Page:Twentieth Century Impressions of Hongkong, Shanghai, and other Treaty Ports of China.djvu/377

Rh the Pacific coast of America. It is thus the meeting place of four distinct streams of trade—from north, south, east, and west. The tonnage of the vessels entered and cleared at the port has doubled during the past ten years, and now aggregates 17,500,000 tons annually. The bulk of the shipping since 1856 has been British. In that year, which is the earliest for which records are available, Great Britain claimed 182,215 cut of a total of 320,458 tons. During the past ten years, however, Japan, America, and Germany have proved formidable competitors; indeed, in the case of Japan, the actual increase in tonnage has exceeded that of Great Britain, the amount having advanced from 575,833 to 3,102,070 tons, as compared with 4,498,278 and 6,848,400 tons in the case of Great Britain.

It is gratifying to find, nevertheless, that the imports from the United Kingdom are worth sixty-five million taels a year, or more than double those from America, and treble those from Japan, the two countries which come next in order of precedence. The chief articles of import are cotton and woollen goods, opium, metals, and sundries. The principal exports are tea, silk, and cotton, but it is impossible to give the proportions taken by China's various customers, owing to the fact that many cargoes are sent to Hongkong for trans-shipment, and, as there are no customs at that port, their ultimate destination cannot be traced.

For years past the port has been placed at a grave disadvantage, owing to the silting up of the Whangpoo, the tidal river by which it is approached from the sea. It is not too much to say that if this action were allowed to continue unchecked the days of Shanghai as a seaport would be numbered. For Shanghai is built upon alluvial deposit brought down by the Yangtsze, which, when swollen by the floods of summer, is believed to carry in mechanical suspension four feet of mud in a continuous stream. A portion of this mud is forced up the Whangpoo by the tide and deposited in the bed of the river. The inevitable consequences of this were foreseen by the Chinese in very early days, and from 960 to the middle of the eighteenth century measures were taken to keep the river open to the sea, by dredging and by cutting off the bends of the stream, in order to preserve as straight a course as possible, and thus accelerate the speed of the current and reduce the deposition of mud. To keep the Soochow Creek clear a flood-gate was erected in the twelfth century near what is now the end of Fokien Road. At the time of writing a bar at Woosung prevents all but shallow-draught river boats from navigating the Whangpoo except at high water; at other times large vessels are obliged to load and discharge cargoes from and into lighters. The delay and expense which this entails are heavy charges on commerce. Repeated representations on the subject have been made since 1860 to the Imperial Government at Peking, who, regarding the bar as a powerful aid in their policy of exclusion, turned a deaf ear for many years to all appeals. Under the Protocol between China and eleven powers in 1901, however, a portion of the Boxer indemnity was set aside for "straightening the Whangpoo," and improving its course, a Conservancy Board, composed of imperial and local representatives, being appointed to carry out the project. Even then a policy of procrastination was pursued, and it was not until three months after the Whangpoo Conservancy Convention was signed, in September, 1905, that an engineer was engaged, and preparations for executing the necessary work were commenced in earnest. Efforts are now being directed towards closing the Ship Channel on the north side of Gough Island—which, within the memory of persons still living, was merely a bank covered at high water—and confining the stream to the Junk Channel on the south, so as to employ the tide as a scouring agent, and modify the awkward bend at Pheasant Point. For this purpose zinkstucks, or huge mattresses of brushwood divided into compartments by high fences, are tilled with stone and sunk into position. As soon as they become solidified with mud, others are deposited on the top of them until at last a wall is formed capable of resisting the strongest tidal action and the channel is blocked. At the same time five dredgers are engaged in deepening the Junk Channel. Already there are indications that the theory