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“...standard, of which it is scarcely surprising that
last year's trade should fall short in some measure. The measure is,
however, over large, amounting to nearly 25 per cent., and the reasons
which can be adduced for a decline in the trade scarcely seem to
justify so marked a decrease. Chief among these were :—Firstly, a
prolonged drought in the spring caused a poor wheat crop, which was
further spoiled by being harvested in wet weather; the shortage not
being filled by the usual supplies from Manchuria (owing to the in-
creasing cultivation of beans in place of wheat in those regions), prices
rose very high, and the prices of rice went up in sympathy, resulting in
considerable distress and restriction of purchasing power; secondly,
the wild speculation in rubber at Shanghai in the spring and summer,
which produced its results here, as almost everywhere, in a number of
bankruptcies and bank failures, and in a state of general tightness in
the money market; thirdly, a decreased demand abroad...”
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“...has, until recently, done so), as the most natural outlet. To these
negative factors there have been added of late years those actively
adverse forces mentioned at the beginning of the report—the expansion
of Tsingtau, the opening of the Chinanfu (Tsinan) Railway, by which
the great straw braid export and much else of her trade has been
diverted from Chefoo, and the rapid growth of Dalny which, with its
direct and cheap supply of goods from Japan, has cut off the large
influx of buyers from Manchuria who used regularly to visit this port.
Added to natural deficiencies such as those mentioned, keen com-
petition from several quarters at once, however unnaturally fostered
by subsidies and other artificial means, can but have its effect, even
as against the advantages of geographical position and great natural
resources. Interested or uninformed persons have spoken of Chefoo
as a dying port. This is emphatically not the case. But the struggle,
if not an exhausting, is a severe and a costly...”
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