Page:EB1922 - Volume 31.djvu/726

686 Trade with Japan

Trade with foreign countries

1912

1913 1914

1915

1916

1917 1918 1919

67% 68% 72% ' 78% 75% 75% 81% 77%

33% 32% 28%

22% 25% 25%

19%

23%

Agriculture and Industry. In 1908 a special Government office was established in order to control and foster the cultivation of the medicinal plant ginseng, an unrivalled quality of which is produced in the peninsula. Experiments were conducted to counteract disease in the crop and to improve the methods of cultivation, associations of cultivators being also formed. The area under cultivation increased fifteenfold from 1908 to 1920, the present annual value of the medicinal ginseng raised being 2,000,000 yen.

In 1907 the Government commenced operations for the natural evaporation of salt, a product hitherto obtained by the artificial boiling process, and the results being satisfactory, the manufacture was developed as a Government enterprise. By 1918, salt-pans covering an area of 2,528 ac. were in operation, producing 102,396,- 141 Ib. of salt. As this quantity is still insufficient for home consump- tion, in 1920 the Government commenced laying out an additional 6,370 ac., the work to be completed in seven years.

The production of tobacco, an old-established industry in Chosen, has been greatly improved, both as regards cultivation and manu- facture, by the encouragement received from the Government. The area under cultivation has increased from 33,261 ac. in 1915 to 42,525 ac. in 1919, the total value having risen from 4,878,127 yen to 14,501,169 yen in the same period.

Sericulture. The dryness of the Chosen climate being very favour- able to the cultivation of the mulberry tree and the rearing of silk- worms, sericulture had been long established, though it had devel- oped but slowly. When the Government undertook the reorganiza- tion of the industry in 1906 a great improvement was effected. The native silk-worms being found to be inferior to the Japanese species, the latter were gradually introduced and the production of cocoons was greatly augmented thereby. Some 400,000 families are engaged in the industry, nearly 60,000 ac. of mulberry trees are under culti- vation and, in 1918, over 600,000 bus. of cocoons (against 69,000 in 1910) were produced, whilst the value of the cocoons exported in 1918 was nearly 5,000,000 yen. The export of silk itself is negligible, the silk industry of Chosen being still in its infancy.

Stock -Farming. Cattle-breeding is carried on nearly everywhere in the peninsula, the bulls being employed largely for agricultural and draught purposes on account of their hardy constitution and massive build. The cows give little milk, but furnish good beef. Cow-hides occupy an important place in the export trade. A decline of export was shown in 1912 and 1913 due to cattle plague on the frontier districts, and the large increases in hide exports in 1915 and 1916 were due to the war demand in Japan for tanning purposes.

The Chosen horses are poor but experiments in improving the breed are being conducted by the Government: the breeding of ass^s, mules, sheep, pigs and goats is proceeding and poultry-raising is also being encouraged.

Horticulture. Fruit - farming received considerable impetus through the establishment of model agricultural farms by the Government. Generally speaking, the number of pear, apple and chestnut trees and also of grape vines has doubled in the years 1913 to 1918. Afforestation has progressed uninterruptedly since 1907 when the Government first undertook a share of this necessary work, which is also actively carried on by private enterprise. By 1918 the Government had planted 13,004 trees covering 7,880 ac., the local administration 8,194 trees on 17,738 ac., whilst private enterprise had taken up, under lease, 240,4^3 ac. of State forest-land.

Mining. Prior to the annexation, the mining industry of Chosen was chiefly in the hands of foreigners, four American corporations and four individuals holding rights, two English corporations and one individual, two Frenchmen, one Russian and one Italian, besides several Japanese and Americans jointly, all enjoying mining privi- leges and exploiting some 270,000 ac. of mining area, principally gold-bearing. A mining law enacted after the annexation and made operative on April I 1916, prohibited foreigners from acquiring mining rights in Chosen, unless as a legal Japanese corporation, although the rights existing and already granted to foreigners by the former Korean Government were strictly respected.

The principal mineral products, in addition to gold, are silver, zinc, copper, lead, iron, tungsten ore, graphite, coal (especially anthra- cite), quartz sand and kaolin. A number of Japanese mine-owners have recently commenced operations in the peninsula and the mining enterprise shows a steady expansion. The total yield from all the mines in the country was as follows:

191 6,067,952 yen 1916. . . 14,078,188 yen 1912 6,815,121 1918 . . . 30,838,074 '

I9H 8,522,418 ' 1919. . . 25,414,510 '

Manufactures. Strictly speaking, the factory system of Chosen

is still in the first stages of development, the native handicrafts of weaving, ceramics, metal-casting, etc., having been much neglected. New industries, however, are now growing up. The principal ones are ore-smelting, pulp manufacture, cotton-spinning, rice-cleaning, brewing, the production of gas and electric current, as well as the ginseng, tobacco and salt industries already mentioned.

Iron works have been founded at Kyumipo, in the Hwanghai province, which it is estimated will produce annually 100,000 tons of pig iron, 62,000 tons of iron ingots, and 73,000 tons of iron plates, bars, etc., besides by-products. In Shin Wiju a large factory ha been established for pulp-making for which the native Yalu timbe. is being employed. A tanning factory at Yung-dung-po is producing leather belting, sole-leather, harness leather, etc., by the process i ' oak-chrome tanning.

In 1917 there were in all 1,358 factories in Chosen, with a capita f 39.038,966 yen, the year's production having a value of nearly 100 million yen. About 85 % of the capital was provided from Japanese sources, but there are signs that the natives are awakening to a new interest in manufacturing enterprise.

Fisheries. Since 1911 the Chosen fisheries have been much improved owing to the provisions of the Fishery Law, promulgated in that year. New fishing associations have been formed, havens for the fishing fleet provided, and proper investigations conducted into the suitability of gear and the movements and location of fish. As a result the fishing population has increased from 93,400 with 16,709 boats in 1910, to 346,349 with 53,118 boats in 1918, the total value of the catch having risen from 7, 871, 910 yen to 32,863,402 yen in the same period.

Communications. Prior to the establishment of the protectorate, Chosen possessed no highways worthy of the name, such roads as existed having been allowed to lapse into a shocking state of repair. Few roads were wide enough for vehicular traffic and many were only six feet broad, besides being extremely rough and difficult for coolies and horses alike. After the commencement of the protec- torate regime, the Government engineering department planned an extensive scheme of highway construction and by Mar. 1918 over 5,000 m. of road had been constructed or repaired. Some 3,850 m. were undertaken at Government expense and the cost of the re- mainder was shared between the Government and the local authori- ties, the total outlay being about 25,000,000 yen.

The first railway line in Chosen, between Seoul and Chemulpo, was completed by a Japanese syndicate in 1900 and opened to traffic in Oct. of that year, whilst the same syndicate undertook the construction of the Seoul-Fusan railway (274 m.), which was completed and opened to traffic in Jan. 1905. The trunk line Seoul- Wiju (309 m.), which traverses the peninsula lengthwise, was built by the Japanese army and completed in 1906. Branch lines were added from time to time, so that by the time Chosen became part of the empire, some 759 m. of railway were in operation. By 1919-20 this figure had been increased to 1,153 miles.

Posts, etc. Since 1910 the expansion of the postal, telegraph and telephone services in Chosen has been normal, the number of post- offices having increased from 447 in 1910 to 562 in 1920, the postal packets from 100,265,041 to 267,635,965 and the parcels from 1,589,722 to 4,230,179. The length of telegraph lines increased in the same period from 3,389 m. to 4,870 m. ; the length of wires from 7,740 to 16,063 m -; an d the number of messages from 7,127,235 to 11,012,075. The length of telephone lines increased from 314 m. to 3,260 m.; the wires from 10,121 m. to 225,016 m. ; and the messages from 21,260,918 to 58,691,425.

A great increase both in the number of depositors and the amount of their savings was a feature of the Post-Office Savings Bank in Chosen; in 1911-2 there were 223,599 depositors (4,365,996 yen), and in 1919-20 there were 1,406,259 depositors (14,925,990 yen).

(H. SA.) KORNILOV, LAVR GEORGIEVICH (1870-1918), Russian general and patriot, born on Aug. 31 1870 in the little town of Ust-Kamenogorodsk, Siberia, was essentially a son of the people, his father being a poor Cossack officer and his mother also a Cossack. As a boy he went through a severe schooling in a life of want and privation. At nine years old he entered the parish school, where somehow he learnt to read and write. He prepared himself unaided for his entrance into the Siberian Cadet Corps, which he joined in 1883. Passing thence to the Michailovsky artillery school in St. Petersburg, he was in 1892 commissioned and posted to the Turkestan Artillery Brigade. Within three years he was back again at the capital to enter the academy of the general staff, in the final examinations of which, in 1898, he was among the first. Not attracted, however, by life in the big civilized centres, and instinctively drawn to the open spaces of the Russian borderlands, Kornilov again devoted himself to service in Turkestan, whence he undertook a series of daring journeys into Afghanistan, Chinese Turkestan, Persia and Baluchistan. In 1904, on the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, Kornilov, then a lieutenant-colonel, received an appoint-