Directory_and_Chronicle_1936 — Page 874

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KONGMOON

With unremitting efforts of the provincial authorities and the co-operation of the people in the interior, a few hundred miles of highways have been completed during recent years in the districts around Kongmoon. Places a journey to which took one to travel in many days formerly can now be reached within a few hours. Of all the highways that connect with Kongmoon, the most important one is that which links up this port with Fatshan known as Kongmoon-Fatshan Highway ( 佛 A ). This road runs through populous and richly cultivated districts. Regular motor-bus services are maintained throughout the year. A journey from Kongmoon to Fatshan takes 5 hours only which might again be shortened to less than 33 hours, should the different sections of the road be linked up by bridges instead of by ferry boats which are being employed in crossing revulets transversing the districts in which the road is constructed.

A telegraph office was opened on the 8th December 1907 in the town, and in November 1911, in the Settlement, and telegraphic communication is now possible with the Fatshan office. Long distance telephones on the overland telegraph lines between Kongmoon and Canton, Shekki (7) and Yeung- kong () were completed in the early part of 1933 and have been open to communication. In order to bring this, port into closer touch with Canton, it is reported that contemplations will be made before long for the installation of radiophone system linking Canton with Kongmoon. The estimated cost of the project is reported to be $100,000.

TRADE IN 1934

Due to continued unemployment in Canada, America, etc., and to the anti-Chinese movements in Mexico, reniittances from Chinese emigrants aggregated 1 or 2% of the amount in

amount in a normal

normal year. Farmers, in their constant efforts to obtain cash, were obliged under unsaleable conditions, to market their goods at low selling prices. The returns for silk and for general agricultural products fell short, in most cases, of the outlay incurred in their production: thus the rural population were reduced to poverty. As the outcome of decreased receipts from these principal sources, the general pur- chasing power became further weakened, trade was further paralysed and the already stringent financial situation was more acute throughout the year. Trade advances are extremely difficult to be obtained, the rate of interest for which appreciated from 7% per mensem in May and June to 12% in November and December. Deposits in native banks were withdrawn either for distrust, or for supplying personal needs necessitated on account of the non-receipt of remittances from abroad, resulting in the failure of most of the native banks in the hinterland. By the end of the year, business in all lines was reported to have been losing. These being the state of affairs, direct foreign imports fell off in value from 17.8 million dollars, or approximately 60%. Owing to the economic depression abroad, exports of native produce, too, although offered at cheap prices revealed no improvements. With this adverse factor remaining, matters were not ameliorated by the introduction, in June, of a new Export Tariff with duties on certain articles reduced or exempted, as the case may be. Based on the export statistics of foreign trade for 1933, the annual loss to the export duty at this port, in consequence of the working of the new Export Tariff, is computed at approximately $83,000.

The total value of the port's trade in 1934 was Standard $15,009,000, as compared with $25,134,000 in 1933, Standard $28,734,000 in 1932, and Standard $26,912,000 in 1931.

The principal articles of export consist of prepared tobacco, joss-sticks, strawmats, paper, palm-leaf fans, fresh oranges and fresh vegetables; imports are largely represented by rice, wheat flour, salt-fish, sulphate of ammonia, and foreign sundries. Large quantities of softwood poles are floated down in the form of rafts, which are dismantled here. These mostly come from beyond Wuchow and also from North River. The yearly value of this branch