The position of Peking at the present time is one of peculiar interest, for all the different forces that are now at work to make or mar China issue from, or converge towards, the capital. There, on the Dragon Throne, beside, or rather above, the powerless and unhappy emperor, the father of his people and their god, sits the astute and ever-watchful lady whose word is law to emperor, minister, and clown alike. There dwell the heads of the Government boards, the leaders of the Manchu aristocracy and the great political parties, the drafters of new constitutions and imperial decrees, and the keen-witted diplomatists who know so well how to play against European antagonists the great game of international chess. To Peking come the memorials of viceroys and provincial governors; indictments and denunciations against high officials for ultra-Conservatism or for Radicalism; bulky petitions from visionary students who have studied Western politics, and hope against hope that their proposed measures of reform may chance to come under the imperial eye. And there the great Powers of the West, reproducing in miniature the mighty armed camps of Europe, watch each other with jealous eyes from the gates of their embattled legations.
The Lu-Han railway, by which I left the Capital on 13th January, brought me to Hankow on the evening of the 16th. The total distance is 1,223 kilometres, or about 759 miles. The provinces traversed by this great trunk line are Chihli, Honan, and Hupei. The line for the most part lies through a rich, flat country, studded with innumerable trees, villages, and farmsteads, but presenting no features of special interest to the ordinary traveller. The train stopped every evening, and resumed the journey early each morning, the first stage being completed at Shun-tê-fu, in Chihli. The second day we entered the province of Honan and crossed the Yellow River by the great bridge which has been the subject of so much criticism and discussion in engineering circles in the East. The construction of this bridge—a screw-pile structure almost two miles long—was by far the most serious and costly work that faced the French and Belgian engineers in the course of their labours, the chief difficulties consisting in the enormous rise and fall in the river and the shifting sands and almost fathomless mud of its bed. What must strike most travellers who are devoid of any technical knowledge of engineering are the great length of the bridge, the flimsiness of its appearance (for its massive supports are sunk far below the bed of the river), and its narrowness. Whether it is really fit to stand the strain of an abnormal summer flood, and whether its piers have been sunk sufficiently deep to ensure permanent stability, are questions which time and experience alone can solve. It had only been opened a few weeks before I crossed it, and since then traffic has had to be suspended more than once. Only one train could pass over the bridge at a time, and each was taken across by a special light engine.
SOUTH BANK OF YELLOW RIVER, WITH VIEW OF RAILWAY BRIDGE.
RAILWAY-TRAVELLING IN CHINA
The second day's journey was completed at Chêng-chou, half an hour's journey from the south bank of the Yellow River. Here I found a quasi-European inn named the "Hotel Pericles," kept by an Italian ex-railway employee. Macaroni and chianti and the genial conversation of our host, Mr P. Mouchtouris, and two of his compatriots, afforded a cheerful interlude in a somewhat monotonous journey.
At the close of the third day we found ourselves at a place called Chu Ma-tien—a railway depôt only, not within sight of any large centre of population. On the following day we passed through the mountainous country that divides the provinces of Honan and Hupei, with scenery the most picturesque to be found anywhere between the two railway termini. Hankow itself, which was reached a few hours later, lies on the flat banks of the Yangtse, at a distance of about 600 miles from Shanghai. On the opposite bank of the great river lies the provincial capital, Wu-ch'ang, the seat of Government of the viceroy or governor-general; while on the same side of the river as Hankow, but separated from it by the Han river, lies Han-Yang. These three places together form what is practically one vast city of something like two million inhabitants: a city so favourably situated in the heart of China that it can hardly fail to become a commercial capital of pre-eminent importance. The large European trading community is fully alive to this fact, and building land is rapidly increasing in value. It is the terminus of the ocean-going vessels, and the starting-point of the smaller cargo and passenger-steamers bound for Ichang, about 390 miles further up the river. Hankow also derives great advantage from its position—denoted by its name—at the mouth of the Han, one of the Yangtse's greatest tributaries, itself navigable for native cargo boats for no less than 1,200 miles. Finally, Hankow is at present the terminus of China's only trunk railway, that by which I travelled from Peking, and it will soon be similarly connected with Canton in the south. It is perhaps no exaggeration to say that there is hardly a city in the whole world that has a greater commercial and industrial future before it than Hankow.
RAILWAYS IN CHINA
That the railway will pay, and pay enormously—especially when the connections with Canton and Kowloon are completed—is a matter beyond all possibility of doubt. That it will be of real benefit to the people of China is more to the point. It will undoubtedly enable the native merchants and farmers to send their goods and produce to markets which were formerly unattainable by them, and will go far towards minimising the misery caused by local famines. There is plenty of evidence that the Chinese are everywhere anxious and delighted to avail themselves of the wonderful new force that has been introduced into their country: the old days when the Shanghai-Wusung railway had to be sold by the foreign owners to the Chinese Government, and was then deliberately wrecked and abolished to appease the prejudices of anti-foreign mobs,[4] have passed for ever away. The final proof—if one were needed—that the Chinese Government has definitely surrendered its old anti-railway policy, lies in the fact that it is itself promoting the construction of purely Chinese lines such as that from Peking to Kalgan; lines not only owned by Chinese capitalists, but actually engineered and constructed by Chinese engineers and contractors. The recent opposition of the Government to the construction of such lines as that from Kowloon to Canton, or from the Burmese frontier to T'êng-yüeh, lies simply in the rapidly-growing national hostility to the monopolisation of Chinese industrial enterprises by foreign capital, and the interference of foreign Powers—based on their subjects' pecuniary stake in the country—in the internal affairs of the empire. Therefore, though we hear a great deal just now about the difficulties placed by Chinese officialdom in the way of the employment of foreign engineers and foreign capital in railway construction and the exploitation of mines, this must not be interpreted as a reluctance on the part of China to have railways built or to have the mineral wealth of the country opened up. It is merely that the Chinese wish to build their own railways, and to work their own mines, in order that international disputes and political dangers may be avoided and that China may be exploited for the primary benefit of the Chinese Government and people, rather than for the benefit of foreign Governments and foreign capitalists. The European points out that the Chinese, either from want of money or from lack of technical knowledge and experience, are incapable of giving effect to these admirable ideals, however much they might wish to do so; to which the Chinese retort that rather than tolerate foreign interference, they prefer to wait until these disadvantages can be obviated, even if the country's advance in wealth and civilisation is thereby retarded. This attitude, even if economically unsound, is quite a natural one in the circumstances; but, unfortunately, there are a number of people in Europe and in the Far East who seem to regard any attempt made by China to keep or regain control of her own resources as a kind of international crime, which must, if necessary, be punished by gun-boats and bayonets. We resent the introduction of a Chinese element into British Columbia, Australia, and South Africa, but we make bitter protests against the "anti-foreign feeling in China" if the responsible statesmen of that country refuse to silence the cry of "China for the Chinese."