34 Minnie Throop England 



being ponies. The wares of the traders consist chiefly of Rus- 

 sian cloths and chintzes because the Russian government pays 

 such bounties on the export of these articles that Russian manu- 

 facturers are enabled to defy competition in Chinese Turke- 

 stan. 121 The commerce of Mongolia is almost wholly barter trade, 

 brick tea being the chief medium of exchange. Mongolia has a 

 considerable transit trade as it lies on the route from China to 

 Russia. Manchuria was formerly chiefly valuable to China as a 

 source of lumber supply but the recent development of Man- 

 churia is giving importance to other lines of trade. Much of the 

 trade of Tibet, like that of Mongolia, is carried on by barter. The 

 preferred medium of exchange is the Indian rupee. The im- 

 portance of Tibet as a factor in the world of commerce can only 

 be guessed at. The commercial wealth of the country centers 

 itself in the southern and eastern valleys. English trade with 

 Tibet by way of India is very small and is estimated at £i 50,000 

 per annum. 122 There are no statistics available to show the value 

 of Tibetan trade with China but estimates place the amount at 

 not less than several million pounds. 123 The main article of com- 

 merce of Tibet, as well as of Turkestan, with the mother country 

 is tea. The tea supplied to Tibet by Chinese tea gardens is esti- 

 mated to be close to twelve million tons annually. The wealth of 

 gold in Tibet lends importance to its trade. Holdich 124 says : 

 "Tibet is not only rich in the ordinary acceptance of the term; 

 she must be enormously rich- — possibly richer than any country 

 in the world. For thousands of years has gold been washed out 

 of her surface soil by the very crudest of all crude processes 

 and distributed abroad. Some has gone to India via Kashmir or 

 Kumaon, some northward to Kashgar; but most of it undoubt- 

 edly has gone to fill the treasuries of Pekin. From every river 

 which has its source in the Tibetan plateau, gold is washed." In- 

 deed, Tibet has many products which stimulate commercial enter- 



Deasy, /;; Thibet and Chinese Turkestan, 342. 

 ! Holdich, Tibet, the Mysterious, 326-327. 

 ; Parker, China, 52. 



Tibet, the Mysterious, 329. 



2 IO 



