4 Through the Yang-tse Gorges 



cent., while with China, according to treaty, our imports 

 have only to withstand a nominal burden of five per cent. 

 If we include Hong-kong, which is a depot for many of the 

 surrounding coimtries as well, we bring up the total figures 

 of British imports to China to ;^9,ooo,ooo, or about one-half 

 of our total exports to the thinly-populated South-American 

 Continent. The great drawbacks, which prevent our trade 

 with China attaining to dimensions on a par with the wealth, 

 civilization, and numbers of its people, are the rudimentary 

 condition of its roads, the discouragement of mining, and 

 the vexatious multiplicity of the inland tax-stations. 



These 6bstacles present themselves in the order named, 

 the first of all being the difficulty of inter-communication. 

 By the compulsory opening to steamers of the Great River 

 as far as Hankow, 600 miles only, the trade of Shanghai 

 was quickly quadrupled. Later on 400 miles additional, up 

 to Ichang, situated at the foot of the first rapid, were re- 

 luctantly conceded as part of the indemnity for the murder 

 of Margary in Yunnan, and another great boxmd took place. 

 But in Ichang we have only a poor mountain town, which 

 derives its importance from being the transhipping point for 

 the rich province of Szechuan, lying in the far west above 

 and beyond the rapids. To reach this, the native merchants 

 have to run the gauntlet of the rapids in frail native craft ; 

 the still worse gauntlet of a string of Custom-houses has 

 been partially removed by the opening of Chung-king as a 

 treaty port, but goods are still delayed two or three days 

 for examination at Kwei-kwan. The opening of Chung- 

 king, the commercial metropolis of Szechuan, as a treaty 

 port, should in time, in the words of a late Consular 

 Resident there, create another Shanghai in Western China ; 

 such are the ascertained riches of the Great West, of which 

 Chung-king is the key. But Chung-king is nothing without 



