Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1898-05-06
The Greatest Commercial Transaction
of the Century.

The Greatest Commercial Transaction
of the Century.
Probably we are all more or less aware
how completely our interest in ordinary
public affairs has dropped out of conscious
existence during the past few weeks The
New York Tribune happily phrases this
thought when it says that "amid the clash
of arms not only are the laws silent, &C
cording to the ancient saying, but the
sounds of peaceful progress are unheard.
Yet such progress keeps its pace" At the
present moment, little noticed by mankind
at large, and only briefly and obscurely
chronicled amid the flood of war news, the
Tribune goes on to say, there is being full
filled veritably epoch-making transaction,
the effects of which upon the industrial and
commercial future of the world bid fair to
be such as will bewilder all computation.
Here is the simple statement. The Brit
ish government has secured for a British
syndicate a long-term concession for work
ing the coal and other mines of the Chi
nese province of Shan-Si, building rail-
roads there and in general developing the
province. That is all. 1t might mean much
or little. 1t does mean one of the greatest
strokes of business this generation has
seen. Its bearings upon the future of Chi
ma, and the British empire, and all trade
and industry in that half of the world, are
simply incalculable.
The coal fields of Shan-Si are among the
most important in the world. They cover
an area of more than II thousand square
miles, and are estimated to contain enough
coal to supply the entire world, at the
present rate of consumption, for 2000 years
or more. large proportion of it is
anthracite, equal in quality to the best
found in Pennsylvania. OF it there are be-
| lieved to be at least six hundred and thirty
billion tons, or more than 300 times as
much as all the coal of all kinds now
mined in the whole world in a year. There
is also nearly as much bituminous coal, of
fine coking quality. Lying close by-in
fact, mingled with the coal seams-are bill
lions of tons of the choicest iron ore, while
petroleum abounds in many places, and
apart from its mineral wealth the country
is the most fertile, especially for wheat
growing, in all China. The province lies
on the bank of the Yellow river, which
under civilized management may readily be
transformed from the "Woe of China" in
to one of its most benefcent highways of
trade. And, finally, Chinese cheap la
bor' of the most efficient kind literally
swarms in that province, Shan-Si having
been the seat of the ancient rulers of
China and being now inhabited by the
finest specimens of the entire Monaghan
race.
Human ingenuity, taxed to the utmost,
could not devise a more advantageous COM
bination than this, when to it are added
the practically limitless wealth, energy
and skill of Great Britain. There is in it
promise of profits that will make the
Klondike seem poor. There is in it
potency of industrial revolution in all the
eastern hemisphere. With Shan-Si in
their possession the British can afford TO
look with complacence upon the fate of
Kiao Chau and Port Arthur and all such
minor places.