144
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
[August 13, 1898:
THE WUCHOW CUSTOMS · REPORT.
The following is the report of Mr. James Acheson, Acting Commissioner of Customs at Wuchow, for 1897 :---
$120-say, 15 per cent. on the the towns and hamlets along the West River. lowest prices, but this was in part counter. An immense traffic, which is chiefly served by balanced by a declino in exchange of 5 per stern-wheelers" propelled by coolies working cent, on an average. The markets of Shang. treadles, or by large passenger barges towed hai and Yokohama were very firm and by launches, exists; all run on time schedules, often active and advancing with the effect of and constitute the “suburban trains " radiating keeping up prices at Canton, in spite of the from this busy metropolis. At the same time quantity of silk being more abundant than these Native lines resemble our street tramway during any previous year. The total shipments service in their readiness to stop and pick up of matting from Hongkong were about 450,000 | the occasional passenger anywhere along their rolls, of which-as our tables show-Canton routes-an act which the Foreign steamer, no supplied 287,000 by river steamers, the rest matter how small and handy, has no permission being sent from here by junk. The new tariff to do. against this article went into effect in the United States in July. During the first four months of the year shipments were hurried off, almost regardless of quality, to enter duty free; and pices-fully 25 per cent. higher than in the subsequent August-reached an extreme known for the previous 15 years. For the 10 years prior to 1893 prices of cassia fluctuated little, averaging $5.30 per picul for cassia lignea in boxes. During this period the Kwangsi pro- ducers supplied about the same amount-70,000 to 80,000* piculs-annually, and with little change in quality. The unprecedented frost of 1893 killed half the trees, and produc- tion was greatly reduced while prices ad- vanced-reaching $19 at the end of 1897. This rise was accompanied by great deterioration in quality, although by the year 1897 the quantity produced had attained to the old normal level. Complaints of poor quality from the home markets became so serious that the Foreign. merchants in Canton, supported by the Chinese dealers, were forced to establish a system of standard samples, thereby securing a quality of cassia acceptable to home buyers.
and patronise the steamer for the sake of gain- | about ing the privilege of the pass. Furthermore, this transit revival has compelled the reduction of the provincial likin rates, lest otherwise all sorts of articles should seek pass protection, and likin revenue thereby gradually disappear al- together, so far as derivable from Foreign goods. The Treaty Transit Pass acts, as it were, to prevent the provincial authorities from building up the containing sides of the revenue reservoir above the height which its own unchangeable gauge has fixed. The importation white shirtings is 26 per cent. above that of 1806, and of grey shirtings and T-cloths it is 28 and 38 per cent, respectively. The Chinese -dealers at Canton have not been satisfied with their year's trade. The low exchange of July, August, and October was against them, and di- verted their country buyers to Hongkong in search of lower prices. The opening of the West River has put the Wuchow, Kumchuk, and Kongmoon buyers in more direct touch with Hongkong than before, and the Transit privi. lege has enabled interior and distant buyers to get their purchases laid down on the spot through Foreigners cheaper than if bought in Canton of the piece goods hongs. The actual quantity of piece goods which took out tran- sit passes cannot be called large, and yet in the case of white shirtings it amounted to 11 per cent. of the entire import, and, similarly, to 18 per cent. and 38 per cent. of the import of grey shirtings and T-cloths. The great dealers the Plece Goods Guild-of Canton are not favourable to the use of Transit Passes. They themselves undertake to pay the tso-li tax on all piece goods, and to collect certain other kindred taxes for a commission, and if country buyers can get out the passes (through Foreigners, for Chinese do not yet apply for them direct), these buyers will give the piece goods hongs and their wares, as well as the tso-li tax, the go-by altogether. 1 stated above that the revival of the transit pass privilege has compelled the reduction of provincial likiu rates. In no case is this better exemplified than in that of cotton yarn. With the opening of the West River the yarn trade was leaving the junk for the steamer to an extent startling both to the Superintendent of the native customs (the Hoppe) and to the likin board. The Hoppo reduced his tariff by 15 per cent. and the likin board devised a transit pass of its own, to be issued on payment of a single sum presenting the aggregate of the three or four likins of diverse kinds hitherto leviable. This arrangement was accompanied by facilities in the details of issue and treatment and the pass itself is guaranteed to frank yarn throughout The province, and to protect it from and all delay at likin barriers, ou pain of summary punishment for the offending likin officer. The importation of kerosene oil is 32 times as great as in the preceding year. This speaks volumes for the value of the treaty transit pass-under which 95 per cent, went inland, some to places 600 miles distant.
re-
Exports.-Of raw and thrown silk the total export of over 30,000 piculs is far the highest for the past 10 years, and its value-11 mil- lions represents one-half that of the entire native export trade. The market was dull from January till May, when dealers began to offer new silk; exchange bad fallen from 2s. 2d. to 2s. 03d. (six months' sight). Early in June there was good inquiry from Lyons, but at rates; which the Chinese were reluctant to accept. From the beginning of July until the middle of August, with exchange falling, a good business was done both for Lyons and New York. Prices then began to advance somewhat in face of the improved feeling in Lyons and New York, while exchange continued at its lowest till early in September; but at the end of that month an advance of lid. in exchange (equal to about 6 per cent.) and about 2 per cent. in the dollar value of silk was recorded In October exchange fell again, but the Chinese dealers took advant age of it to raise their prices. Towards the end of October, owing to the tightness of money, to the rumours of a conference to rehabilitate silver, rud to the alleged promise of the Bank of Eng. land to hold part of its reserve in silver, ex- change again advanced about 4 per cent; but, in spite of this fact, dollar rates for silk rose somewhat, owing to the report that the quantity available to the end of the season would run short. The total advance in prices reached
INLAND TRANSIT.
Inwards. The expectation to which my pre- decessor looked forward in his report for 1896 has been realised, and the extended use of
Treaty transit passes has already commented on. There have been issued 6,800 Passes, covering imports worth some 1,500,000 taels Kerosene oil represents 800,000 taels, yarn, 375,000 taels; cottons and thread, 150,000 taels; and matches, 140,000 taels. The other goods which have availed of passes are metals, cotton, glassware, and an infinity of minor articles. The places to which these goods are sent are not alone those in the Kwangtung delta, nor even along the chief waterways of this province the West and North Rivers with their remotest trihntaries,but the adjacent province of Kwangsi has taken a scarcely less amount of the imports distributed from Canton than Kwangtung itself; and a few hundred piculs of yarn appear to have been sent even into Kweichow, Yunnan, and Kiangsi.
Outwards. A few passes have been taken out to bring down produce from the interior under the Chiukiang rules modified; hides, aniseed oil, sugar, paper, hemp, etc.. bare arrived and been.shipped abroad. No Chinese thus far have taken out in their own either inwards or outwards passes.
SHIPPING.
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There has been a great increase in the tonnage of "sailing vessels," ie, kerosene laden forchas or junks under Foreign flags turning in ballast; of these there were 530 towed from Hongkong by launches and re- entries and clearances. against 18 in the year before, On the opening of the West River regular steamer communication between its new. ports and calling stages and Canton has been maintained by the Lungshan and Lungkiang. British steamers of 150 tons each belonging to the Hongkong Steamboat Company, and by two other smaller steamers under Chinese management. So far the trade has consisted chiefly of a passenger traffic, and the steamers in use are found not to be well adapted to it.
They are, in addition, hampered by the Treaty restriction which confines foreign craft to a rather round about route as compared with that permitted to their long-established and more comfortable Chinese rivals.
LOCAL.
Wachow-fa was opened to foreign trade on the 4th June, 1897, in accordance with the Special Article of the Burmese Frontier Con- vention. It is situated on the left or north bank of the West River, at a distance of about 220 miles, by the present authorised routes, from Hongkong or Canton. The West River is a noble stream, rising in the mountains of Yuunan and entering the sea near Macao, after a course of about 1,000 miles. Its beauties have often beer described, and there is no need for me to dwell upon them here. Suffice it to say that the river, in its tortuous windings through mountain defiles, chief among which is the famous Shiuhing Gorge, and its subsequent passage through hill-studded plains to the sea, affords a variety of scenery in few instances surpassed, and pronounced by many to be superior to that of the Hudson or the Rhine. My principal concern with it at present is, however, as a waterway for commerce, and in this respect it cannot be coustered wanting. During the summer months it is navigable for ressels of almost any draught as far as this place, and even when the water is at its lowest vessels drawing 6 feet can come up without difficulty. The water level is affected to a very great extent by the rainfall, so much so that the difference here between high and low water marks in an ordinary year is over 60 feet. After the spring rains the freshets begin to come down and the water rises gradually, attaining its highest level in June or July. With autumn it begins to fall, and by January or February has reached its lowest point.
With regard to the West River above Wu- chow, it remains to be proved if it is navigable for steamers. It abounds in rapids, the first of which is encountered about 7 miles above the city. Should Nan-ning be made a Treaty port, it would seem that the best way of reaching that place would be by lighters, which would be hauled by men up the rapids and towed between them by steam-tugs.
Immediately above Wuchow the Fu-ho or Kuei-lin River enters the main stream and affords through communication by water with the capital of the province, and even with the
Tungting Lake and the Yangtze by means of a canal which connects its upper waters with those of the Hsiang River, running north through Hunan. The Fu-ho also abounds in rapids, which are said to be more difficult than those of the West River; it is, in fact a mountain torreut.
Its current is, as a rule, slow, but in the early summer, before the main river has risen high, its waters come down with a tre- mendous rush and a roar that reminds one of the sound of Niagara. Later on it becomes dammed up by the water of the main stream, and the strength of its floods does not reach its mouth.
prefecture bearing that name and is also the The city of Wnchow is the chief town of the
seat of the District Magistrate of Ts'ang-wu. The scenery round about it is mountainous and picturesque. The highest peak in the vicinity is the Great Cloud Mountain, called on the charts" Wuchow Peak"; it is about 1,200 feet' high. The city itself contains a population of perhaps 50,000. Its walls, which from the river The only remark worth making under this appear to be climbing the bills in the back- head is this, that about 5,000 Chinese pass-ground, are about a mile and a half in circum- engers have travelled by Foreign craft from ference. The streets do not differ from those of Canton to the West River ports, while about an ordinary southern town; the business quar- 4,700 have arrived here from those places. These ter comprises the best. This consists of two or three streets which round the walls outside figures represent but a very small part of the entire passenger movement between Canton and on the south and west. The principal of them
PASSENGER TRAFFIC.
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