lat Sept. Ir-would generally be thought very difficult to find anything new to say about the trade of Shanghai, but Mr. George Jamieson has nevertheless managed tout a great deal that isof interest into his report for 1891 to the Foreign Office. In noticing it we naturally pass over the statistics, dwelling more on the writer's. observations which, as the conclusions formed by ai official of marked intelligence after a long residence in tend to clear their minds of some mis-China, would if read by people at home
taken ideas about this country.
After mentioning the immense pro-Ere in twenty-five years, Mr. Jamieson ess that the foreign trade has made says "During all that period the Chinese Government (except in one solitary instance, and that barren of results) have hardly spent single dollar for the development or encouragement of trade, either by making roads, or improving waterways, or educating the people in the all-important industries of tea and silk.
Practically, whatever facilities for trade exist have all been introduced by foreigners, so far as they are permitted within the limits secured by treaty, viz., by placing lines of steamers carrying cargo at remarkably cheap freights between the various open ports on the coast, and on the great river, with the accompanying advantages of wharves, jetties, &c. "The moment you leave a treaty: port, all cargo has to be moved in one or other of the good old-fashioned ways, which have been in vogue for the last thousand years or so, that is to say, by the coolie with his bamboo, the wheelbarrow, or on pack animals. Even on the magnificent system of waterways that pervade Central China, the old-fashioned canal boat la still laboriously poled along, the permission to use steam towage, except ina few solitary instances, being yet forbidden even to natives. Notwithstanding all this, more and more foreign manufactures are every year passing into consumption, and more and native produce is being brought to the foreign market."
After noting the great increase in the shipping entered and cleared here in twenty years, from less than two million tons in 1871 to 6} million 1891, and the fact that in the same period the British percentage of the tonnage has increased from 43 to 56, Mr. Jamieson devotes nearly a page to the disastrous effect on trade of the violent fluctuations in the value of silver, which he attributes mainly to American legislation. He concludes that it is not a return to the old value of silver in terms of gold that is wanted, but a steady market. "This is not perhaps possible so long as the relative productions (of gold and silver) are disproportionate to the demand, but it would. seem that the evil would be less if left to natural laws, undisturbed by tentative legislation. Unless such legislation is of a nature to settle the ratio once and for all and for all nations, it would be better for all parties interested in exchange operations if it were left alone."
Mr. Jamieson dwells on the difficulties importers of cotton goods experienced daring 1891 owing to the fluctuations in exchange here, and the continued decline in sterling prices in Manchester but he is able to say: "'The general demand for English manufactures was, as a rule, good throughout the year, and the clearances fully kept pace with the imports. The country was generally prosperous and the native merchants, unvexed with exchange troubles, are reported to have done well." He mentions the gradual introduction of 'f-cloths of Bombay manufacture, and opines that "if the exchange value of silver remains as low as at present, it seems probable that the competition of Indian cloths will be greatly stimulated as, being product a silver currency country, all the elements of production will be cheapened as compared with those in England."
Mr. Jamieson considers at some length, without however solving, the question of the successful competition of the United States with England. the matter of heavy cotton goods, such as drills and sheetings. Of the many reasons given the true one probably is that these are the goods in which the reportion of labour to material entering Into the cost of production is the least. It is acknowledged that 12lbs. is the weight of a piece at which the line is firmly drawn. In goods over 12lbs. in weight American makers can compete successfully with English; in goods under 12lbs, their competition is impossible. It is not a question of chops or of superior honesty in the manufacture. The raw material is cheaper in the States, where it is grown; the labour is cheaper in England; the goods that have more material than labour in them will be necessarily cheaper in the United States, and vice versd.' Heavy goods made in Canadian mills, it may be noticed, are now coming into China by the new railway and steamer line, and are competing successfully with the products of New England and Southern mills.
Mr. Jamieson seems to infer from the importance that Bombay.cotton yarn has assumed in the import tables of late years, that if manufacturers at home would make a fabric exactly mirating the native homespun cotton cloth, it would find an enormous sale:—"Gonservative though Chinese no doubt are," he says, "old customs and old prejudices are easily discarded, when they are once convinced it is their interest to do so.
At the present moment the Chinese prefer to-buy the vara from us, and work it up into cloth along with their own cotton, simply because they find it. is cheaper to do so. But, if. we could place on the market a fabric, equally
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.