China Revolutionized - John Stuart Thomson

Industrial China. The government, foreign and native capital are vieing with one another in developing industries of all kinds. Wages are rising, so that the West need not be alarmed.

Modern road (bund); electric light; telegraph; buildings; trees on border; at Canton, South China.

The grandest river gorges in the world, on the Yangtze. These difficult rapids have separated Eastern and Western China, but a railway is now under construction. A modern road skirts the cliffs.

Agricultural machinery will before long be required on the great plains of Pechili, Mongolia and the three Manchurian provinces, whence America will draw much grain, meat, oil, lumber and coal. Nail, needle and glass factories are going up on a small scale. China has the iron in the mine, but she will need our machinery. Paper mills are largely increasing, and we need their pulp. Some mills use bamboo, which the Japanese successfully experimented on in Formosa. Factories for making soap, the most glaringly deficient thing in dirty China hitherto, have been erected, even in far western Chingtu City. China, like Japan, has concluded to adopt wool in the northern provinces instead of padded cotton and sheepskin. Woolen mills have been erected at Shanghai, Peking, Lanchow, Hankau, Kalgan, etc., to work up to the vast supplies of Mongolian and Pechili shearings. The old method of making winter clothing was to pad cotton and silk with cotton batting and silk waste, the wearer being transformed into a comical Falstaffian size. Modern tanneries have been erected by Mohammedan Chinese at Hankau, Lanchow, Singan, etc. Hardware and enameled ware factories have been erected at Tientsin, Canton, etc., but China can not for years take care of her needs in hardware. Flour mills abound at Harbin, Shanghai and Hongkong, and will be rapidly extended throughout the north. Cement is being heavily produced, and will increase, great factories now being run at Tongshan in Pechili, Canton and Macao in Kwangtung, and Tayeh in Hupeh provinces. All of these industries will need machinery. Of all municipal improvements, China has needed modern water-works the most. They are now in operation in the cities of Shanghai, Hankau, Tientsin, Canton, Peking, Mukden, Chingtu, Nanking, Hangchow, Chinkiang, Swatow, Tsinan, Newchwang, etc. Electric cars are run at Canton, Shanghai, Peking, Hongkong, Hankau, Tientsin, Tsingtau, etc. Hongkong has a wonderful cable railway up 1,500 feet of mountain, which will be copied at Kiukiang, and other hill resorts from the heat. Telephone service is installed at Hongkong, Canton, Shanghai, Peking, Tientsin, Tsingtau, Chingtu, Wuhu, Hangchow, Ningpo, Nanking, etc. Electric light is furnished at Nanking, Peking, Tientsin, Tsingtau, Hankau, Swatow, Mukden, Newchwang, Shanghai, Hangchow, etc. In little of this have the Americans entered as yet, though they will on a vast scale as American finance and industry extends its agencies. The financing and the contracting often go together, and it is not unknown for the British and Germans to combine, though the British would be glad to join with the Americans, if there were Americans on the ground. Often the suppliers divide on a plant, the British furnishing the engines and boilers, and the Germans the dynamos. Gas works are also being erected, and the incandescent mantle lamps are very popular. As China has untold riches in coal, her development in gas lighting will be extensive. There is a great field for American machinery here. Her pipe foundries will grow, as she has as much iron as coal. For many years, however, her industrial, municipal and railway supplies, and certainly her machinery, must largely come from abroad. It is a great field for the manufacturing nations, and even Austria is entering it with recent success. She has increased the service of the Austrian Lloyd Steamship Company from Trieste, and her manufactures are seen more and more throughout the Far East. Yet Austria is not a nation that can be compared with America, Britain or Germany in potentiality.

Since China has become a purchaser of machinery, she invites the world to advertise in Chinese in her newspapers, and to open agencies in China, where Chinese is read by the compradores at least. She hates concession hunters when they are of the Pizarro and Cortez type, and desires to exploit and profit by her own wealth. I have seen the bitterest complaint in the Ching Wei Pao, an able native paper of Tientsin, that too many franchises are given free to foreigners, who pay small wages and take the profits out of the country. Can you blame them for desiring municipal ownership, if they are willing to buy our machinery and hire our instructors?

China is slowly establishing fire departments in its municipal and marine life. I have seen a fire break out on oil boats in the West River of Kwangtung province. Gongs were struck everywhere, and tugs and launches hastened to the scene and with hose poured water upon the blaze.