China Revolutionized - John Stuart Thomson

Spirited photograph of the turning tide, Pearl River, Canton. Speedy slipper boats, sanpans, junks; modern steam launch. These launches are rapidly transforming China’s transportation in the south.

Wider maloos, or roads, are being broken through the cities by tearing down the shops on one side of the way.

A vigorous game of Association football at Boone (American) University, Wuchang, Central China. Note the interested crowds.

The sympathy between the natives and the foreigner which exists at Newchwang, Tientsin, Shanghai and Hongkong, is lacking at stern, military, exotic Tsingtau. Yet the Germans have set a splendid object lesson in the precision and strength of the Tsingtau municipal establishment. The fine German navy is always in evidence, and the finer German army is everywhere. Many German industries have been established, and are run with as grim a determination, being backed by the “syndicates”, when they are losing money as when they are making it. German merchants seem to thrive better, and prefer to keep their stocks at the many international settlements, where trade has followed natural channels. The coal wealth at Poshan and elsewhere, which the German railway has developed, is enormous, but the Chinese are bitter that the profits, on the principle of “all the traffic will bear”, all go to Germany and not to China. It is noticeable, in contrast with the British occupation of Hongkong and other colonies, that the Germans have not kept the Chinese names for the hills and bays. Tsingtau has splendid rail and ship connection north and south. Among the exports to Europe are the famous silk and straw braid of the province, egg products, black pigs, coal, wheat, millet, sorghum, maize, beans in particular, peas, hemp, copper, iron, antimony, asbestos, silver, sulphur, gold, rugs, the famous liu-li vitreous crockery of wonderful colors, castor oil, peanuts, fruit of excellent quality, etc. Years ago the German gunboat Iltis was lost in a typhoon while trying to make this port, where the Germans were later to establish themselves in a rivalry with Russia’s aggression in Manchuria.

Tientsin, the great port of Peking, is another concession city, where the various nations keep their civilizations and military and naval forces bright for the inspection of the Chinese, who live contiguous in a walled city, where Li Hung Chang and his protégé, Yuan Shi Kai, made their names famous as viceroys and intermediaries between Orient and Occident. The city is at the head of the historic Grand Canal. Its river, the Pei Ho, runs up toward Peking. It has splendid railway connection west, south and north. The national railways of North China are managed here under the direction of Jeme Tien, Doctor Wang and Chang Kee, with foreign advisers like Mr. Kinder and Mr. Pope available. Rich coal mines, especially the famous old Kaiping, are near, and there is a vast export of this product, as well as of carpet wool, camel’s hair, camel’s-hair rugs, jujube preserves, etc., for the world. As it is a most important banking center, a great amount of gold is handled. Concessionaires have flocked here, eager for privileges, and the game has opened anew. Foreign troops have grounded their arms here more than at any international port in China.