western provinces of China. Transshipment is made at Hongkong for
Haiphong, where the new French railway takes merchandise five hundred
miles northwest to Yunnan as a distributing center. Hongkong also has
the West (Si Kiang), Yu, Hong Chu, Eta and Peh Rivers as arteries into
the west. Until two hundred miles of Yangtze gorges and rapids are
flanked by a railway, Shanghai must lose more and more of the vast
western trade which she used to control before the French railway
was built. The French finished in 1910 this remarkable railway from
Haiphong to Yunnan, five hundred miles, and have thus beat out the
British, who, because of Colquhoun’s books, were approaching Yunnan
from three points in Burma. This railway attack on Yunnan has been
a battle of two imperial minds of the Kipling imperialistic type,
Colquhoun and Doumer. Colquhoun, the British governor and author, began
urging the construction of British railways in 1881, and followed
up his arguments with a further book in 1898. In 1897, the famous
Paul Doumer, once a printer, went to French China as governor. In
1898 he began his railway to Yunnan. The line, though narrow gage,
has cost $50,000 a mile, even with cheap Oriental labor. Near the
coast of Tonquin the country is that of flat rice fields and only
requires trestling and banking. From Hung Hoa (Bed River) to Lao Kai no
fewer than 180 bridges had to be erected (a fine contract for French
structural firms) to cross the wild broken country of stream, marsh,
gorge and mountain pass. The line rises from sea level to a pass of
5,000 feet altitude. Much of the Yunnan tin and other exports, which,
by pack saddle and shoulder load, formerly went down to Nanning and
took the Yu and Si Rivers to Hongkong, are now diverted to Haiphong,
from which port the French run branch ship lines to Hongkong and
Saigon, connecting with the great subsidized Messageries Maritimes line
to Marseilles. The French need subsidies because the foreign trade
which their bankers control is not so heavy as is that of Britain and
America.
The Hongkong and Canton Railway, 106 miles, has been completed and
marks a new lease of life for Hongkong as the emporium of South, West
and Central China, when the railways from Canton are extended. The
Hongkong Railway starts from Kowloon, across the narrow harbor, running
through 19 miles of British territory, and the remainder through
Chinese territory. The British section, on account of the many tunnels
through mountains, cost almost as much as the entire Chinese section.
The fine steamers of the Hongkong and Canton Steamboat Company, which
are well known to world tourists, and many Chinese steamers and junks
compete, but there is traffic for all, and when there isn’t there will
be pooling for all. The Hongkong government, through the Hongkong and
Shanghai Banking Corporation, loaned the Kwangtung province government
the money for the Chinese section. (This is an illustration of a few
loans which have not been made to the national government at Peking,
and represents provincial as against the nationalized trunk railway
scheme which helped to bring on the revolution.) The road runs through
a part of the country requiring much trestle work, and bridging on
account of waterways. The long Chinese section of the road cost less
with one exception than any standard gage railway in the world, $35,000
per mile, the nearest approach to this in America being sections
of the Great Northern Railway built years ago at $40,000 per mile.
Nearly all the freight and passenger cars were made at Hongkong. The
best built railway in China is the Shanghai-Nanking. In easy country
it cost $55,000 per mile. It was built by British contractors on the
elaborate, permanent English plan, whose maxim is, “a stitch in time
saves nine”. What spoiled the Chinese in hiring foreign contractors was
their experience with a section of the Shanghai-Hangchow railway. The
Kiangsu and Chekiang provincial governments, hiring native contractors
and engineers (who were trained in America) built a satisfactory
road of 125 miles at $25,000 per mile, as compared with the British
continuation north, of $55,000 per mile. The Chinese have never
ceased talking of this economy, although they admit that the English
road is better and worth $35,000 per mile, but not $55,000. Another
objection they make is that foreign syndicates charge five per cent.
commission on their purchases. In the railway from Pukow (opposite
Nanking) to Tientsin, the foreign syndicate was not allowed commission
on purchases, so that the “Pukow plan” is favored. In reference to the
low cost, $35,000 per mile, of the difficult Peking-Kalgan railway,
140 miles, which was built by the Chinese exclusively, the _Chinese
Students’ Journal_ says: “In the construction of the railway, economy,
which must not be confounded with cheapness, must always be kept in
view. All railways built in China must be paid for by our people,
and our people are poor. A railway is not a club-house on which to
expend millions. The redemption of bonds must not be forgotten for a
moment. On the Peking-Kalgan railway there was no temptation to spend
money recklessly, as no five per cent. commission was needed to enrich
the coffers of the foreign corporation. There were no foreign style
residences, cement tennis-courts, ice machines, palatial house-boats,
and princely salaries; no interpreters to make a fortune (_i. e._,
compradores); no graft. There were no unpleasantnesses through the
interference of foreign consuls, and no reference of insignificant
incidents to ministers at Peking.”
The Siberian Railway cost $150,000 a mile through flat country, but
$100,000 of that amount was for nepotism, graft, bureaucracy, boodle
and sweet Roederer champagne.
The revolution and the argument over the nationalization of railways of
course delayed the great Gorge Railway which runs from Ichang to Wan
Hsien on the Yangtze, thus surmounting the almost impassable rapids
of the gorges, which heretofore have split populous Szechuen province
from Hupeh. It would be hard to say how many books have been written
about these difficult rapids and the sublime scenery. The most notable
are by Archibald Little, the trade pioneer of the Yangtze, and then
there are interesting works by Dingle, Geil, Mrs. Kemp, Mr. Bird,
Mr. Blakiston, Mr. Hart and Mrs. Bishop. The road could not possibly
parallel the river along the parapets of the gorges. It breaks inland
through great tunnels, some 6,000 feet long. This gorge railway was the
most necessary in the whole world; it should have been the first begun
in China. When it is running, however, the finest scenery in the world
will be shut out from the wondering eyes of man, as the famous gorge
boatmen and trackers will give up their work, and, as it is, many of
them have been killed in the recent war of the revolution, Szechuen
and Hupeh provinces being the first to recruit armies. From Wan Hsien
railways will go across country to Chingtu, and up the Yangtze to
Chungking, thus linking the great west with India, French China and the
populous eastern and northern provinces.
General Kuroki’s military railway from Antung to Mukden has now been
turned into a standard-gage road, and a bridge has been thrown across
the Yalu River (famous for its great naval engagement) to Wiju. It is
now possible to take a sleeping-car from Tokio to Shinonoseki, cross
the strait by ferry, take another sleeper at Fusan, and go all the way
through Mukden to Kuang Chang Tsu, connecting there with the Russian
line for Moscow and St. Petersburg. For fast service, however, the
Russians are able to favor the all-Russian line to Vladivostok, whence
steamers can be taken for Hakodate, etc. Passengers from Shanghai can
take two routes, one by steamer to Dalny, and thence via the South
Manchurian (Japanese) railway, or via Tientsin, Newchang, etc. (Chinese
railways). The Korean-Yalu route, however, is infinitely the more
scenic. Most of the bridges of this route were brought from America.
The German railway of 271 miles in Shangtung province shows the
effects of the iron hand in paying small wages, the working expenses
in 1910 being only thirty-five per cent. of the gross earnings. The
gross earnings were $8,000 a mile. In a bare country, where mining
is undeveloped, the average receipts were only seventy-one cents per
passenger mile, and ninety cents per ton mile. Over 90 per cent. of the
traffic is third class. The average mixed trainload is 150 tons of
freight and sixty passengers. The famous beans, straw braid, grain and
petroleum predominated in the traffic, but in 1912 coal was beginning
to be a growing factor. The German railway in Shangtung province has
set the example of planting trees. It was copied by the Pennsylvania
railway. Nearly all the railways of China are copying the reforestation
methods.
At Tongshan, eighty miles northeast of Tientsin, are the modern shops,
engineering college and town of the national railways of North China.
Here the first Chinese locomotive, the “Rocket”, was built in stealth
by the British mechanical, railway and mining engineer, Mr. C. W.
Kinder, who has done so much for the railways and mines of North China.
The college turns out railway engineers, and some of the instructors
are American, like Mr. F. A. Foster. Other lecturers are British, like
Mr. Kinder and Mr. Pope.
Railway cars can now be built in the Tongshan shops, the Hanyang works,
the Shanghai works and the Kowloon (Hongkong) works, as well as at
Dalny. The Tongshan works can and have built locomotives.
In 1910 the Department of Communications established at Peking a
railway school. Three hundred of the six hundred students were under
twenty-five years of age. There were eight foreign and thirty-five
foreign-trained Chinese teachers. The course was three years. English,
mainly, and French, German and Chinese were taught. There is no
military drill, and the curriculum includes history, economics, railway
bookkeeping and law, engineering, management of traffic, shops and
stations, physics, chemistry, drawing, mathematics, geography, etc.
Electric tramways have been established at Peking, Tientsin, Shanghai,
Canton and the Manchurian cities, the example having been taken
from Hongkong’s tramway, built in 1905. Recent photographs show the
remarkable change in the bunds and roads of the treaty ports, where the
automobile, electric car, rickshaw, wheelbarrow, chair and litter all
have their fight for the passenger and his nimble coin.
On new lines it is necessary to use blue instead of white glass in the
coaches, as the coolies in their excitement over the scenery forget
and put their heads through the white glass, to which they are not
accustomed.
The old system of transportation has not altogether departed, and even
if it had, its memory would linger long. Neither the Peking cart, nor
the mule litter of Shansi, in which one rides between two tandem mules,
is on springs. They are padded so that the passenger, who is not made
of rubber, may be somewhat protected. If the conveyances were not
padded, only a man dressed up for American football could survive the
jolting. These are the vehicles in which dignified (on other occasions)
ambassadors have ridden at Peking in all the years since foreigners
were granted the legation privileges.
VII
SHIPPING AND WATER ROUTES IN CHINA
The larger steamship lines now supplying the China ports are the
following:
AMERICAN
Pacific Mail--Trans-Pacific.
Standard Oil--Trans-Pacific and Suez route.
Dollar Steamship Company--Trans-Pacific.
Northern Pacific Railway--Trans-Pacific.
American and Asiatic--To America via Suez (agency, American; flag,
British).
Barber Line--To America via Suez (agency, American; flag, British).
Shewan, Tomes & Co.--To Philippines.
BRITISH
Canadian Pacific Railway--Trans-Pacific.
Peninsular and Oriental--Suez route to Europe, and coastal.
Ben Line--Suez route to Europe.
Shire Line--Suez route to Europe.
Sassoon Line--To India.
Jardine, Matheson & Co.--To India, coastwise and Philippines.
Butterfield and Swire--Australia, India, coastwise, etc.
Gibb, Livingston & Co.--Australia and Africa.
Blue and White Funnel Lines--Europe, trans-Pacific, coastwise.
British-India--India, trans-Pacific, etc.
JAPANESE
Toyo Kisen Kaisha--Trans-Pacific to America and South America.
Nippon Yusen Kaisha--Trans-Pacific, Europe, coastwise and riverine.
Osaka Shosen Kaisha--Trans-Pacific, coastwise and riverine.
Nippon Kisen Kaisha--Coastwise.
Mitsui Bussan Kaisha--Coastwise.
GERMAN
North German Lloyd--Europe, coastwise and probably trans-Pacific.
Hamburg-America--Europe, coastwise and probably trans-Pacific.
Hansa Steamship Company--Europe.
AUSTRIAN
Austrian Lloyd--Europe and coastwise.
CHINESE
China Merchants’ Steamship Company--Coastwise and possibly
trans-Pacific.
BRITISH AND CHINESE
Chinese Engineering and Mining Company--Coastwise and trans-Pacific
planned.
Peking Syndicate--Coastwise and trans-Pacific planned.
FRENCH
Messageries Maritimes--Europe, Indo-China and coastwise.
RUSSIA
Russian Volunteer Fleet--Europe and coastwise.
Chinese Eastern Railway Steamers--Coastwise.
SPAIN
Spanish Royal Mail--Europe via Suez.
HOLLAND
Shell Transport and Trading--Coastwise and Europe.
When the Panama Canal opens, many more Atlantic lines, such as the
Royal Mail, International Marine, German lines, etc., will probably
extend their service in time to China, and many trans-Pacific lines,
especially Japanese and the Pacific Mail, will extend to America’s
eastern coast, not to speak of new lines which may be formed. The
British-India Steamship Company intends to extend its Calcutta line
across the Pacific and to New York. The American railroads could, at
small cost, by a generous pro rata of division rates, have covered
the Pacific and Atlantic with American steamship lines, but they have
held off, expecting the really unnecessary government subsidies. The
subsidy argument would possibly have a different complexion if it were
assured that the steamship lines would remain forever independent,
and permit no dummy holdings of stock. In the meantime, Japanese and
British vessels have been employed on the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans
on account of the lower cost of officers’ wages only, the crews’ wages
being the same on a Pacific mailer and a Nippon Yusen Kaisha mailer,
for instance. Both hire Chinese mainly, who are good and cheap
sailors. The American railroad, controlling the west-bound freight, and
the American banker, controlling the heavier east-bound freight, could
make American steamship lines on the Pacific profitable; indeed, the
Pacific Mail already pays its way. The government could, of course,
pay a just amount for mails on an increasing ratio for time made,
but if the American railroad, American banker, American shipper and
American globe-trotter will come to the aid of the American ship, we
can, without subsidy, except to independent smaller owners, cover the
Pacific with our starry flag.
All the large lines are building new ships for the China trade. The
Osaka Shosen Kaisha, running to America in connection with the Chicago,
Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway, has ordered steamships from Armstrong,
in England, and from the Japan shipyards. The Canadian Pacific Railway
Steamship Company and the Pacific Mail are having twenty-knot ships
built. The Hansa Steamship Company, running from Bremen, has ordered
ships from the Weser Ship-building Company, of Bremen. The Russian
Volunteer Fleet has ordered new ships from the Alexander-Nevski works.
Wireless is to be used generally, the first shore station having
been fitted at Hongkong. The Chinese Merchants and the Sino-American
companies (both Chinese) intend to run ships to America, as their plans
enlarge. We may yet see the Chinese flag regularly in New York. The
Japanese are to run a line into the Black Sea in competition with the
Russian Volunteer Fleet; they have already sent boats into Trieste in
competition with the Austrians, and they have before now humbled the
Germans in the Bangkok-Shanghai service. To show that the Japanese
are not the least timid in declaring their maritime ambitions on the
Pacific, I shall quote the following circular signed by Manager Iwanaga
of the subsidized Nippon Yusen Kaisha (the steamship line in which the
Mikado is a large shareholder) at the time of the competition with the
long-established British firm of Butterfield and Swire, a firm which
had been very friendly to the Japanese during the Russian War. Mr.
Iwanaga says: “These foreign firms must be induced to pay respect to
the Japanese mercantile flag. It is the duty of the Nippon Yusen Kaisha
to check the arrogance of foreign steamers east of Suez.”
The history of China’s greatest steamship line, the China Merchants’
Steamship Company, is as follows: When Li Hung Chang was viceroy of
Pechili province at Tientsin in 1871, on advice of Americans and
British who were in his employ, he formed this government-controlled
line, partly to carry tribute grain from the south; because the Grand
Canal was allowed by the various governors to collect silt, while their
pockets collected gilt (and guilt)! Merchants and guilds were invited
or coerced to subscribe to some of the stock. In 1877 the company
bought the Shanghai Steam Navigation Company and its dock for 2,000,000
taels silver. In 1878 Li diverted from the Grand Canal to the steamship
company the Yunnan copper destined to the Peking and provincial mints.
The great government university at Peking, with provincial branches,
created by Kwang Hsu’s reform edicts of 1898, was to be financed
partly by the revenues of this steamship company. The republicans
used its revenues to aid the 1911 revolution because the imperialists
used the railway revenues. The head office of the company is in
Shanghai, and it has branches at Newchwang, Chifu, Tientsin, Chinkiang,
Kowkiang, Hankau, Ningpo, Fuchau, Hongkong and Canton. The ships are
distinguishable at the Chinese ports both by the yellow funnel, and
by the immense Chinese characters which, in Austrian fashion, are not
always borne on the bow, but midships. The fine vessels of this company
were once put under the American flag in 1884 to save them from the
French, who were at war with China.
One of the great movements of the future in the reforming Far East
will be the Malay Peninsular Canal, about fifty miles long, which will
save 1,500 miles in the voyage from Saigon to Calcutta, Madras, etc.
It will not cut off and make useless the expensive garrison port of
Singapore, which holds the five equatorial seas for Britain, as the
Singapore-Rangoon railway will run along the entire peninsula. All
these probabilities in the Far East should be considered in full by the
student of world politics, finance, commerce and ethnology. A dozen
Chinas, Americas, Britains and Germanies could well work many centuries
before the world is restored to the economic Eden state, where each
man will be free, and have enough to support him and his in peace.
Every work of commerce is then a world-work, claiming the altruist’s
enthusiasm, and while we often use the phrase, “war of the ports of
the Far East,” we mean that joyful exhibition of strength which the
wrestler, rather than the warrior, puts forth.
A movement is growing in Japan to deprive foreign ships of the right
to trade between Japanese ports, which is similar to a regulation now
in operation in America and Canada. Japanese vessels, of course, trade
between British and China ports. Another plan that is advocated is to
place on ships not built in Japan such a high duty that Japanese owners
will be compelled to build in Japan, which would include a personal
penalty if Japanese owners owned steamship stock under a foreign flag.
All this involves considerable conflict with British interests that
have loaned immense sums in Japan, and it is certain that the British
foreign office, now so friendly to Japan, will hear from the British
Board of Trade, as it is hearing every day from the consular service
and such writers as Beresford, Colquhoun and Gilbert Parker.
Whampoa, the first port in China where Europeans traded, is to be
opened by the Chinese as a treaty port for deep-sea trading. It is
about six miles below Canton. The port will, of course, compete with
Hongkong; but Hongkong opened up a railway to Canton to protect
herself, and she will see that fast and cheap handling maintains her
leadership. The taotai, and Chang Iu Hin who was educated and enriched
at British Singapore, are representative republicans of Canton who are
interested in Whampoa port. It is proposed to do dredging and make free
grants of land for godowns, wharves, etc.
Portuguese Macao, the second port in China where Europeans traded,
forty miles from Hongkong, is dredging her silted harbor preparatory
to bidding for some of the great oversea trade that is expected.
China, which has ambitions for native ports in the vicinity of Canton,
frequently sends her warships into Macao waters. The natives of the
Macao district (Heung Shan) do not like Portugal’s ambition, and much
bitterness is shown.
The Whang Poo Conservancy Board has deepened the river from Wusung up
to Shanghai, and larger ocean steamers are now able to ascend to the
bund. For a long time the largest vessels must lie at Wusung bar, the
“heaven sent barrier” against foreign intrusion, as the Manchus called
it years ago. The Tientsin Conservancy is deepening the river up from
Taku. Both of these boards are controlled by the foreign settlements,
although the Chinese share in the expense. Foreign engineers are hired.
Other trans-oceanic ports planned by China are at Chin Wang Tao in
Pechili province; Hunchun, near Vladivostok on the Japan Sea, and
Haochow, near the junction of Shangtung and Kiangsu provinces. The
British may also develop the port of Wei Hai Wei, now that connection
with the trunk railways of China is in sight.
Few of the great Chinese ports look after the foreign seamen, but
Hongkong has established a sailors’ club and seamen’s institute on a
liberal scale. This idea should be copied along the long yellow coast,
for the devil’s whisper is loudest and his traps are most numerous in
China.
The Grand Canal as a shipping factor is grand no more, for three
reasons: it has silted up; it has been paralleled by the railway from
Hangchow to Peking, 1,000 miles; and it has also been paralleled by the
China Merchants and other steamship services from Shanghai to Tientsin.
This once noble work, with its beautiful bridges, pagodas, embankments,
sluices, aqueducts and picturesque junks, passes into history, so far
as its transportation feature is concerned. It may be continued in
parts as an aqueduct, for conservancy purposes in relieving the water
pressure on the flood districts of the Whei and Yangtze valleys, or
for water power for a vast scheme of manufacturing, but that is for
engineers, and not economists, to decide. Marco Polo first made this
famous work known to the western world. The southern section from
Hangchow, the bore city and capital of the Sung dynasty, to the Yangtze
River at Chingkiang, was dug about 610 A. D. The oldest, and most
important section from a conservancy point of view, from Chinkiang to
the Whei River, 130 miles, was built about 485 B. C. Kublai Khan is
credited with being the dreamer of the idea, the digger of the ditch,
the De Lesseps of China, and the fact is that he built the northern
section of about 650 miles from the Whei River to Peking in 1289 A. D.
in order to bring the tribute rice and copper of the southern provinces
to Peking. Those who are interested in the canal in its last days of
picturesque use should read the works of Sir John Francis Davis, who
was governor of Hongkong, and whose experience in China covered the
crowded years from 1820 to 1846. The American general, J. M. Wilson,
has also written a book covering his inspection of parts of the canal.