Directory_and_Chronicle_1924 — Page 633

CHINA

571

The above figures do not include the Famine Relief Tax, the collection of which ceased on February 28th, 1922.

All Foreign Loans and Indemnity obligations seeured on the Customs revenues, including the service of the Reorganisation Loan, and all domestic loan obligations indirectly secured on the Customs collections, of which the loan service is under the management of the Inspector-General, were fully met.

CUSTOMS REVENUE FOR 1923

The Maritime Customs revenue for 1923 amounted to Hk. Tls. 63,378,000, which, at an average exchange of 3s. 5d., equals £11,025,100 sterling.

Although the effective five per cent. import tariff was in force practically the whole year, revenue increased by only Taels 4,744,000 on the previous record collection in 1922. As a result of the drop in average exchange from 3/9 in 1922 to 3s. 53d. in 1923, the gold equivalent of the 1923 collection is only £37,600 more than the collection in 1922,

The revenue from the Native Customs under the Inspector-General amounted to Hk. Tls. 4,480,000, equalling £779,330-an increase of Hk. Tls. 162,000 over 1922.

All Foreign Loans and Indemnity obligations secured on the Customs, including the Reorganization Loan, were met or fully covered.

Of the Domestic Loan obligations indirectly secured on the Customs, of which the service is under the Inspeetor-General, those of the third. fourth and eleventh years were fully met. Revenue funds, however, did not permit the service of the "Con- solidated Debt to be fully maintained.

While all interest payments were punctually made according to schedule, funds were sufficient only to allow of one loan drawing during the year, and redemption pay- ments were approximately $7,720,000 in arrear.

RAILWAYS

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. A 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. This little railway 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 and only lack of funds retards the completion of many new lines.

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 permission froin 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 Taku and Tientsin on the one hand, and to Kinchow and Newchwang on the Gulf of Liao-tung on the other. This track 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 vid 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 connected it with one of the principal gates; the traffic developed so rapidly that in 1898-9 the electric line had to be doubled. From Lukouchiao (or Marco Polo's Bridge) a line of about eighty miles in length was constructed southward to Paoting- fu, the capital of the province of Chihli ; this line, in October, 1899, was handed over by the British constructors to the Belgian Syndicate as an integral factor in the great trans-continental line from Peking to Hankow. These lines were all inore or less. deliberately and in some parts completely destroyed by the Chinese during 1900. The Railways, as foreign innovations, were particularly hateful to the Boxers, who in many cases attacked the lines with a fury as intense as it was insensate: burning the stations, destroying bridges, firing the sleepers and carrying off the metals. Later on, track destruction was a strong feature of the strategy of the Imperial troops, and from their point of view, wisely so. It was the cutting of the Railway that was the sole cause of Admiral Seymour's failure in his gallant attempt to rescue the Legations. All the lines in North China were attacked and badly cut. Since then the terminus at Peking

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