August 10, 1907.]
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
83
arrived in December on a visit of inspection, and at the close of the year their labours were not ended.
Szemao, also in Yunnan, is of compar atively no importance, the n't value of its trade being only Tls. 226,082, and apparently dwindling regularly. It has been tapping the caravan trade to Burma, and bad crops and worse roads woon kill it. Transport via Tonkin and Mengtsz is aoually cheaper and quicker.
nation, or even by the House of Commons. | worse. From thirty to forty thousand thus One of the ablest of the young and rising found employment and relief. political leaders of the day expressed this took and distributed Tls. 5,661,000 worth Menglaz view of the matter in an admirable sum of foreign goods, sixty per cent of which was mary of the debate, "Examining the main cotton, mostly yarn fra India and Tonkin, resolution he affirmed that it meant that, in The slump in Hongkong prices stimulated order to give effect to the wishes of the consumption. Japanese mitobes werd Commons it was absolutely necessary that the next biggest item. Sumatra, Russia the people should have no opportunity of and Borneo profited greatly by the saying whether or not those wishes corre- local boycott of American oil. The sponded with their own. That was not exports of Mengtsz are opium and tiu, an attack upon the House of Lords, but value I together at Tis. 5,144,000. The net
Tengyueb, Yunnan, is more favourably an indictment of the House of Commons. value of the trade was Tis. 10,824 864. In
situate, having batter access to the Bhamo The real purpose of the resolution was to these parts the dollar (piastre) has almost market. The net value of its trade last give the Ministry of the day greater control entirely displaced aycee (silver by weight). year was Tis. 1,397,877, & nominal decline over the House of Commons under the The Tonkin-Yunnan railway has made
-the volume not having decreased. The specious pretext of conferring upon the excellent progress. House greater control over legislation.
In view of the mis-imports, mainly oottou goods, Japaness It chievous reports that were circulated by
matches, and American oil, were valued at would have one good effect; it would draw uncharitable persons last year, we
Tls. 1,127,956. Hides, silk, and arsenic tri- the attention of the people to the paramount quote the Acting-Commissioner as follows sulphide were exported in exchange. The importance of reform in the House of on the conditions:
Commissioner at this faraway port seems Commons itself. That House should regain
to find his environment very interesting. its independence."
88
The increase in the numbers of the House has had for one of its results the weakening of the individual character of the members, who now find themselves reduced to mere units in a crowd, and act as a crowd without the possibility of individua thought. This has naturally been inten- sified by the enormous increase of the electorate, who have ceased to act intelligent beings, and are driven to the hustings as a drove of cattle to market, quite innocent of what use is to be made of them there. Every student of ancient -Greek history will recognise the similarity of the policy enunciated by the present Ministry to that adopted by the founders of a Tyranny. The stout democracy had first to be humoured by extending its numbers and functions, and when these had become too multifarious for the individual in- telligence to grasp, the road for the tyrant was open. It is then from Lo unworthy intent that a powerful section of the House of Lords itself is urging on their fellows the necessity of arresting this spreading canker and reconstituting themselves so as to be genuine representatives' of the intelligence and staying power of the nation at large. The nation is sarfeited of the unwhole some and unsustaining diet on which it has been living and the frantic attempts of charlatans to still further weaken its con- stitution are becoming day by day more nauseating.
CHINA'S
WESTERN FRONTIER.
The
(Daily Press, 7th August) The statistical department of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs now devotes a fascicle to the trade returns of the five frontier ports, Lungchow, Mengtsz, Szemno, Tengyueh, and Yatung (Tibet). Lungchow is on the Tonkin frontier of Kwangsi, and is still merely
an inland distributing and collecting entrepôt," as it was before it was "opened" seventeen years ago. development of Nanning, the newly opened port, and the provision of better communi- cation with that and Tonkin, might increase its importance.
The total value of foreign imports last year was Tls. 126,921; they were chiefly Japanese colton yarn, beans, dyes, aniseed oil, and timber. Exports were valued at Tls. 59,353, iron utensils, ground nut oil and Kweichow opium forming the bulk. There was no foreign shipping at all The net value of the trade of the port (the sum of imports and exports) was Tls. 186,274, against Tle. 230,452 in 1905.
Mengtez, in Yunnan, had a bad year, owing to famine. But for the railway work going on, things would have been much
may
So far, only supplies and material for the line and the maili have used the train; but by June next the first section, Hokow to Labati will probably be open to regalir traffic, and the following June should, so far as can he esti ated, line was pushed during the year, and in some see the locomotive at Mengtss. Work on the res ects the drought was a favourable factor, The army of 300 workmen employed in the spring were kept on till April and May, when the hot weather drove many of them to desert, Later, the company seat away the balk of the men, only keeping about 2,500 daring the hot hat of the day. In the early autumn recruiting season, when nothing could b› done during the began in earnest for the winter campaign. Labour was imported from Anuam and Kwangsi for the unhealthy Namsi valley and the section below Milati and from Szechwan to aid the Yunnanese contingent in the upper sections, till by the end of the year 47,000 men were at work. to the works, where good wages were paid-40 barvest in the province drove many cents to 45 cents a day in the higher regions, and 50 cents to 60 cents in the lower, and, in addition, rations free or sold under cost.
Free hospitals and medical attendance were also adequate, but they were not always availed of. the Holow Milati section may be placed at The daily cost to the company of a 1 bou er on $1.20 a day unskilled and 8'.5' a day skilled. On the other sections similar lab ur cost: 61 cents to 8) cents. A brief summary of operations in progress may serve as a rongh measure of the magnitude of the undertaking The direct distance between Hokow and the line, graded that no incline exceeds 25 Yunnanfu is nearly 300 kilometres; that along millimetres per metre, and with no o rve of less than 100 metres radius, is 463 kilometres.
The
poor
Yatung, in Tibet, is so far, apparently, that the trade report takes time to arrive. This volume contains two, for. 1905 and 1906. Trade, na we have previously noted, is of slender dimensions as yet, but it is growing. Imports (into Tibe) are put at 1,179,743 rupees, and exports 1,140,336 rupees. Communications are being opened up and improved, the Chinese having ben as actively encouraging 23 the Indian Government, according to the Acting Com- missioner. He writes:
The event of the most importano during the Yin-tang, Chinese High Commissioner to Tibet. year was the arrival of His Excell-noy Chang This official is recommending many salutary changes in the administration of the country, and many improvements are likely to result. The Tibetans only need a little teaching; they advantage; wre Chinese skilled workmen sent are quite alive to anything that is to their over to instruct them how to shear, oure sking, work up wool, and manufacture cloths and ca pets, mach might be done to improve the trade of the country. Although in 1907 the
dreamed of iu Tibet. British trade agent drove two motors from Phari to Gyangtse, yet no wheeled transport is At a trifling cost a really first class wagon road euld be made over the plains to yangtse, and I am told also to Lhasa, bat do not myself know that road. There is practically no timber in Tibet, but trees are met with about half-way to Gyangtse, and at
pleutiful. A few hundred thousand trees should willow, poplar, and Gyangts itself, around the house of the rich, a big thorny tree are
be planted and forestry developed. At Shigats The
grow much bigger. The British Government and Lhs, milder climates, the trees are said to
The line
country being wholly mountainous, of red clay and limestone, turnels and bridges are numerous. There are 147 tuin is, aggreg ting 151 kilometres in length, the longest, now nearly finished, being 650 metres. Of thes: 5 have been actually pierced and are in course of enlar gement to the necessary section. Only four are as yet untouched. There will be +7 bridges of all sorts over '0 metres long, some of masonry, 70 metres with 10 arches: the longest in steel, some of steel. The longest in masonry will be of 17 girders of 8 metres each of 65 metres span is a single girder.
One steel bridge starts from Hokow it a height of 90 metres above sea level. passes through a 315-m tre tua. nel at Milati at a hight of 1,700 metres, then desc.nd: t› Amichow, height 1. 63 metres, pas- gas Iliang at a height of 1,635 metres, and Yasnanfa, 1,886 metres. Shui ang at 2,019 metres, whence it des se ds to To feed the army of workmen on the line the company impo ted during the year from Tonkin 6,415 tonnes of rice alone. Most of this was for the desirt lower region, but towards the close of the year ab ve Mengtss. The only available transport it became necessary to send grain to the sections after the railhead a kilonaire 30 is prok animals, carrying rather over a picul each and travelling about 3) kilometres a dy
As the cost of living and transport has doubled within the last four years, mainly on account of the extraordinary demands for the works themselves, the cost of te line must greatly exceed the original estimate. having arise in France, a party of experts
Some discussion. of this
grains that thrive on the prairies, and intends, in 1907, to experiment with them on the plate in of Tibet; it is to be hoped they will fructify, as even in this sparsely populated laud the fool question is often a sourus of soxiety.
has obtained seeds from Canada of the hardiest
THE HONGKONG TYPHOON.
(Daily Press, 8th August.) We have a great respect for the homely aphorism, "least said, soonest mended." But there are cases in which amendment can only be brought about by saying a great deal, saying it loudly or emphatically, and saying it often. Of such we consid.rare tha relations of the Hongkong Observatory with its neighbours. That it has been and is an . unpleasant duty, and one that has been somewhat misunderstood, is a regrettable circumstance, but it cronot be a deterrent, We publishel on July 24th a despatch from the Astronomer-Royal at Greenwich, commenting on the evidence of the Typhoon Enquiry submitted to him. despatch and its conclusions, so far as the major poiuta raised by the Daily Press are concerned, seemed to as quite beside the mark, almost irrelevant. Autisipatingi expert comment from Manila or Shaughai,
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That
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