Tang Chiung reports with reference to the mines near Ch'ionchia and Hsuanwei in Yunnan that at the request of the miners, the company has undertaken the supplying, them with food, and that the shafts opened have proved a great success. If the water comes early enough in the summer, the output this year ought to be well over a million pounds. There are two difficulties at the present moment, one the high price and scarcity of food and other necessaries, and the other the absence of sufficient transport. The wick animals which carry the copper ouching Fu, are so often unable to obtain return freights, that the fixed tariff for the copper does not repay them for conveying it, and consequently their owners have taken them away to look for other employment. The road to Weining in Kueichow is one that is always badly supplied with means of transport and if both lead and copper are sent forward at the same time the trouble necessarily is increased. The lead sent by the company last year to Peking amounted to 1,500,000 pounds of white lead and 400,000" pounds of black lead.
30th April.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.