Your search within this document for 'mills' resulted in eight matching pages.
1

“...of British importers, but the Lancashire manufacturer— seeing how completely he was cut out in heavy grey goods in the north of China—cannot fail to regard this state of things with apprehension. Competition was formerly restricted to 14-lb. cloths, but the American manufacturer is now cutting into Lancashire as low as 10 lbs., and must continue to do so, so long as he enjoys present advantages in the matter of geographical location, improved machinery and transport rates, The transfer of the mills in the North-Eastern States to the South, in the centre of the cotton country, and the more advantageous rates of freight, obtainable from New Orleans and New York, must tell very greatly in favour of the American as compared with the British manufacturer, who has to procure his raw material from across the seas, take it inland at heavy cost, and when made up take it back to the coast for shipment abroad. The trade in otiier than grey goods must, for some time to come, until the Americans acquire...”
2

“...■16 CHINA. therefore of how the Chinese mills will eventually affect the output of the Indian mills is one of great interest, seeing that 95 per cent, of the Indian export of yarn is at present absorbed by China. In Annex A to this section will be found some valuable notes bearing on this subject. There are about 14 mills in China, say some 460,000 spindles, spinning 10's, 12's, 14's and 16*'s, and their total out-turn may be set down at 60,000,000 lbs., about half of which is consumed in the Shanghai district, the balance going to ports up the Yangtzu and to North China. This yarn pays, on export from Shanghai to another treaty port, a duty of 0'70 Haikuan tael per picul, the equivalent of the former full import duty on imported yarn. Seeing that Chinese raw cotton is subject to the full incidence of internal taxation, and cotton, imported from abroad, pays import duty, this tax is not a popular one as far as the millowners are concerned. The only charge on cotton spun in Japan is...”
3

“...very large quantities Flour, of Hour imported. North China consumes principally wheat and millet, but the staple food of the people south of the Yellow River is rice. The emigrant, unable to procure rice abroad, has to adapt ■himself to his surroundings, and on his return shows no inclination to revert to his former diet. At the port of Swatow alone the importation of flour has increased from 777,866 lbs. in 1892 to 14,913,733 lbs. in 1901. Central China produces wheat of average quality, and mills for ■grinding flour have recently been started. When two new ones, at present in course of erection, are working, the total out-turn will be 260,000 lbs. per diem. The colour of the flour is, however, inferior to that of imported flour. The quantity of rice imported depends entirely on the home Rice- harvest, and for the last five years has averaged 167,000,000 lbs. The bulk of it goes to feed the teeming population of the Canton Jiiver delta, and is supplementary to an average annual import...”
4

“...favour; the figures that I have of certain Indian mills show their cost of coal per spindle to be 0-84 taels per annum, against the Shanghai cost of O'Gl taels, a difference in China's favour of say 27j per-cent. As the coal bill in spinning forms some 20 per cent, of the total charges, the advantage to China under this heading is some 5 to> 6 per cent. Generally speaking, the climate of' Shanghai is better suited to spinning than is the Indian climate. In many parts of India it is necessary to use humidifiers in the mills to keep the air moist; in Shanghai humidifiers are, so far as I am aware, un- known, the natural moisture in the atmosphere being fully sulficient. (2) Disad- The chief disadvantage suffered by China as compared with India cost difficult to say what is tlie extent of Ciih n. this disadvantage, as the price of labour in India varies according to locality ; the figures of the Indian mills in my possession relate only to mills in Southern India, where labour is cheaper than...”
5

“...china. however, that, with more experienced working, the number of hands employed in the Shanghai mills is being gradually reduced, and it seems reasonable to expect that only time is required to bring our labour cost down to that of Bombay. Another serious disadvantage l'rom which China suffers lies in the conditions of the local cotton market, which is practically in the hands of an unscrupulous set of cotton growers and dealers, who are able to manipulate it almost at will, and who seem bent on killing the industry which is the main support of their trade. The only way in which the demands of the cotton hongs can be kept in any degree of check is by importing Indian cotton against them, and this the mills are compelled to do to a very large extent, thus diverting the work of the mills from the purposes for which they were started to the extent of such importation, and, moreover, lowering the quality of the yarns produced. And beyond this question of market is the great trouble caused...”
6

“...themselves. The Government or the trade guilds must realise that a continuance of this practice will inevitably kill ■what trade there is in certain staples of export, and it is incum- bent on them to devise laws or regulations to meet the situation. That this is by no means impossible is proved by the fact that, ■when called upon to do so, the local authorities in Shanghai were .able to cope successfully with the serious malpractices in connec- tion with the supply of raw cotton to the local mills. »! - A cure for the second evil would be the exercise of common .sense on the part of the foreign merchant. America, Australia, and more especially India, compete with China in the matter of exports, but in comparison with these countries the export trade of the Middle Kingdom has been not inaptly described as a.:< sample .business." The Chinese middleman is, as a rule, crassly ignorant of the conditions governing the world's markets, but when he sees a'number of Europeans fiercely struggling...”
7

“...import of Ceylon tea dust, for purposes of mixing with Chinese dust and fannings made into tablet and brick tea, destined for the Russian market. The import last year amounted to 2,179,744 lbs. Some 273,280 lbs. of Ceylon leaf were also imported, but the experiment of blending it with China leaf has not proved very successful. Turning now to the minor staples of export, one finds at the Raw cotton., head of the list raw cotton. Tliis article goes almost exclusively to Japan to feed the cotton mills there, Japan producing but little cotton of her own. Bean cake, beans and bean oil, the products of Manchuria, are Bean other articles, the foreign export of which is, so far, practically con- P1'odlK't5- fined to Japan. There is and has been a large export of bean cake from Newchuang to supply the needs of the sugar plantations in Southern China, but the growth of the demand from Japan may be said to have commenced at the close of the Chino-Japanese war, and was the outcome of observations made...”
8

“...CHINA. 55- Aii extended field of distribution for machinery appears to be opening up. Flour and rice mills are, at the large centres, superseding native methods for treating rice and wheat. There seems an inclination to adopt foreign presses for dealing with bean products and extracting vegetable oils. Numerous enquiries are being made after engines to assist in various kinds of local manufacture on a small scale, and there are many other indications of a recognition of the superiority of machinery over manual processes. It may be as well, however, to state beforehand that it will prove of little use to address to His Majesty's representatives in China English circulars and illustrated price lists, setting forth the merits of machinery of this kind. Ocular demonstration of what a machine can do is what pleases the native best, and tends to lead to immediate business. A leading firm in Shanghai some months ago established a show room in which types of machinery are set up, with a small...”