April 1, 1899.)
RAILWAYS IN YUNNAN,
(Daily Press, 25th March.) To those who hold the idea that the pro- vince of Yunnan offers a promising field for British trade and enterprise the first report by Mr. J. W. JAMIESON, Acting British Consul at Ssumao, will not prove encour- aging. The report is on the "Prospects of development of commercial intercourse "with South-western Yunnan and a short account of the trade of Ssumar;" and is characterised by Sir CLAUDE MACDONALD as a very interesting and valuable report. In this judgment we fully concur. Mr. JAMIESON has evidently taken great pains to glean all possible information as to the productions, the trade, the climate, and the people of Yunuan, and though many of the facts were known before, through the obser- vations of Mr. COLBORNE BABER, Mr. COLQUHOUN, and other travelers, yet he adds many important items to the stock of information, and helps us to better appraise the prospects of opening up a paying trade with this remote country.
Mr JAMIESON is well aware that his report must tend to dash unfounded hopes, for he comments on the fact that Yunnan is, judging from public utterances and articles in the Press, still regarded as a very important factor in the commercial development of China, and goes on to characterise as impossible the many schemes propounded for the construction of railways whereby to open up the country, and finds it difficult to understand on what grounds such sanguine hopes of Yuunan's future prosperity are based, when it is seen what little support has been given to such illusory ideas by competent observers con- versant with actual facts. With regard to the resources of the province Mr. JAMIE- SON sums up the matter in the following sentences:-"I am quite prepared to admit "that the mineral wealth of Yunnan is great, but the difficulties in the way of "working the same are so formidable that they are certain to deter all who wish for some return on their outlay from invest ing capital in mining enterprises, at least "in the southern and western sections of "the province. Apart from minerals, the province possesses few other resources, "and the inhabitants are unenterprising "and lazy to a degree. S long as they can grow enough rice to feed themselves "and procure enough cotton wherewith to "make the few articles of clothing neces- sary in this equable climate, they are "content."
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CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
in that province itself, while the cost of carrying railways through the almost imparable ranges of mountains would be absolutely probibitive. The roads there
JAMIESON thinks may be improved with are exceedingly bad, and these Mr. great advantage to the trade, such as it is. The population, however, is thin and with the exception of some of the aboriginal tribes-who are reputed to possess some hoarded wealth-the people are poor and with few wants. There is a great demand for quinine owing to the prevalence of malarial fevers, and for cheap articles of fair market. But the trade is at best of a every day household use there is also a peddling description, and the traders will make long journeys of two or three weeks' duration to realise a few dollars. Even Ssumao, which was popularly sup osed to be quite a busy mart, is a delusion in this sense. He says:- "When contrasted with "the miserable hamlets met with by travel- "lers in these parts the first impression "created by Ssumao is that of a bustling centre of trade. This effect is due to the fact that all the business of the place is concentrated in a small section of one street, "which is at all hours of the day and night thronged with country-people and 'mahis connected with the tea and cotton cara- When, however, one goes more closely into the matter this illusion van- "ishes. Ssumao possesses no shops of any kind, not even cash shops. What little trade
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"is done is carried on in small stalls on the street leading to the south gate and ou "the parade ground in front of the Custom
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House, and the only establishments of any importance are the hongs where tea "is sorted and packed and the dye-houses
which dye homespun cloth."
The staple industy of the town is the preparation and packing of the celebrated Puerh tea, in which some twenty-five firms JAMIESON has gathered a good deal of are engaged. Concerning this industy Mr. interesting information, which shows that its importance his been over estimated and that the quality of the product is not equal to its reputation. No authentic
hives in the shape of hollow logs of wood hung up uniler the eaves. Tobacco is
of very course quality. Indigo is also largely largely grown in the hills round Ssumao, but
at 10,000 catties a year. A poor quality of produced, and the consumption is put down vegetable oil is extracted from Brassica pincea which sells for 8 to 9 cash an ounce. Paper of a very good quality is made out of the fibre of Broussonetia papyrifera, 'which is sold for 4 to 7 cash per sheet, while coarser kind is produced from bamboo and varies in price from 50 to 70 cash per tito of 50 sheets. Mr. JAMIESON 18
of Ssumão, which he says has not a brilliant naturally not enthusiastic on the prospects future to look forward to, but there is reason to hope that the volume of its foreign trade way prove capable of some slight expansion. "Whether such expansion" he adds, “will
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prove of benefit to the only British trade "which appears to have appreciated the fact that a new port has been opened→→ I refer to the wine trade whose enter prising representatives lost no time in addressing circulars to this Consulate
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record is extant of the date when this
is made of it in the records of the Fang industry was first started, but mention dynasty (A.D. 600-900). There are various qualities of the tea, and great quantities of it are cultivated on the right bank of the Mekong by the Shans of Menghai. The merchants value the tea trade of Ssumo at from Tls 130,000 to Tls, Referring to the practicability of build-140,000 per annum, and the total duty ing railways, Mr. JAMIESON quotes and collected on it last year, as supplied by the endorses the remarks made by Mr. BABER Sub-Prefect to Mr. JAMIESON for the three on the same subject some years ago, when places Ssumão, Maunai, and Ipang, was he sai 1: I do not mean that it would be Tls. 10,600. Statistics for the hills are not absolutely impossible to construct a rail- available, but Mr. JAMIESON thinks a rea way. A high authority has informed me sonable estimate for the value of the whole "that if shareholders will provide the trade would be £35,000. The second great money they will always find an engineer industry of Ssumao is the spinning of yarn to spend it By piercing half-a-dozen and weaving of cloth out of cotton imported "Mont Cenis tunnels and erecting a few from the Burmese Shau States and from the "Menai bridges, the road from Burmah to
French Laos. The value of the trade in "Yunnan-fu could doubtless be much im-
proved." Mr. JAMIESON says the above Tls. 70,000 to Tls. 80,000 per annum.
cotton and its products is estimated at from The passage was written with special reference value of foreign cotton and woollen goods to a railway from Bhamo to the pro-imported last year was Tis. 5,000, and these ❝vincial capital, but the same holds good came from Rangoon. The duty on the exports. for any projected railway in southern and figuring in the Customs returns for 1897 was western Yunnan into Szechueu. Small Tis. 31,378. Ofthese 77 per cent. were report "stretches of line could always, for a cered as exports to Burma and 23 per cent. to
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"tain length, be run up the river valleys, French Indo-China. Amongst local pro- but they would only lead to unimportant ducts used for home consumption Mr. JAMIE 露露 towns, with little or no trade either en
SON says that great quantities of sigar cane route or
between the termini.” It is all
are grown in the neighbourhood, but the very well to make Indian railways to the Yunnan froutier, but it will take is also a great honey producing country, quality is not of a very high class. Yunnan many years to develop any paying tride every household possessing two or three
is another question "I Still, it is only a question of time when rail- ways will pentrate Yunnan, and future generations may regard the present pes- simistic reports on the conîmercial resources of the province with as much amusement, for instance, as that with which we now regard the carlier reports on the capabili tics of Hongkong as an emporium of trade.
DE. DOBEKOK AND THE MANILA STORM WARNINGS.
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(Daily Press, 28th March.) The Manila Times, in an article on Dr. DOBERCK's attack on the Directors of the Mauila Observatory, says:
"The only
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notable storm which has ever struck Hong- kong from the north-west (instead of south- east according to rule). was of course not signalled from Manila, because it never came here; it was not announced by DOBERCK, because he had not received warning from these Manila incompetente whom he despises. He notified at 4 p.m., 10th December, 1891, 'Gradients easy N. E. winds, fine weather,' and at 10 p.m. "there was a hurricane which sank the "British gunboat Tweed at her moorings, "wrecked the sailing ship Aron, collided "the steamers Fushun and Bisagnó, beach- ing both of them, and covered the Praya "several feet deep in wreckage of hundreds of junks." In this statement there are several inaccuracies of detail. In the first place, the storm referred to occurred on the 3rd December, not on the 10th, and it was in another storm together, namely, one that occurred on the 19th July, 1891, that the Tweed came to grief. The fact remains, however, that on the 3rd December a violent gale broke over the harbour, doing great damage amongst both foreign and native craft, and no word of warning as to its approach had been given by the Obser vatory. Nor is any description of that or other storms given in the annual report for the year in question. It is certainly un fortunate for the reputation of the Obser vatory that on the one occasion when Manila was unable to give information concerning the approach of a storm the local institution should have proved itself so incompetent to make an independent forecast.
In 1893 the Chamber of Commerce for warded to the Governmenta recommendation to the effect that a committee should be signed by all the principal shipping offices appointed to enquire into the system adopted
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