Page:A wandering student in the Far East vol.1 - Zetland.djvu/86

52 employment of women "being thought by the Viceroy to be against good morals and Confucian principles," the greater expense of male labour seems to have been no obstacle to the success of the enterprise, the output for 1905 being 164,930 pieces of shirting and 100,000 cwt. of yarn, and the profits 25 per cent, —a significant indication of the potentialities of Chinese industrial undertakings when run on business lines. I noted as a curious fact that the danger to be apprehended from departing from "good morals and Confucian principles" is not apparently so great in a silk filature as in a cotton mill, since in a silk factory next door the hands employed were almost exclusively women and girls.

The steel works at Han Yang are in a state of transition, and present at one and the same time an example of the impulsive and head-strong character of the Viceroy and of the movement in the direction of industrial reform. Having decided that he would make his own rails, his Excellency lost no time in issuing orders for the establishment of steel works.