July 5, 1909.]
5
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT. 1842, while the first flying machine was ship was practically wrecked by coming in |tion and space. Many improvements are invented, according to the reference books, contact with a tree. In this scientific age wanted in buildings, which should be more in 1843. Its end, we need scarcely add, was we may reasonably hope that constant effort spacious, more advantageously located, and -pieces! But, as a famous French writer will eventuate in the discovery of more of better appearance in the great cities of has told us, in the lexicon of youth which reliable steering gear, if not in improvements the interior, but it is hoped, the Secretary fate reserves for a bright manhood, there is in the structure of the ship itself, which will | says, that the present year will afford the no such word as Fail. Where there's a save these machines from such disasters, but means to attain these enda. With such a willthere's a way," and TENNYSON evidently we cannot so confidently anticipate that such record of development as we have outlined shared and was inspired by the eager ships will be made to "steer through the it naturally follows that the revenue itself optimism of the few who were in those early gale." Yet, in face of the achievements of shows considerable advance, and the Report days tackling the problem of aerial flight. recent years, who now will dare affirm that tells us that it is in better proportion, as It was not, however, till twenty years later the employment of the airship for commer- development increases from year to year, that the subject began to engage the serious cial purposes is destined ever to remain with the working expenses; and this not- attention of scientific men. The Aeronau-an idle dream? Who thought sixty withstanding the swelling of the latter, due tical Society of Great Britain was founded years ago when TENNYSON published to various improvements introduced in by the DUKE of ARGELE and others in 1866,"Locksley Hall that before the first general organisation and a general rise and in the * years
that followed the motion decade of the Twentieth Century is out of the salaries of the native staff last of birds in relation to aeronautice was much we should have airships navigated in September. No financial statement is discussed. In England, in Germany, and in the central blue" for a thousand miles; published with the Report, but though the United States during the past sixty that passenger services in airships would be we are told that the revenue shows con years, men have been working at the problem instituted; and that the military depart-siderable advance, the reader must not with dogged perseverance and firm faith in ment of almost every nation in the world run away with the idea that receipts ultimate truimph-a faith which remained would be regarding the airship as 00 cover expenditure. Mr. HIPPESLEY, unshaken by a long succession of disappoint- indispensable item in the equipment of an who wrote the Report for 1907, mentioned ments and defeats, to be at length army? Who dreamt that we should be that it was not till thirty years after the justified in the past two years by the able to communicate for thousands of miles postal service had come into general oper- wonderful achievements of Count ZEPPELIN across the ocean by wireless telegraphy?ation in India that an annual equilibrium Truly, it's a wonderful age we live in, and between receipts and expenditure was the Poet TENNYSON as a prophet will be no longer without honour in his own country.
and the brothers WRIGHT achievements which have compelled the entire world to recognise that the airship is destined to be of practical use in the world. It will doubtless be a long time yet before airships take the place of steamships-a long time before we shall see airships as in the poet's vision, "dropping down with costly bales" at the world's centres of commerce; but when we read in the Home papers of preparations being made for regular airship services between Zurich and Lucerne, and between Paris and London, we are constrained to recognise that the poet's dream is beginning to materialise.
零零
THE CHINESE POST OFFICE.
(Daily Prass, 3rd July.) The Annual Reports on the working of the Chinese Imperial Post Office are records of marvellous progress. Mr. Pray, the Postal Secretary, to whom the present organisation of the Chinese Post Office is mainly due, begins his Report for the year 1908 with the statement that "the predominating feature of the year under review has been It will be noticed that TENNYSON has given a solid and substantial increase in every first place to the commercial use of the air-branch of postal work." He tells us that ship, but in the materialisation of the vision the total number of establishments has been it seems that the military uses of the air-raised from 2,803 to 3,493; postal articles ship are claiming first attention. Except, letters, postcards, newspapers, books and however, for the purposes of observation in war, the airship with its present limitations is of little use when the combatants in the field are on a fairly equal footing as regards equipment in the scientific instruments of war. We have been hearing much of the value of the airship capable of being em- ployed to drop explosives into an enemy's territory, but no sooner was this idea suggested than the scientific spirit of the age was shown in the production of plans to combat this new danger. We read of armoured automobiles fitted with Hotchkiss guns so mounted as to be easily trained on an airship, which it appears must come within
a
vertical distance of not more than 5,000 feet, and must be stationary for a time to direct its missiles. Tests with the means of destroying such airships are reported to have been carried out in Germany with satisfactory results. If, then, this use of the airship is rendered impossible or unsafe, and these "airy navies" are compelled to sail in higher altitudes, they will have to be suched by other ships, and some of us herefore may still live to read in our daily papers descriptions by Special War Corres. pondents of "airy navies grappling in the central blue."
The airship is yet in its infancy; much yet remains to be done to give the world confidence in its employment for purposes other than observation in time of war. Count ZEPPELIN's recent voyage of nearly a thousand miles continuous travel- ling was at once a triumph and a disaster, for not only did the strength of a contrary wind compel him to turn back when within seventy miles of his goal, but in descending in order to obtain a fresh supply of fuel the
samples which for 1907 totalled 168 millions, have reached 252 millions-a striking advance, which, as he says, sp-aks well of future possibilities. Parcels have increased from 1,920,000 to 2,455,000, with a corresponding increase in weight and in value, and it is pointed out that this large ad- vance is the more notable having regard to the recent rule for the compulsory insurance of parcels of the value of $80 or over. We further learn from the Report that competi. tion with native agencies may even be said to have virtually ceased, victory remaining for the national Post Office; "for it is now demonstrated that min-chu will only continue to flourish at places that have not yet been tapped by the Post Office, or in the carriage of bullion, sycee, &c., which it does not care to compete for; they, too, recognise the new order of things and begin to lean on the Post Office, using its lines for the trans- mission of their clubbed packages." The operations of the Chinese Imperial Post Office are now carried on over roughly 87,000 miles, the total increase in length during the past year amounting to some 9,000 miles. Transmission over the courier lines has been greatly accelerated; railway communi- cations have developed in several directions; and in all districts new postal establishments have been planted, more particularly so, in the Northern and Yangtsze districts. A map accompanies the Report illustrating the ramifications of the service and indicating the location of the 3,493 postal establishments. The difficulty of the hour, Mr. PIRY Bays, is to devise measures to cope with this enormous development. The methods are good, the courier lines reliable and numerous, but there is a general cry for office accommoda.
secured. The inference to be drawn from this is that many years are likely to pass yet before the Chinese postal service becomes self-supporting. In the meantime, funds must be specially contributed by the Government to supplement the receipts, and the Service must continue to receive the assistance which has heretofore been gratuitously rendered by the Maritime Customs, the money value of which Mr. HIPPESLEY estimated at three-quarters of a million of Mexican dollars. Great as the development of the business of the Chinese Post Office has been, it is yet relatively very small having regard to the population. In the 1907 Report a tabular statement was published showing the density of population and number of letters sent by each thousand of the inhabitants in each province. This table showed that in no province in the Empire does each inhabitant send one letter a year. It has been computed that in the United Kingdom each person writes 78 letters a year, in the United States 67, in Germany 55, in Denmark 41, in Austria 38, in Holland 31, in Belgium 29, in France and Sweden 26 and in Norway 20. The interesting tabular statement to which reference has been made is omitted from the Report for 1908, perhaps because it affords no good basis for making such deductions as these, as in the first place the census of the population cannot be accepted as accu- rate, and secondly because while native postal hongs and agencies are carrying on operations, independently of the post office, it is impossible to discover with approximate accuracy how the Chinese nation compares with others in the matter of letter-writing. But each year sees the national Post Office getting the business more and more into its own bands. Compulsion and the monopoly of postal tran mission by the Government insti tution bave been considered not only difficult to apply but impolitic, and the Imperial Post was driven to invite them to co-operate. Statistics now show that more than half of the existing agencies have been registered, and as the enormous increase of letters in clubbed packets carried by the Imperial Service for these agencies last year clearly shows, they are now catering for the Post Office, and usefully supplement it, for the collecting and delivering of local corres- pondence. Mr. PIRY says that in many centres Chinese communities are so large that it will take years before all local re- quirements can be answered by adequate methods on the part of the official establish
Page 10Page 11
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.