Indo-China are now represented. The last rail on the Laokay-Yunnan section of the Annam-Yunnan Railway was laid on the 1st of February, 1910, and two months later the whole line -470 kilometres-was opened to passenger and goods traffic. A branch office of the Mengtsz Customs was opened at Yunnanfu on 20th April, 1910. Mêngtsz is now only 12 hours by rail from the Tonkin border and 22 hours from the coast. The British Consul has pointed out that not least of the benefits which the line should confer would be the provision of sanatoria for Indo-China, even, maybe, for Singapore, Bangkok and Hong- kong. If for twenty years, he says, the Chinese peasant could be checked in his -there has been ruthless destruction of timber-the lake region of Yunnan would he- ravages come a terrestrial paradise. Several houses for the accommodation of the Railway Mission have been built at Mêngtsz since 1900, and as a sequel to the immigration, rents, wages, and the cost of living for natives and foreigners alike have risen greatly. During the last four years the Chinese Post Office has pushed its way into the interior till now the south-east of Yunnan is covered with a network of lines and nearly every town has its establishment.

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