Directory_and_Chronicle_1935 — Page 799

CHANGSHA

A411

B. Sc., is the great grand-daughter of the distinguished statesman himself. There is a second memorial temple to Tso Tsung-tang, one of the most famous lieutenants of Tseng Kuo fan. There is also a temple on one of the western streets to Chia 1, the most celebrated scholar of his day, who died in Changsha, B.C. 165. In the temple is a marble settee which is alleged to have been used by Chia I.

Outside the city there is a very fine hospital, which was erected at a cost of $185,000 by a former Yale graduate for the use of the Hunan-Yale Medical College The direction of the hospital is in the hands of a board, composed equally of repre- sentatives of the Hunan gentry and the Yale Mission. The Yale School and College buildings are in the immediate neighbourhood. These are all outside the north gate. Outside the south gate are the fained antimony works of the Huachang Company, which has branch offices in the Woolworth Building, New York. There are two electric-lighting companies.

On the island are to be found the British Consulate and the residences of the indoor Customs and Post Office staffs and of the managers of the Standard Oil, Asiatic Petroleum, British-American Tobacco Companies, Butterfield & Swire and many other mercantile firns.

Many new roads have been built and motor buses now run daily direct to Ning- siang, Yiyang, Changteh and Taoyuan to the Northwest, Hengchowfu, Leiyang. Chenchow and Ichang to the South and to Siangtan and Paoking to the Southwest from Changsha.

TRADE IN 1933

Except for slight disturbances caused by communist raids on the Hunan-Hupeh and the Hunan-Kiangsi borders, Changsha and the whole province of Hunan again enjoyed unusually tranquil conditions during 1933, thanks to the good order main- tained throughout the country by General Ho Chien and his civil and military lieuten- ants. The exclusion of junk-borne and rail-borne cargoes from Customs statistics and the fact that the coastwise movements of foreign goods that have already paid duty at port of entry are no longer recorded, makes it increasingly difficult to give accurate data in proof of statements regarding the trend of trade at such a port as Changsha, but, from the statistics available, it would appear that a decline of about 10 per cent. occurred in the total value of the trade of the port during the year under review. The prosperity or otherwise of international trade affects the port not a little through demand and prices for ores; the boycott of Japanese goods was maintained throughout most of the year (except for surreptitious importations disguised as native goods); external and internal political conditions caused a certain amount of uncertainty; floods of some magnitide occurred in 37 districts, mostly in the Tungting Lake region; and the port felt the loss of its Manchurian markets considerably. Kerosene oil and sugar are the principal items on the import side of Changsha's trade, and a feature of the year was that the bulk of both these commodities arrived as direct shipments from abroad, approximately 6 million gallons of the former and 100,000 piculs of the latter paying duty on arrival, the extra duty received in this connection accounting for most of the increase in revenue that made the year's collection a record for the port. Com- petition from Russian oil had a great effect on retail charges for kerosene, however, the price at one time falling from $1 to $5.40 unit. The export staples of the port are ores and rice, must of the ore eventually finding its way abroad. Shipments of ant imony, crude, regulus, and oxide, rose (in round figures) from 26,000, 161,000, and 18,000 piculs respectively in 1932 to 27,000, 181,000, 18,000 piculs in the year under review. The province is rich in mineral deposits, but, under the present methods of working, only coal, antimony, lead, manganese, gold, quicksilver, tungsten, and zinc are of any commercial importance. Gold is found in many valleys along the Yuan River, but at only a few places are the deposits systematically worked. The output is placed at about 414 ounces of pure gold a month. Lead is obtained at Shuikoushan, and, after smelting at Changsha, is shipped inainly to the arsenals at Hanyang and Nanking. Hunan is one of the most important rice centres in the country, and, on the whole, an excellent harvest was reaped during the year. Although the surplus available for export had some difficulty in finding a market owing to high taxation and the com- petition of good crops in Hupeh, Honan and Anhwei, some 614,000 piculs were cleared coastwise through the Customs as against 176,000 piculs in 1932. There was a ban on exports during the first eight months of the previous year, however. Although handic- apped by an insufficiency of funds, the Provincial Government continued to do all that