Directory_and_Chronicle_1922 — Page 1049

MENGTSZ AND YUNNANFU

自蒙 Ê * Mêng-s

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 1920 was Hk. Tls. 22,226,143, as compared with Hk. Tls. 18,958,822 for 1919, Hk. Tls. 20,873,043 for 1918 and Hk. Tls. 18,773,849 for 1917. The Chinese merchants avail them- selves largely of the advantages offered by the transit pass system. The value of the trade of the Yunnan-fu, Pishihchai, Hokow, Mapai and Manhao branch offices is included in the Mengtsz Custom returns. The province depends for its purchasing power on tin. In his report for 1920, the Commissioner of Customs says:- With a Government which will grant a respite from the war with neighbouring provinces, which will re-establish order and guarantee some security for life and property throughout the country, and will enforce strict legislation against the destruction of the forests, there is little doubt that Yunnan, with its mineral treasures and mountains so well adapted for the growing of timber, might easily become a pros- perous and wealthy country and that it would supply the rest of China with timber and metal in sufficient quantities to make the Republic independent as regards these commodities.

Unless severe laws against the destruction of the forests are promptly enforced, in a very few years, the last of her forests having disappeared and taken away with them the remaining chances of an impoverished land to recover itself, South Yunnan will resemble the arid desert of North China, swept by droughts, floods, and famine and an eyesore and a drain on the resources of the rest of the country.' 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 abundant in the plains and some pheasant and partridge in the hilly districts. 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 in Mêngtsz and others have since followed in their footsteps. The British firm of Brunner, Mond & Co. and the French firm La Compagnie Générale d'Extreme Orient, of Paris, opened agencies at Yunnanfu and Mengtsz, respectively, in 1920. The last rail on the Laokay-Yunnan-fu 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 8 hours by rail from the Tonkin border and 22 hours from the coast. The construction of the Ko-Pi Railway, which is to connect Kokiu with Mengtsz and Pishihchai, is in progress. The part of the line running through the mountains, which is considered to be a work of engineering art, was due to be finished and through traffic started in 1921, The British Consul has pointed out that not least of the benefits which the Annam- Yunnan line should confer would be the provision of sanatoria for Indo-China, even, maybe, for Singpaore, Bangkok and Hongkong. If for twenty years, he says, the Chinese peasant could be checked in his ravages-there has been ruthless destruction