Page:A wandering student in the Far East vol.1 - Zetland.djvu/250

186 that they intended surveying and building the line themselves, with which object in view they opened an office in 1905. Money was to be subscribed by private individuals taking shares, by increasing the selling price of Government salt, by raising the land-tax, and by the institution of lotteries. Strange to say, this proposition does not seem to have been taken very seriously by any one except the Chinese themselves, and in the summer of 1906 an Anglo-French Association came into being with the object of constructing a series of lines—viz., Canton-Hankow, Hankow-Ch'êngtu, and Ch'êngtu-Yün-nan Fu. For myself, I am not inclined to envy the shareholders in any future Yün-nan-Ssŭch'uan railway. The members of the Blackburn Commercial Mission doubted whether a railway "that would be able to transport goods or minerals at a lower rate than the pack-animal could be constructed through a country presenting so many obstacles to the engineer as does this." Even if it could, where is it going to find the goods to transport? Enthusiasts have pointed triumphantly to the long strings of coolies and