We have much pleasure in putting before our readers a series of documents which form the prospectus of a Jvint Stock Company to be established at Shanghai for spinying yarns and weaving cotton cloth by. machinery. The documents consist in the first place of a petition from the original promoter, a gentleman named Peng, to the two Governors-General Li and Shen, giving fall particulars of the scheme, and requesting official sanction to its existence, or in other words a charter of incorporation. Then follows a long and interesting despatch from Li Hung-chang, entering with enthusiasm into the scheme as one more weapon to be used against the foreigner, wherein our readers will find fewer platitudes and more good sense than in most Chinese official documents. This, together with Shén's despatch following it, forms the Charter of the Company, containing as it does an intimation of the approval of the Emperor and the high Authorities to the scheme, These despatches are followed by a second petition from Peng, where extraordinary details are given of the manner in which the confidence of the pul to be won, and the capital returned in full in five years. A sensible and vigorous despatch from Li concludes the series, which is marred by a vigorous deraneiation of all foreign hongs in Shanghai, whom he accuses of habitually cheating Chinamen first and then going to law with them.
The cotton to be produced at the Shanghai factory is to be taxed ut the import tariff rate, and if it is sent up country, it will be liable to an additional half-duty, in return for which it will be exempt from lekin, Of all the extraordinary fiscal devices which distract China, this, a8 being the most novel, seems to be the most capricious. However, if the Chinese choose to throw away any advantage they might have in the approaching competition between foreign made and Chinese made is no affair of ours, It will also be remarked that the use of starch and clay is not to be wholly discarded, for besides the 13,000 piculs of Raw Cotton per annum which the factory will require, 2,000 piculs of starch and is to be used. We are not sufficiently well nequainted with cotton manufacture to say whether this proportion is an ordinary one or not, butit looks suspicions. One can bardly help stulling, after hearing the vigorous denunciations of Manchester manufacturers so common now-a-days, to find that the Chinese propose to imitate the condemned stuffs so closely.
Five Englishmen are to be employed in the factory to teach the processes, and an extraordinary provision in their agreements is that if in three years they do not make experienced workmen of the Chinese they are to be fined.
The present offices of the Company are in Foochow Road, and we hear that a site has been found with all the requisite advantages on the bank of the river near the Shanghai Arsenal. The Governor-General Li still adheres to his pet semi-official formation of the Company, and we cannot but once more record our opinion, so often expressed in these columns and to all appearances so verified by the annual reports of the China Merchants' Company, that so far from being an assistance to n Company, the active interference of officials of the Chinese type in its mangement can only lead to confusion and perhaps rain, Penitoy by Péng_an expectant Taotai to Li Hung-chang Governor-General of the province of Chibli, and Shen Pao-chen, Governor-General of the Two Kiang, dated 5th October, 1878.
Your petitioner would humbly submit the following. I have always heard that power resides in wealth, and [for China to be wealthy] there are two grand requisites, Such things as foreign countries require of China, China herself should deal in and export; such things as China requires of foreign countries she herself should manufacture. Of manufactures there are none more important than the tivo, cotton goods and woollen goods, All fabrics of these are manufactured by machinery, and for the purchase of machinery to weave these foreign cloths there is no place so convenient as Shanghai.
To Shanghai accordingly your petitioner came, and here I sought information regarding the methods of spinning and weaving in vogue in foreign countries, and I was both struck with the ingenuity adaptability of machinery to so many of the processes, and pleased with the kinds of work. The amount of piece goods woven in European countries in former times was not 307 of what is produced nowa-days, When the new fashion of weaving set in, looms were added by the hundredfold, the consumption increased pari pass with production, and the more cloth was woven, the more ingenious became the machines, Labour and capital were econ-ornised, and so the resulting profits became larger.' Thus it is that foreign cloths have become one of the principal imports into China, and every year to pay for them there has to be sent abroad, I venture to say, scores of millions of taels, Our Government is perfectly well aware of this exhaustion of its resources, and has iven its attention to remedial measures, our petitioner would submit that machinery is to be procured for the asking, and that it is perfectly possible to learn how to weave, Our people may give their attention to "it when once introduced, but they find it difficult to make a begin: ning; our merchants have no one to teach them what to do; and so much time is wasted in empty talking. I therofore humbly propose to establish a spinning, and weaving factory in Shanghai wit machinery of the newest, most ingenious, most substantial and most profitable kind to buy, as is done in the west, 480 power looms; and to hire several foreign workmen skilled in spinning and weaving, to teach the work to our people, and to impart to them a knowledge of the length, breadth, weight and thickness of piece ods according to foreign standards, a quality of cloth equal in texture to the ith no freight to pay, no insurance, and foreign article, the cloth produced will be put on the market at a much cheaper price than foreign goods, In Shanghai, ten thousand merchants crowd together, and a hundred kinds of merchandise are in circulation; there will be no fear of a dearth of consumption; what we shall have to fear is too little production. By this scheme I reckon that we shall acquire both profit and influence, and if the management be adequate, not only will our merchants make money, but the Government also will be enriched.
As this is a matter which affects international interests, and is, moreover, an innovation, I have the honour to request Your Excellencies to memorialise the Throne for permission to establish a company, and for official recognition of the promoters as the managers, on behalf of our merchants and people. On all forei cloth woven at the factory it is clearly understood that there shall be levied a tax equal in amount to the Customs Import dues on foreign cloths, and on its being sent into the interior for consumption, it shall be exempt from lekin, in order to entire uniform treatment of both classes of goods, and not to make fish of one and flesh of another. Tls. 500,000 will be raised in shares in the same manner as the capital of the China Merchants' Steam Navigation Company was raised, and this will form the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.