Proposed imperial fleet of steamers.
As there is perhaps no more interesting incident in the history of merchant shipping, than the change now being made in the vessels of the Chinese Empire the [following drawing] of one of their finest tea-boats (“soma”)[400] may not be uninteresting to my readers; the more so, as I have reason to believe that vessels almost as perfect and ornamental as this one might have been found navigating the coasts and rivers of China even before the dawn of history, and, that they have remained almost unchanged till now, when they are about to be displaced by the steam-ships of Europe, is an event of unusual significance in the progress of ancient nations.
CHINESE TEA-BOAT.
Increase of trade with China.
The resources of the interior.
Though our export trade with China has of late years materially increased, a still greater increase may be anticipated if steamers are placed on the upper waters of the Yang-tse, and still more so if Europeans are allowed to trade direct with the dense population of the interior. That such results may be hoped for is clear from the fact that, wherever the merchants of Europe and America have settled, Chinese merchants have been greatly enriched by this intercourse; they have, in fact, found, as the Germans did when the Hanseatic League commenced their exclusive commercial operations in Europe centuries ago, that new traders brought with them new sources of wealth, and developed channels of trade hitherto unknown or at least unrecognised; a result naturally to be expected in a country, such as China, producing within itself, and in extraordinary abundance, some of the most valuable articles known to commerce, at a comparatively small expenditure of either labour or capital. Thus, silk, in most of the provinces of China, is produced by the labour of the women and children alone, the trees occupying the place of no other crops. Insect wax, another article of a high marketable value, is also produced at a trifling expense; while the opium crops of the interior probably cost less in labour than any other that has to be annually sown and reaped.[401]
But beyond these, China produces in vast abundance numerous other articles, necessaries as well as luxuries of life, in great demand in every part of the world. Apart, for instance, from the staple article, tea, which no civilized nation can now dispense with, and silk, which increases in demand with the wealth of nations, and is even more sought after now than it was when the Roman Empire had reached the plenitude of its grandeur, the western provinces of this much more ancient empire, especially that of Szchuen, produce rice and other grain crops in astonishing natural luxuriance, and these would be cultivated to a far greater extent than they now are, if increased facilities were afforded for their export. Already tobacco, sugar, hemp, and tung oil, are sent to the coast in large quantities from Szchuen, and form, even without the means of interchange with foreign nations, a source of ready-made wealth as the mere bounty of nature. Hence, the inhabitants are generally rich, except in districts where the population is too dense, or where they are exposed to undue extortion, owing to the avarice of the authorities. In Szchuen, as also in Yunnan and in many other provinces, the agricultural population is well off; the farms are large; the heads of families being as well dressed as merchants in great cities; the women too, as a rule, are “richly attired, and the appearances of many of the rustic villages and large farms convey the impression of a perpetual holiday.”[402]
“Coal is worked on the hills in the neighbourhood of Chungking, and affords employment to the people of the villages, who make a kind of patent fuel of it, for which they find a market at Ichang, as well as in the smaller towns in the neighbourhood.”[403] Cotton is also produced in abundance; and “among the agricultural population of Szchuen, the women and children, as well as old men, employ themselves in spinning and weaving it, not only for their own wants but also for sale in the towns.”[404] “The people of Chungking,” the delegates state,[405] “expressed great readiness to trade with us, and seemed surprised that we did not bring goods for sale. Foreign merchants will undoubtedly be well received whenever they may choose, or be permitted, to go there.”
Mode of conducting business.