Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 58.djvu/211

Rh of Chinese export, as was shown above, are silk and tea. The output of silk is increasing steadily, especially in the manufactured form. The amount of tea exported, however, is not on the increase, being about the same that it was ten years ago, the tea trade having been adversely affected by the competition of Japan, Ceylon and India, where more favorable transportation facilities have given advantages. Both tea and silk, however, are staple articles, with no chance of substitutes being found, and the world's demand for both is steadily increasing. The possibility of enlarging the output of silk is great, for there are in Northern Kwang-tung alone large areas of land capable of producing mulberry, that are lying idle at present because there are no transportation facilities.

The idea we have of the interior of China as overpeopled, and with every square foot of land under cultivation, is entirely without foundation, except possibly in certain portions of the great loess plain in the north. There is a great amount of land, capable of producing crops of various kinds and of supporting a population, that to-day lies fallow and unfilled. Given the means of sending their produce to the sea and so to the foreigner, the people of the interior will see to it that the produce is ready.

Then there are vast mineral resources that are practically untouched. China, with coal-fields exceeding in quantity those of Europe, imported last year no less than 859,370 tons of coal, valued at $4,477,670 gold, nearly the whole of which came from Japan. With railways to bring the output of the mines to market, there will not only be no importing, thus permitting at least that amount to be expended for other foreign goods, but there should be a large export of coal to Hongkong for foreign shipping, and to other Eastern countries for local consumption. In addition to the coal, there are beds of copper, iron, lead and silver that, to-day untouched, are only awaiting the screech of the locomotive whistle.

In short, the resources, both agricultural and mineral, are at hand to permit a foreign commerce to be carried on—to pay the cost of building of railways and to provide sustenance for a commercial invasion.

But as yet China has made no effort to develop her latent powers. As was shown, the bulk of her exports are confined to two articles, due to her people not utilizing their natural advantages in diversity of soil and climate. Each locality produces that single article which gives the best local result, without considering broad market conditions. Thus in the south it is mostly silk and rice; in the central zone, rice and tea, and in the north, millet and wheat. Every bit of valley land is cultivated, but the hills are let go waste. There are great areas of grazing land where some day the Chinese will let herds roam, producing beef and hides, which they will turn to commercial profit; while on other