— 17 — 



soap- and candle-making by machinery has, generally speaking, achieved 

 no success, owing principally to the irrational manner in which the 

 plants are worked and also to imperfect technical knowledge of the 

 business. In many cases persons have been entrusted with the independent 

 management of v/orks whose sole qualification was that they had passed 

 a short term of apprenticeship in Japanese works. Only two of several 

 important plants worked by machinery have survived, namely the Hua 

 Sheng Candle- and Soap-Works and the Tientsin Soap-Works, and these 

 two only run full time in the spring- and summer-months. During the 

 winter the plants lie almost wholly idle, because when the cold season 

 sets in the demand almost comes to an end. The Hua Sheng Works 

 were established in the year 1906 with a nominal capital of $ 100000. 

 The machinery is Japanese and British, and the bulk of the raw material 

 used is imported from Japan. The monthly output averages about 3000 

 boxes of soap and 1200 boxes of candles. The Tientsin Soap-Works were 

 established in the year 1905 with a nominal capital of $ 50000. Their 

 monthly output amounts to from 500 to 600 boxes of laundry-soap, 600 

 to 700 dozen cakes of toilet-soap and from 200 to 300 boxes of candles. 

 Besides the above there exist a number of works which are run on a 

 small capital and without machinery; these produce from 200 to 300 boxes 

 of common stock soap. Among these are the firms of Kung Yih, Yiu 

 Sheng Ho, Ho Chi, and others. So far the Chinese soap-industry has 

 not become a serious rival to the products of the foreign, — mostly 

 Japanese, — manufacturers, and the better-class Chinese continue to prefer 

 the foreign goods, especially in toilet-soaps. This is confirmed by the 

 statistics of the Chinese Customs, which show that the soap-imports last 

 year represented a value of 200000 Taels, equal to an increase of nearly 

 50°/o as compared with the year 1908. 



Commercial Notes and Scientific Information 

 on Essential Oils. 



Almond Oil, pressed, from Almonds, G. Ph. V. The high quotations 

 for almonds have been maintained during the summer months, an 

 unabated and very active demand continuing for all varieties, with the 

 result that the stocks carried over from the last crop soon approached 

 exhaustion. We were ultimately compelled to follow suit so far 

 as the prices of sweet almond oil of our own pressing were concerned, 

 although we had covered our requirements at the proper time. For some 

 considerable time the demand for this article has risen in an extraordinary 

 degree, and to such an extent that only by continuous working of our 



2 



