570 CHINA AND THE UNITED STATES. 



China proper covers about as many .square miles as the States east of 

 the Mississippi. Those States, with a population of 50,000,000, require 

 100,000 miles of railroad to do their business. China, with a popula- 

 tion ei^ht times as large, would riaturall}^ be supposed to need at least 

 about an equal mileage of roads for her purposes. It would not be 

 strange if the activity in railroad construction in the United States soon 

 after the civil war should tind a parallel in China in coming years. 



The building of railroads in China does not partake of the specula- 

 tive character which attended the building of some of the American 

 roads. There are no wild regions to be opened up for settlement, no 

 new towns to be built along the route. Here is a case of the railroad 

 following the population, and not that of the population following the 

 railroad. A road built through populous cities and famous marts has 

 not long to wait for traffic. It would pa}' from the very beginning. 



The first railroad in China was built for the transportation of coal 

 from the Kaiping mines to the jport of Taku. I was chiefly instru- 

 mental in securing its construction. The line, though in an out-of-thc 

 way corner of the Empire, proved so profitable from the very start 

 that it was soon extended to Tientsin and Pekin in one direction, and 

 to Shanhaikwan, tiie eastern terminus of the Great ^^'all, in the other. 

 Not long ago it was thought advisable to build a ))ranch beyond Shan- 

 haikwan to the treaty port of Newchwang. This branch has been 

 completed and will soon be opened to traffic. Minister Conger, in a 

 recent letter to the State Department, says that the road now pays a 

 dividend of 14 per cent on the whole capital invested, and that when 

 the entire line is open a dividend of 30 per cent is expected. The era 

 of railroad building in China may be said to have just dawned. China 

 desires nothing better than to have Americans lend a hand in this great 

 work. 



It gave me great pleasure t\yo years ago to obtain for an American 

 company a concession to build a railroad between Hankow, the great 

 distributing center of central China, and Canton, the great distributing 

 center of south China. The line is to connect with the Lu-Han line 

 on the north and with the Kowloon line on the south, and throughout 

 its whole length of more than 000 miles will run through opulent cities, 

 fertile valleys, and cultivated plains. The construction of such a line 

 by Americans through the heart of China can not fail to bring the 

 people of the two countries into closer relations. 



Besides railroads, there are other public works which China must 

 undertake sooner or later. Among them are river and harbor improve- 

 ments, city water supplies, street lighting and street railwa3's. Owing 

 to the traditional friendship between the two countries our people are 

 well disposed toward Americans. They are willing to follow their 

 lead in these new enterprises, where they might spurn the assistance 

 of other people with whom the}^ have been on less friendly terms in 

 the past. 



