Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1899 American Edition.djvu/819

 PRODUCTION AND INDUSTRY — COMMERCE

463

Sze-ch'wan. The The mulberry tree

Production and Industry.

China is essentially an agricultural country, and the land is all freehold, held by families on the payment of an annual tax. Lands and houses are registered, and when a sale takes place the purchaser, on informing the dis- trict ruler, receives, besides the document given by the seller, an official state- ment of the transfer, for which he pays at the rate of 6 per cent, of the pur- chase money. Land, however, cannot be sold until all the near kindred have successively refused to purchase. The holdings are in general small ; the farm animals are oxen and buffaloes ; the implements used are primitive ; irrigation is common. Horticulture is a favourite pursuit, and fruit trees are grown in great variety. Wheat, barley, maize, and millet and other cereals, with pease and beans, are chiefly cultivated in the north, and rice in the south. Sugar, indigo, and cotton are cultivated in the south provinces. Opium has become a crop of increasing importance. Tea is cultivated exclusively in the west and south, in Fu-Chien, Hiipei, Hu-Nan, Chiang-hsi, Cheh-Chiang, An-hui, Kuangtung, and culture of silk is equally important with that of tea. grows everywhere, but the best and the most silk comes from Kuangtung, Sze-ch'wan, Cheh-Chiang and Kiang-su. An important feature in the development of the Chinese industries is the erection of cotton mills in Shanghai, and of silk filatures in Shanghai, Canton and elsewhere. Two native cotton mills were started in 1890, and recently four foreign mill- companies have been successfully floated.

All the 18 provinces contain coal, and China may be regarded as one of the first coal countries of the world. The coal mines at Kai-p'ing, Northern Chihli, under foreign supervision, have been very productive ; those of Fang- shan-hsien supply Pekin with anthracite fuel. In Shantung the coal-field of Poshan is at present the most productive, but at Changkiu-hsien, Ichou-fu, and I-hsien there are also promising coal-fields. Coal is found also in Kansu. In Eastern Shansi there is a field of anthracite of an area of about 13,500 square miles, and in Western Shansi a field of bituminous coal of nearly equal importance. In South-Eastern Hunan the coal area covers about 21,700 square miles, containing both anthracite and bituminous coal, and in some places the production is already considerable. In Central and Northern Sze-Chuen coal is abundant, and the coal traffic is stated to be enormous.

Iron ores are abundant in the anthracite field of Shansi, where the iron industry is ancient, and iron (found in conjunction with coal) is worked in ^lanchuria. Copper ore is plentiful in Yunnan, where the copper- mining industry has long existed, and near the city of Mengtse tin, lead, and silver are found.

Commerce.

The commercial intercourse of China is mainly with the United Kingdom and the British colonies. The following table shows the value of the foreign trade of China for five years in haikwan taels : —

—

1893 1 j 1894 1

1895 1

1896 1 1897 1

Imports. Exports.

i:.l, 3(52,819 Hi2,102,91l llf.,r..'H2,311 l2S,104,r.22

I7i,(i0(,7iri

14.'{,20:^,2I1

202,580,904 ' 202,828,62r> 131,081,421 103,501, 3r)8

1

1 Tliese values are the actual market prices of the goods (iinpoits and exports) in the ports of Cliiiia ; liut fnr tlir i>niiio.sos (^f coinpariscin it is the \aliir nf the imports at the niuiiunt