Directory_and_Chronicle_1940 — Page 792

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SWATOW

opened to traffic on November 25th, 1906. The contractors were Japanese, whoar 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 these 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 1938

Although Swatow was spared actual hostilities during the year, Japanese naval demonstrations and aerial bombardments caused the population great apprehension and reacted unfavourably on trade during several periods of varying lengths. Nevertheless, trade on the whole prospered more than could have been expected under the circumstances, and its value reached almost the level of the record year 1937. For a few days at the beginning of February; J apanese naval vessels shelled the coast in this vicinity and aeroplanes were frequently over the town; from the 20th to the 24th, June raiders appeared over Swatow daily and bombed the fort, railway station, and electric-light works, while on the 1st and 2nd, July numerous heavy bombers subjected various municipal and military building and the electric-light works to most severe bombing, causing, besides much material damage, hundreds of casualties amongst the civilian population. Again on the 12th and 13th October Japanese warships bombarded the coast of this district, and the railway station was amongst the civilian population. Again on the 12th and 13th, October Japanese troops at Bias Bay. These events, particularly those in July and October, caused a great exodus of people, many leaving for the interior and others for Hongkong. Shops were closed, business suspended, factories shut down, and the import and export trade, particularly the former, came almost to а standstill. With the usual resilience of commerce in China, however, con- fidence was regained after each scare, and towards the end of the year trade was back at such proportions as have been normal since hostilities commenced.

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A comparsion of the statistics of trade with the previous year gives the following result: direct foreign imports, $36.3 million for the previous year; coastwise importations of Chinese goods, $45.6 million as against $57.1 million; direct exports to foreign countries, $37.6 million as against $33.5 million; and coast- wise exportations of Chinese goods, $25.4 million as against $23 million. From these figures it is evident that, as in the previous year, the interport import trade suf- fered from war conditions. The inward flow of foreign goods was irregular, fluctuating according to rumours and war threats to Swatow, another adverse factor being the fall in the value of the national dollar, which early in the year stood at 107 and in October was quoted at 194 to Hongkong $100, while towards the end of the year it had somewhat recovered and stood at about 177. Among the principal foreign imports in Swatow, embroidery linen was in good demand during the first half of the year, but, owing to fear of hos- tilities reaching this locality, merchants later reduced importations to а minimum; 5,250,000 metres valued at $6.1 million were imported, which as a quantitative reduction of about 17 per cent as compared with last year. Cotton cambrics for embroidery purposes, whereof 1,210,000 metres were im ported from Japan during 1937, decreased to 325,000 metres and arrived

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