116 



CHINA. 



was collected by the provincial authorities. 

 The provincial administrations have, however, 

 succeeded in evading the agreement, by as- 

 sessing consumption duties on Chinese pur- 

 chasers of foreign goods, asserting that they 

 have the right to tax their own subjects. 



The Jfavy. Five new vessels left Europe in 

 the autumn, under the command of Admiral 

 Lang, a captain in the British Navy, who is 

 commander of the North China fleet. Two of 

 them are swift, protected cruisers, built in 

 England, and named the " Chih Yuen " and 

 the " Ching Yuen." Their displacement is 

 2,300 tons, the length 268 feet, the draught 16 

 feet. They are divided into water-tight com- 

 partments, and have double sets of engines 

 and double bottoms. Their speed is 18^ knots. 

 The armament consists of three 21-centimetre 

 Krupp guns, two 6-inch Armstrongs, eight 

 rapid-firing six-pounders, and six Gatlings. 

 Two others are armored cruisers built at Stet- 

 tin, named the " King Yuen " and the " Lai 

 Yuen." They can steam 16 knots, and are 

 armed with two 21-centimetre Krupp guns, 

 mounted en liarbette, and two 6-inch guns. 

 The fifth vessel is a torpedo-boat, that has a 

 maximum speed of 28 knots, and is armed with 

 two torpedo-guns in the bows, one on deck, 

 and Hotchkiss and Gatling guns. 



Education. Literary knowledge is the only 

 passport to official station ; and a large section 

 of the people devote their lives to the study 

 of Chinese literature and the difficult art of 

 literary composition, forming a special lettered 

 class. Examinations are held annually for lit- 

 erary degrees, and the successful candidates 

 are eligible for vacant posts in the public serv- 

 ice. Within a short period, schools have been 

 established for instruction in European learn- 

 ing, especially the physical and mathematical 

 sciences and technical branches. Many valu- 

 able works have been translated into Chinese. 

 The principal seminary for Western science 

 and literature is the Tong Weng College in 

 Pekin, a Government institution, presided over 

 by an American, Prof William A. P. Martin, 

 in which European and American instructors 

 teach mathematics, astronomy, meteorology, 

 natural history, physiology, anatomy, chemis- 

 try, and the English, French, German, and 

 Russian languages, and Chinese professors im- 

 part the standard Chinese education. There 

 are a number of colleges at Shanghai under 

 the direction of Roman Catholic and Protest- 

 ant missionaries ; also elementary schools at 

 that and other seaboard cities, where ordinary 

 branches of science and the English language 

 are taught. Military and naval academies and 

 torpedo-schools have recently been established 

 in connection with the arsenals at Tientsin, 

 Foochow, and Shanghai, in which European 

 methods of warfare and Western languages 

 and literature are taught by foreigners. 



Commerce. The total value of the imports in 

 1885 was 88,200,018 haikwan taels, or $114,- 

 600,000 ; the value of the domestic exports, 



65,005,711 haikwan taels, or $84,500,000. The 

 chief imports were in value as follow : 



IMPORTS. Taels. 



Woolen goods 4.824,056 



Metals 5.508,416 



Coal 1,735,375 



The leading exports in 1885 were valued at 

 the following amounts : 



IMPORTS. Taeli. 



Opium 25,438,914 



Cotton goods 31,493,823 



Kaw cotton 1,298,007 



EXPORTS. Taels. 



Tea 82,269,040 



Silk 20,001,175 



Sugar 1,885,608 



EXPORTS. Taels. 



Straw braid 1,874,804 



Hides 941,113 



Paper, tinfoil, etc .. 595,752 



The imports to and exports from the principal 

 foreign countries in 1885, were of the follow- 

 ing values in taels : 



During 1885 the number of vessels entered 

 and cleared at Chinese ports was 23,440, of 

 18,068 tons; of which 18,691, of 17,012,930 

 tons, were steamers. Of the total tonnage, 

 11,842,255 tons represented British vessels, 

 2,261,750 American, 2,243,534 Chinese, 1,217,- 

 685 German, 211,585 Japanese, and 73,355 

 French. 



Railroad Construction. The Government has 

 authorized the construction of a line of railway 

 north of the Peiho from Taku to Tientsin. 



American Concessions. An important charter 

 was provisionally granted during the summer 

 of 1887 to an American syndicate. The nego- 

 tiations had been carried on for two years, on 

 behalf of Wharton Barker, a banker of Phila- 

 delphia, and others, by the Count E. C. Mit- 

 kiewicz, an American citizen of Polish birth. 

 The concessions embraced the privilege of es- 

 tablishing the American system of banking and 

 coinage, and a scheme for introducing rail- 

 roads of the American type ; also a postal serv- 

 ice, mining privileges, the construction of 

 telephone lines, and the extension and opera- 

 tion of the telegraphs. The concessionnaires 

 were to establish a mint for the coinage of sil- 

 ver on a system based partly on the American 

 and partly on the Japanese coinage. They 

 were to have the right to issue paper money 

 on the plan of the American national banking 

 system, and the refusal of Imperial loans. The 

 syndicate proposed to construct first a railroad 

 from Tientsin to Shanghai, a distance of 900 

 miles ; then one from Shanghai to Nankin, 

 and thence to Canton, 1,000 miles long; and 

 afterward other lines, including one to the 

 Russian frontier, and others designed to de- 

 velop the working of the coal-fields and iron- 

 deposits. It also intended to erect mills for 

 making rails and rolling-stock, and to intro- 

 duce both the long and the short telephone 

 systems. The concessions were actively op- 

 posed by the English and Germans, but re- 

 ceived diplomatic support from Russia. The 



