Directory_and_Chronicle_1932 — Page 928

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CANTON

of the city since it was placed under government supervision has improved and leaves little room for complaint. The automatic telephone system, the installation of which was completed in 1930, is very efficient and the number of subscribers is steadily increasing and already exceeds, 4,300. A long- distance telephone service between Hongkong and Canton was opened on September 1st 1931 and three minutes conversation may now be had between these two cities for a fee of three dollars. Transport facilities on the Canton- Kowloon Railway, which consists of 22 miles in British territory and 9 miles in Chinese, and was completed in 1911, have also greatly improved in 1931 with the introduction of new locomotives and general reconditioning of the line. An express train now takes a little over three hours to cover the journey whereas a year ago it took half again as long. Real work has also begun on the completion of the Canton-Hankow Railway and it will not be long before the line will have been extended from Shiukuan, 140 miles north of Canton, to Lokcheong. The mountains to be traversal to complete the Canton-Hankow Line offer, however, great engineering difficulties which will involve very heavy expenditure. A branch line of this railway runs from Canton to Samshui on the West River and therefore brings West River ports within easier reach of Canton. The two Canton terminii of the railway are situated on opposite banks of the Pearl River and it is hoped to link them together eventually by the construction of a bridge. An extension of the Can- ton-Samshui line to Shiu-hing and thence via the West River ports to Kwangsi is planned by the authorities who also contemplate the construction of an east bound line from the Canton-Kowloon Railway to Swatow and eventually to Amoy.

In accordance with stipulations in the Supplementary Commercial Treaty between Great British and China, concluded in 1902, the various barriers or artificial obstructions to navigation in the Canton River were in 1905 partially removed. Extensive wharves and godowns have been erected at Peak Hin Hok on Honam Island, about two miles below Shameen, which enable ocean-going vessels of considerable draught to proceed up to Canton.

RECENT HISTORY

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Owing to the disturbed state of China, a British force of about 300 troops from Hongkong was quartered on the Shameen at the end of 1911, and, with big guns, maxims, barbed-wire entanglements, sand-bag fortifications, etc., the Shameen had the appearance of an island under siege. Canton remained remarkably quiet when the general rising occurred. In April the Tartar- General had been shot; in May a revolutionary crowd made an assault on the Viceroy's yamen, but stern__military measures prevented a general rising. Later in the year the new Tartar-General was assassinated by a bomb as he landed in Canton, and on another occasion an attempt, which proved nearly successful, was made to assassinate Admiral Li, who so effectually checked the rising in May. When the revolution broke out on a grand scale in October, the Viceroy, recognising the hopelessness of resistance with troops honeycombed with sedition and with a population unanimously in sympathy with revolu- tion, readily agreed to the transfer of the Government to the revolutionary leaders, and the independence of the province was thus attained without blood- shed. In July, 1913, when a rebellion broke out in several provinces against what was described as the dictatorship of Yuan Shih-kai, the Tuchun, Chen Chiung-ming, proclaimed the independence of the province. The ex-viceroy Tchen came down to Canton as the generalissimo of the rebel forces to organise an expedition to proceed north to punish Yuan Shih-kai, brt he failed to win over General Lung Chikwang, of Kwangsi, who remained loyal to the Central Government, and marched with a large force upon Canton. As this force approached the city the Tuchun and the Generalissimo fled, and on reaching Canton General Lung cancelled the declaration of independence, and gradually restored peace and order in the city, where much looting and some fighting took place prior to and for some time after his arrival. In 1916 when the troubles arose over Yuan Shih-kai's attempt to ascend the Dragon throne,