Directory_and_Chronicle_1939 — Page 799

SWATOW

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opened to traffic on November 25th, 1906. The contractors were Japanese, whỏ supplied all material, the rails and engines coming from America and the carriages from Japan. The construction of the line brought about a great inflation of land values.

Swatow has an electric light plant and a waterworks has been in operation since 1914, the reservoir being at Ampou, about eight miles inland. In the middle of 1919 a telephone service was introduced. The city now has the most modern automatic telephone service.

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Swatow is by no means slow in the race with other China ports for im provement. Road making and road widening are being carried out rapidly, and the public park at the back of Swatow is being gradually improved. Three Fire Brigades-well equipped with modern apparatus-protect the town, two of thesc being financed by different charitable guilds. An Orphanage, organised after the Typhoon of 1922, a Poor Peoples Workshop and a Leper Station, besides the Mission Hospitals, are among the charitable institutions of the port.

TRADE IN 1937

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For Swatow the year was one of very varying fortunes. During a first period of seven months, which ended when the Sino-Japanese hostilities had spread to Shanghai, almost all branches of trade flourished and something very like boom conditions prevailed. Then came a period, lasting about three months, of extreme contraction and depression of business, the natural conse- quence of the Japanese coastal blockade which was declared on the 26th August and of attacks on Swatow by Japanese warships, and aeroplanes in early September. During this second period, so great was the general appresension that large numbers of the inhabitants of Swatow fled to Hongkong, Macao, and the

tion of thuntry-side, and this exodus more than halved the resident popula-

tion of the town. During the last two months of the year fears of further attack on the town were partially allayed, many of those who had gone away returned, and there was a substantial recovery in foreign trade. But domestic trade continued to languish because of the fighting in the North and the Yang- tze Valley. Had it not been for the Sino-Japanese conflict, 1937 would have been a signally prosperous year.

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A comparison of the statistics of trade with the previous year gives the following results direct foreign imports, $36.3 million as against $29.6 mil- lion for 1936; coastwise importations of Chinese goods, $57.1 million as against $67.7 million; direct exports to foreign countries, $33.5 million as against $23.2 million;" and coastwise exportations of Chinese goods, $23 million as against $25.6 million. It is evident from these figures that foreign trade bene fited directly from the crippling of interport trade by war conditions. Foreign trade was also much assisted by the remarkable steadiness of the national dollar, which never fell below a rate of 1.075 to the Hongkong dollar at Swa- tow, and only stayed at that minimum level for a very short period. Among the principal imports from abroad were embroidery linens, of which more than 6,300,000 metres, valued at $6.6 million, were imported. Of sulphate of ammonia 336,955 quintals was imported, chiefly from Germany and England, this amount exceeding the previous year's figure by some 40,000 quintals. imports of kerosene oil totalled 17,109,129 litres as compared with 4,692,442 litres during 1936, the increase being due to the abolition, on the dissolution of the South-west Political Council, of the specially favourable duty rate for fuel oil imports enjoyed by the native kerosene refineries, these latter being no longer able to undercut the foreign oil companies. The import of foreign rice was slightly higher at 1,062,265 quintals, mostly from Bangkok. Dimi- nished importations of fishery products, cotton piece goods, and artificial silk goods are explained by the fact that in previous years the major portion. of these coinmodities came from Japan. Coal, aniline dyes, and newsprinting paper were all imported in larger quantities than in

in the previous year.