Directory_and_Chronicle_1927 — Page 637

TIENTSIN

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a Commission, composed of Chinese and foreign engineers, has been estab- lished to draw up plans for the improvement of the Grand Canal, and hopes are entertained that this waterway will ultimately be restored to something like its former usefulness. While it is improbable that it will ever again be used for through traffic from the Yangtsze it will doubtless serve a very useful purpose as a means of com-- munication between many busy trading centres in this Province and Tientsin. The natural expansion of trade to be expected from Tientsin's unique position as the distributing centre of North China has been arrested from time to time by the defective communications with the sea; both the Hai Ho and the Taku Bar have stood in the way of development and limited the carrying trade of the port to light-draught coasting steamers.

Early in September, 1917, the Hunho was in flood, and, finally, the Grand Canal burst its banks a few miles west of Tientsin, carrying away the main line of the Tientsin-Pukow Railway, which resulted in the Concessions being flooded before much warning of the impending danger could be given. The Municipal authorities of the various Concessions dealt with the problem in a prompt and public-spirited manner, and it was ultimately decided to enclose the submerged Concessions with a dyke and pump out the flood waters therefrom. The lengths of the various dykes in miles were approximately as follows:-Chinese (ex-German) 0.47; British, 1.40; French and British, 0.87; French, 0.32; Japanese, 2.27; total, 5.33 miles. Powerful pumps were then erected, and the whole undertaking for the British and French Concessions was successfully and expeditiously completed in a fortnight. It took longer to clear the Japanese Concession, however, where the water was from 7 to 10 feet deep in places. It is estimated that over 15,000 square miles of the most populous part of the Chihli province between Paotingfu and Tientsin were flooded, and it has been calculated that crops to the value of $100,000,000 were utterly lost, and that 80,000 groups of dwellings, ranging from hamlets to large villages, were destroyed.

In 1924 unprecedentedly heavy rains in the hinterland caused a very severe flood in the district between Paotingfu, Peking and Tientsin, though fortunately both these latter towns escaped.

The question of conserving the waterways of the Chihli province, with a view to preventing a recurrence of the disasters experienced in the past and safeguarding the trade and shipping interests of Tientsin, has occupied attention for some years past, and various conservancy engineers have individually issued reports on the subject; but no co-ordinated scheme on broad lines and acceptable to all interests has so far been adopted. The interests which the successful conservation of the waterways of the province would serve are of immense importance the inhabitants of the plains would secure immunity from floods, and agriculture would be promoted by improved methods of irrigation; communications would cease to suffer periodical interruption, and the vast trade of North China would be safeguarded and fostered; while the immediate welfare of Tientsin would be protected and the navigability of the Haiho improved.

Turning to the civil administration of the city, it is well known that during the long satrapy of Li the trade and importance of the city developed exceedingly. Li, by the vigour of his rule, soon quelled the rowdyism for which the Tientsinese were notorious throughout the empire, and, as he made the city his chief residence and the centre of his many experiments in military and naval education, it came to be regarded as the focus of the new learning and national reform. The foreign affairs of China were practically directed from Tientsin during the two decades.

1874-94.

The city will ever be infamous to Europeans from the massacre of the French Sisters of Mercy and other foreigners on June 21st, 1870, in which the most appalling brutality was exhibited; as usual, the political agitators who instigated the riot got off. The Roman Catholic Cathedral, which was destroyed on that occasion, was rebuilt, and the new building was consecrated in 1897, only again to fall a victim to Boxer fury in 1900. The building occupied a commanding site on the river bank. All the missions and many of the foreign hongs had agencies in the city prior to the debacle of 1900.

The population is reputed to be close upon 2,000,000, but there is no reliable statistical evidence to justify those figures. The city walls were quadrate and extended about 4,000 feet in the direction of each cardinal point; during the year