The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-12-21
ARTICLE VIII.
The Industries of China.

The Industries of China.
The industries of China, like every
thing else in that dwarfed country, suf-
fer from arrested development The
teemins mult1tudes work at just the same
employments, and in just the same cid
way, as did their ancestors thousands of
years before them. In all the ages no
improvements have been made and none
are wanted The Chinese are firm beliey-
ers in the trades-union idea of the dis
| tribution OF work to the greatest number
So far as possible everything is done by
hand, and all efforts to introduce ma
chinery or improved methods of any kind
are stubbornly resisted; for that means
just so much less work TO go around.
Under these circumstances their indus
tries are necessarily few in number and
most OF them very primitive IN character.
Foremost stands the cultivation of tea,
l2ce, opium and silk growing. Ill the
cities is manufactured variety of ar
ticles which can be made with little or
no machinery, and within their limita-
lions the Chinese workmen exhibit great
manual dcXterity. Their carvings i'll
ivory, wood and horn are exquisite; their
porcelain used to be the despair of Eu-
rope; silk, firecrackers, paper and other
small articles are among their exports.
Most of the commercial transportation
is done by slow-moying, clumsy junks,
which fill the numerous rivers and canals
with tonnage equal to that of all the
rest of the world combined. On land the
beasts of burden are mostly men, with
or without wheelbarrow, and sometimes
camels. Both men and time are cheap
and plenty.
The mineral wealth of China is doubt
less enormous. The natives know little
about it and care less, but they are very
secretive of what little they do know
White men, however, have visited the
province of Human far in the interior
and have seen coal and iron mines, which
are worked by surface digging i'll the
usual inefficient way. The iron ore is
excellent, yielding IS per cent of iron
The interior provinces of Hupen ana
SZecnuan are also known to be rich IN
minerals. These three provinces are in
the basin of the Yang-ese-Kiang, so that
water transportation is easy and cheap,
and the mineral wealth might be exploit
ed by foreign enterprise with enormous
profit. There are also deposits of hard
and soft coal, of anthony, zinc, copper,
lead, tin, gold and silver. But the people
are extremely hostile to all foreigners.
In spite Of themselves the Chinese have
been forced into contact with the outside
obsolete methods and exclusive ideas.
Take. for example, Hankow, a city of
nearly 100000 inhabitants, situated on
the Yang tse-Kiang some 600 miles from
its mouth. Its total trade in 1897 was
valued at GOO. 1t has a large match
factory, capitalized with $4,000, wholly
under Chinese control. In 1898 an Ameri-
can gold milling plant of the best design
and make was imported into the city at
of ok
mill
At Hanyang, not far off, are iron
and steel works, under the manage
ment of two BelgianS and one English
man. There are two large English blast
furnaces and one Bessemer steel plant
One thousand men are employed, and
the output is 100 tons of steel rails per
day. Coal is brought 200 miles down
the river in junks. Under exclusively
foreign control these works could pe
made to pay large profits.
These data give an idea of the grad
ual change from old to new which is
going on all over China, in some parts
more rapidly than others So far, how
ever. the industrial improvements intro
duced are seriously handicapped by more
or less of Chinese control which al
ways means waste and acknowledgements
even when it does not involve actual
rascality. Even with the best in.sn-
tons in the world, it is impossible for
the Oriental character stiffened by cell
turtles of conservatism, to adapt itself at
once to modern methods.
This observation holds true especially
of the changes in things military. hey
come slowly, and only as a result of
necessity. The early contact of the Chi
nese with foreigners was peaceful. Their
intense dislike and hatred is a compare
lively modern growth from the seed of
European aggression
1t was in 1917 that Europeans were first
admitted to Canton. Nineteen years lat
er the port of Macao, on the coast near
the mouth of the Canton river, was coded
to Portugal. and continued for 900 years
to be the principal port of exchange
with Occidental nations. Among the first
to utilize this concession were the mer-
chants Of Boston.
But in 1889 began the shameful record
of foreign aggression and spolation
which has borne such evil and natural
fruit. For that beginning England stands
responsible. BY the opium war. 1902,
she forced open for the importation of
opium the ports of Canton Shanghai
Foochow and Ningpo, extorted an in
demnity of $21, 00e,600, and the possession
of the island of Hongkong.
In ten years England was grabbing for !
more; before long France joined in, and
together they sent an expedition against
Pekin. The Taku ports at the mouth OF
the Paie-Ho were bomoa..lad and taken |
in 1851 and 1860, and at the end of 1860
Pekin was captured. Then followed the
burning and sacking of the summer pal
ace, near the capital, filed with price
less treasures-an act of inexcusable van
dalism already described in this series. |
The net result was heavy indemnity and
new demands.
For the last half-century the Chinese |
dislike of outsiders has been increasing |
to bitter hatred, and has broken out in |