6 Through the Yang-tse Gorges 



croppings of which in the gorges of the Yang-tse and its 

 affluents, arrest the attention of all travellers in that region 

 remain a sealed book. When these mines are allowed to be 

 worked by Western appliances, and the coal, the iron, the 

 precious metals, and the petroleum-springs are properly 

 developed, not only will there be such a trade, that junks 

 and steamers together will hardly be able to carry it all ; 

 even if the junks be displaced in toto, the few thousand 

 trackers thrown out of employment will not suffice to supply 

 one-tenth of the labour required ; and in lieu of the miserable 

 pittance they now receive for their arduous and dangerous 

 labours, they will then earn sufficient wages to enable them to 

 live in comparative comfort. 



The Chinese Government has a traditional mistrust of all 

 enterprises carried out upon private initiative. There is 

 one steamer company in China, the " China Merchants' 

 Steam Navigation Company," and one coal-mining company, 

 that of Kaiping, to the north of Tientsin, whose operations 

 are large and successful, but they are both worked under 

 Government auspices, the managers being high mandarins, 

 although both employ a large number of European assist- 

 ants. The capital of both companies is largely recruited 

 from the trading classes, and these non-official shareholders 

 have no voice in the management. So great is the mistrust 

 engendered by the official management of mercantile enter- 

 prises, that the trading class, so far, have utterly failed to 

 respond to the recent Government appeals for capital for the 

 proposed railway loans, and it is now clear that the authorities 

 will fail in their endeavour to construct railroads, indepen- 

 dently of the foreign aid which has been so lavishly tendered 

 to them by the agents of competing European syndicates. 



However, the fact remains, and has to be counted with, 

 that the high Chinese officials are hostile to all trading 



