114 



CHINA. 



common people, who would be driven to revolt 

 if their homesteads and family tombs were dis- 

 turbed. Liu-Ming-Chuan, the Governor of For- 

 mosa, who shares the belief of the Viceroy Li 

 and the Empress Dowager in the necessity of 

 railroads, is building a line on that island, of 

 which 12 miles were opened for passenger traffic 

 in 1888, and 5 miles more on Jan. 28, 1890. The 

 work of excavation is done by soldiers, who were 

 called away to carry on military operations 

 against the aborigines in 1889. The ambitious 

 project of a network connecting Pekin with the 

 provincial capitals, of which the line to Han- 

 tow was to be the beginning, was no sooner an- 

 nounced than bids were sent to the Government 

 from manufacturers of railroad material in every 

 country, and European financiers offered to lend 

 the Government any amount of capital. The Han- 

 kow line was proposed by Chang-Chi-Tung simply 

 for the purpose of winning a political advantage 

 by blocking Li-Hung-Chang's plan of extending 

 the existing line to Tungchow. In his memorial 

 h<> urged that a trunk line running through the 

 central provinces was preferable to a road near 

 the coast, because it would be removed from the 

 influence of foreigners, and in the same vein he 

 suggested that it should be built with native cap- 

 ital and managed entirely by native skill, and 

 that only iron of Chinese production should be 

 . used. These things are impossibilities, but not 

 more so than the construction of a long line at 

 all, in the present state of popular feeling, to run 

 through a populous country where the authority 

 of the Central Government is not felt. In com- 

 missioning the troublesome critic to carry out his 

 visionarv project the Government had as little 

 faith as himself in the feasibility of the proposal. 

 As native capitalists were unwilling to risk the 

 120,000,000 taels that Chang estimated would 

 build the line, he proposed that the foreign cus- 

 toms should be mortgaged ; but that the Govern- 

 ment would not consider, being unwilling to sac- 

 rifice the most certain and productive source of 

 revenue. He afterward proposed that a foreign 

 loan should be raised to enable him to begin the 

 work. The Pekin authorities have always shown 

 the greatest reluctance to place China in the pow- 

 er of foreign money-lenders, however pressing 

 the immediate need. They refused to authorize 

 a loan for the great trunk railroad project, which 

 has since remained in abeyance. When the 

 scheme was first proposed the French minister re- 

 minded the Tsung-li-Yamen of the clause in the 

 Tientsin treaty securing to French engineers and 

 French material the preference whenever the Chi- 

 nese Government begins to build railroads. After 

 the virtual abandonment of Chang-Chi-Tung's 

 opposition scheme Li-Hung-Chang has been al- 

 lowed to proceed with his plan of bringing the 

 Kaiping-Tientsin line to Tungchow. The plan 

 of extending the line through Shan-hai-Kwan to 

 the Amur provinces and Kfrim was proposed by 

 Huang, Governor of Kiangsu, to meet the mili- 

 tary dangers arising from the Russian-Siberian 

 railroad. In the same memorial he suggested the 

 construction of other strategic lines along the 

 Yangtse-Kiang westward. The Russian Govern- 

 ment, in view of the colonization of Manchuria 

 with Chinese soldiers, the construction of for- 

 tresses, and the proposed building of frontier 

 railroads, has resolved to hasten the completion 



of the trans-Siberian line, and also to restrict the 

 entry of Chinese colonists into the Amur and 

 Ussuri provinces. 



Finances. The ordinary revenue of the Im- 

 perial Government is estimated at 84,932,000 

 haikwan taels. The receipts of the custom house 

 have been made public since 1861. For 1888 

 they amounted to 23,167,892 haikwan taels, in- 

 cluding 6.622,406 taels for the commuted likin 

 duties on opium. The customs duties on exports 

 are heavier than those on imports. The expenses 

 of the army are equal to nearly the whole of the 

 revenue as estimated above. The main items of 

 revenue are 15,800,000 taels from foreign cus- 

 toms, and an equal amount from sundry other 

 duties, 12,880,000 taels from salt, 10,750,000 taels 

 from the land tax, 12,850,000 taels from the likin 

 or inland transit duties, 7,900,000 taels from opi- 

 um, and 4,600,000 taels from inland customs. 

 The amount collected from the people is said to 

 be twice as much as the officials pay in to the im- 

 perial treasury. Of the half that is retained 

 they absorb nearly all themselves, applying only 

 a small portion to local public purposes. The 

 foreign debt consists of 627,675, the remainder 

 of a loan made in 1874, and of 1,604,276 bor- 

 rowed in 1878, both secured on the maritime cus- 

 toms and paying 8 per cent, interest, in addition 

 to silver loans of about 6,500,000 and 9,500,000 

 taels, contracted in 1884 and 1886. In 1887 a 

 loan of 1,000.000 taels was arranged in Germany. 

 The internal debt is about 30,000.000 taels. 



The Army. According to official statistics, 

 the Army of the Eight Banners numbers 323,- 

 800 men, of whom 100.000 are supposed to be re- 

 viewed by the Emperor at Pekin every year, and 

 the Ying-Ping, or National Army, numbers 6.459 

 officers, and 650,000 men. Large strides have 

 been made in the adoption of European tactics 

 and the acquirement of modern war material 

 since the hostilities in Tonquin. Large quanti- 

 ties of rifles and cannon have been purchased 

 abroad, and in the arsenals firearms and ammu- 

 nition are being manufactured under the direc- 

 tion of skilled European superintendents. 



The Navy. The Pei-Yang, or northern squad- 

 ron, of which the Viceroy Li-Hung-Chang is ad- 

 miral-in-chief, with headquarters at Wei-IIai- 

 Wei, the seat of the imperial naval arsenal, is the 

 strongest to-day in the far East. William Lang, 

 formerly a captain in the British navy, has for 

 many years been the European commissioner of 

 the Chinese navy and joint commander of the 

 northern squadron with Admiral Ping-Ju-Chang. 

 On June 15, 1890, he resigned his commission in 

 consequence of the jealousy of the Chinese officers, 

 and most of the other European officers followed 

 his example. The fleet consists of 1 heavily ar- 

 mored barbette ship of nearly 10,000 tons, 2 ar- 

 mored turret ships, 4 steel cruisers of the latest 

 type, 2 belted steel cruisers, 4 torpedo cruisers, 

 23 fast torpedo boats and 4 of the second class, 

 10 lightly armed modern gunboats and a number 

 of gunboats of older type, each carrying a single 

 35-ton muzzle-loading gun, besides training and 

 gunnery ships, a torpedo training ship, 3 or 4 

 transports, and 2 fleet dispatch boats. The crews 

 are muscular and hardy natives of Chekiang 

 and Fukien who have been reared on the sea. 

 The fleet is better manned than officered, and 

 the administration leaves much to be desired, 



