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“..................................................................21
Table of cotton goods imported..........................................................................................22
Cotton goods..........................................................................................................................................28
„ yarn ..........................................................................................................................................29
,, mills in China ..................................................................................................................30
Berlinette ................................................................................................................................................31
Thread ......................................................................................................................................................31
Table of woollen goods...............................”
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“...326 lbs.
against the 75,219,866 lbs. of the Chinese returns.
Cotton mills of China.—In sympathy with the depression in the
imported yarn market, the great majority of the cotton spinning
mills in China had a very bad year. Few did more than cover
expenses and many were run at an actual loss. For the greater
part of the year exchange favoured imported yarns where
demand existed, and the Chinese mills held large unsaleable stocks,
with the result that production had to be curtailed and for a time
some of the mills suspended work altogether. Not so many years
ago the Lower Yangtsze ports and Shanghai sent annually to
Manchuria by junk enormous quantities of nankeens, the value of
which in 1902 was over 8,000,000 Haikuan taels and was frequently
as high as 6,000,000 taels. These nankeens were hand woven in the
cotton districts round Shanghai and in the Yangtsze Valley from
warps made from spinnings of the Shanghai mills and hand-spun
wefts. This trade with Manchuria has dwindled very much...”
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“...027 Haikuan taels (4,257,829?.).
This was 978,407 cwts. less than the import of 1906, and the decrease
was general, but specially marked in the case of brown and white
sugars. Refined sugar had a reduced import of only 7,322 cwts.
The imports of 1906, were, however, exceptionally heavy, and the
figures for 1907 range from 16-39 to 51-80 per cent, ahead of the
average imports of the previous five years. The competition of the
higher grades of Java sugar with Java sugars refined in the Hong-
Kong mills becomes keener every year. Japan claims to have sent...”
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“...the supply arrived when the famine area
wanted money not food, and its disposal at low prices did consider-
able harm to the roller mills now at work in China, especially
to the Shanghai mills. In my last report 1 mentioned that these
local mills, owing to the scarcity of native wheat, were importing
wheat from America and Australia. The quantity landed in
Shanghai in 1906 was 4,490 tons, but, as in the case of flour, the
country of origin is not given in the customs returns and the figures
for 1907 are not yet available. These mills have suffered from the
depression which has visited other industrial undertakings during the
year : the fine new mill at Kowloon has come to grief, some have
suspended work temporarily at least, and others have been working
short time. During a visit which I paid to Manchuria last year
I found that the eight large roller mills at Harbin with an output
c apacity of nearly 1,500,000 lbs. per day of 24 hours, were idle,
and that only enough flour was being made...”
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“...Works at Hankow. The value of the foreign import
was 7,996,325 Haikuan taels in 1903, 6,046,459 Haikuan taels in
1904, 7,346,739 Haikuan taels in 1905 and 11,439,806 Haikuan
taels in 1906.
Machinery and fittings.—Machinery and fittings to the value
of 6,022,421 Haikuan taels (978,643?.) were imported in 1907 against
a value of 943,099?. in 1906. The 1907 import, which was 94-48
per cent, above the average of the previous five years, included
machinery for cotton, flour, paper, oil and other mills, for iron
works and for arsenals and mints. Machi e belting fell in value
from 28,147?. in 1906 to 20,376?. in 1907 Sewing and knitting...”
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“...decline of nearly
5,500,000 bags in the import of 1907 as compared with 1906 was
due to the restrictions placed on the moveinent of rice during the year.
The value of fancy boxes, which had fallen, from 31,599?. in 1905 to
27,064?. in 1906, dropped to 12,290?. in 1907, stationery fell from
146,517?., a rather heavy import, to 121,463?., and paper from
668,770?. to 532,257?. If the import of paper fell off, it was not due
to the paper mills of China, fitted with foreign machinery and turning
out wrapping paper. To my knowledge there are five of these mills
—one in Canton, three in Shanghai—of which one, the Imperial
Chinese Paper Mill, started work in July, 1907, and one at Nanzing
in Chekiang. near the border of that and. the province of Kiangsu-,
which alsb commenced Work last year.
(419) ....................o 2...”
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“...exports to foreign countries during 1906 and
1907 :—
1906. j 1907.
1 Tons. £ Tons. £
Abutilon ..J 268 3,634 1,381 19,780
Cotton ... 45,806 1,914,291 58,813 2,755,957
Hemp ... 11,206 327,548 7,784 207,213
Jute 9,863 133,369 3,611 45,785
Ramie ... 955 26,958 5,133 160,155
The only reliable figures in the above table are those given for
cotton, the export of which increased from 45,806 to 58,813 tons and
in value from 1,914,291/. to 2,755,957/. I have already given
the reason why the cotton mills of China were inactive during 1907,
thus permitting an increased export of the raw material, principally
to Japan. The crop of cotton in the immediate neighbourhood of
Shanghai and in the province of Hupei was poor, while the harvest
in Chekiang was much above the average. Although abutilon hemp
is grown in the West of China and is exported from theYangtsze,
North China is the great centre of production and the port of Tien-
tsin is the port of export. Unfortunately, as stated above, it is
there...”
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“...them-
selves of the craving for the drug, and she does not possess them.
She also requires their services to diminish the tremendous infant
mortality of the country and to remedy those insanitary conditions
to which much of that mortality is due. It is true that there are
medical colleges in Hong-Kong and in several cities of China, but
their graduates are merely a drop in the ocean of the Empire's
requirements.
I have frequently alluded to the desire of the Chinese to buy
machinery and set up mills of various kinds. The will to manu-
facture is there, but the lack of technical knowledge not unfrequently
leads to failure. The day may come when China will possess
medical and technical colleges, and it is a pleasure to note that some
of the highest officials recognise their necessity. His Excellency
Yuan Shih-k'ai, late Viceroy of the Province of Chihli, was instru-
mental in establishing a railway and mining college at Tongshan,
where the workshops of the Imperial Railways of North China are...”
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