Directory_and_Chronicle_1925 — Page 959

HANKOW

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of mild steel. In August, 1895, the Wuchang Mint was established. The Mint has had to be considerably enlarged in recent years to enable it to keep pace with the demand. The machinery was greatly damaged in the Revolution.

The local manufacturing industries include, besides the Government ironworks and arsenals, cotton and silk weaving. The new mill of the Hankow Dee Yee Cotton Spin- ning and Weaving Company, Ltd., which had been building for several years, was opened in January, 1920, and two others are in course of construction. A carriage and wagon works to supply rolling stock to the Yueh-Han Railway, closely allied with the Hanyang Ironworks, which is turning out bridges and girders for railways, has been established on the Hankow side of the river. The Wuchang Cotton and Hemp mills, together with the silk filature, were leased by the Viceroy in 1902 to a company of Chinese capitalists at 100,000 taels a year, for a period of 20 years.

period of 20 years. Apart from the Hemp mill, which began operations in 1904, under Japanese management, the concern is doing a flourishing business. A tannery and three flour mills were started in 1906. Other flour mills have since been erected, and the bean oil milling industry is also well established in the port. Paper mills, much damaged during the Revolution, are now working again, under Government auspices. Since the Great War a large number of workshops and factories have been established to meet the ever-increasing local demands. In Hankow itself three soap factories, 70 or 80 cotton-spinning shops, 20 sock-making concerns, six egg factories (for export) and three flour mills have start- ed operations. The number of native banks increased from 10 before the war to 19 in : 1919. The Provincial, Agricultural and Industrial Bank of Hupeh, the Wu-Han Agricultural and Industrial Bank, and the Huang Pi Bank of Commerce were inau- gurated in 1920.

The Nanyang Brothers Tobacco Company have started a large tobacco factory. The Yangtsze Engineering Works have completed a large new blast-furance at Seven Mile Creek, and intend to put up another, which has been ordered from England. The Government Mining Bureau of Hupeh formally opened the new and valuable iron mines at Siangpeishan, near Hwangshihkang, on September 3rd, 1920. These mines are expected to rival the well-known Tayeh mines and form the security for the note issue of the Hupeh Provincial Bank. The Sui Hua Match Factory, the largest match factory in Central China, is making arrangements to increase its plant, as its products have, to a great extent, taken the place of the Japan matches which formerly held the market in this neighbourhood. The Chinese Telegraph Administra- tion have opened new offices, built of slag bricks manufactured by the Hanyang Iron- works. A large foreign style modern hospital for Chinese, built by subscription, was completed in June, 1920, in the native city.

Antimony, lead and zinc orcs are crushed by machinery on the Wuchang side and exported. A large business is done by albumen factories. Several miles below the Foreign Concessions the Shell Transport Company, Ltd., of London, have oil tanks for storing bulk oil, to be tinned on the premises. Two tanks have a capacity of 2,500 tons of oil each. During the low-water season small tank-steamers bring the oil from Shanghai. The Royal Dutch Petroleum Company, Langkat, also has an installation. The Standard Oil Co. had three large tanks crected at the end of 1904. Each installa- tion added another tank in 1906. An English Company commenced an export trade in frozen pork, cggs, poultry and game in 1909, the refrigerating plant costing upwards of £30,000.

The question of conserving the Yangtsze and deepening the various so-called "crossings" to enable ocean-going steamers to visit Hankow during the winter or low-water season is under consideration. Mr. Maze, the Commissioner of Customs, wrote as follows on the subject in the course of a review of the trade of the Yangtsze Valley for the year 1921 :-"The first official, but indirect, recognition of the important and far-reaching question of the conservancy of the Yangtsze with a view to improv- ing navigational facilities on a general scale may be said to have been made by the Whangpoo Conservancy Board. In order to obtain full knowledge of the approach channels to the port of Shanghai a general investigation of the condition of the entire estuary was made by the Board in 1914-17. Later, the Board undertook the Shanghai Harbour investigation, which has been recently concluded by the conference of experts in Shanghai, in November, 1921, and in the report issued the question of how the approaches to Shanghai through the estuary of the Yangtsze should be improved is dealt with. The activities of this Board, however, have been necessarily of a local character and restrict- ed to schemes directly connected with the shipping interests of Shanghai itself. The larger question of the Yangtsze conservancy as a whole has hitherto been left in abeyance, but has come into prominence of late through the medium of the British