Directory_and_Chronicle_1941 — Page 649

SWATOW

A 409

opened to traffic on November 25th, 1906. The contractors were Japanese, who 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.

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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.

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.

On June 21, 1939 the Japanese landed at Swatow since when the port has remained closed to all but Japanese vessels, with the exception of one non-Japanese ship a week, which, however, is only permitted to carry passengers and stores for the personal use of Europeans residing at Swatow. The Chinese Maritime Customs has also remained close.

TRADE IN 1939

Several diverse factors, some adverse and some favourable, influenced the course of trade at Swatow during 1939. The predominating feeling among mer- chants at the beginning of the year was one of nervousness, and this prevailed in varying degree until it became more intense with an increase in air-raids during May. Finally, Japanese warships arrived in the river on the 21st June and the port was occupied on the night of the 21st-22nd June. Swatow was closed to general trading from the latter date and remained closed at the end of the year. From the 18th July postal parcel traffic was permitted and Cus- toms duty was charged. Goods in commercial quantities, however, could not be exported by this means, and from the 16th November, in addition to Cus- toms duty, a tax of 40 per cent was imposed on goods imported from abroad by parcel post. The conditions affecting trade adversely were apprehension of a landing by Japanese forces, air-raids, evacuation of a large proportion of the inhabitants, the high cost of imported goods, embargoes on the export of some products, and the necessity to purchase a certificate of foreign exchange to cover the export of oertain others. Factors that encouraged trade were the occupation of Canton and the Yangtze Valley, leaving Swatow the most convenient port for the shipment of goods to and from Northern Kwangtung, Kiangsi, Hunan, and even provinces farther west; the desire of importers to lay up stocks before the possible occupation of Swatow; and the anxiety of exporters to dispose of their produce.

The sum result of these handicaps and encouragements was greatly to in- crease trade while the port was open, the total value of trade, which for the full year 1938 was $145.2 million and for the first six months of 1938 $78.9 million, being for 1939-with the port closed from the 22nd June-$125.4 million, there little doubt that if the port had remained unoccupied until the end of the year the value of trade would have surpassed any previous year's figures.

Comparative value statistics for the trade of the port were as follows: direct foreign imports, $33.4 million as compared with $36.6 million; coast wise imports of Chinese produce, $54 million as against $45.6 million; direct exports to foreign countries, $34,2 million as against $37.6 million; and coastwise ex- portations of Chinese goods, $10.7 million as compared with $25.4 million.

Imports of foreign rice fell from 1,069,000 quintals in 1938 to 773,000 quin- tals during the first six months of 1939 and were largely responsible for the decline in the value of imports as compared with 1938. Another foreign com- modity that fell short of 1938 imports was sulphate of ammonia, which fell in

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