Mar. 19.
Tre half-yearly report of the Chefoo Harbour Improvement Commission which has just been issued confines itself strictly to business. It tells us what has been done during the period from August 1. to December 31 last, and being technical of its kind makes it hard for those, at a distance to estimate how far the work has progressed towards its completion. The work of, harbour improvement was put in hand during 1915, the original scheme calling for its accomplishment in fou years, but subsequently an extra year and a half were added. From the report we learn that steady progress has been made with the work, but, as we say, it does not put us into the position of judging how scon it will be finished. To refresh our readers' minds on the subject of the scheme we may try to visualize it. Looking out to sea there is the Bluff on the right hand, while to the left the coast sweeps round crescent-wise, in-yiting the northeast wind to make play with the shallowing waters. To afford sufficient protection for shipping the Harbour Improvement Commission decided upon a mole to be built out, so to enclose an area which on the other side is botinded by the Bluff. This mole terminates in a quay, and then, farther out to sea, is the breakwater, under the lee of which the shipping may rest in security. The space which these works will enclose is to be dredged to a depth which, while probably insufficient for the greater Pacific liners, will render the port suitable for the trade of the average cargo-steamer.
During the period under review progress with the foundation and superstructure of the breakwater has been so good that very considerable protection is now available against northeasterly winds. The figures run into thousands of cubic yards of masonry, the heavy character of the work being exemplified by mention of the use of three thousand blocks of masonry each of three tons' weight. As regards the mole the figures for masonry, gand, rubble and the inevitable ''zincstuks'' aggregate hundreds of thousands of cabio yards. The lower part is now approximately at its full height, fully protected on its outer and partly protected on its inner slope. The rubble foundation for the anay wall has been completed, the reinforced concrete caisson for its western end successfully sunk and filled, and that for the eastern end ready to be lowered into place as soon as required. Related in an unadorned fashion, it is a statement of steady progress with the harbour enterprise, d doubtless the report to be issued in another six months will show us the project within a measurable distance of comple-ion. Not much has to be said ding finance. The trea-rer's report for 1919 shows the following items of income: under Collection, Chefoo Tls. 118,432.93; Government grants, Tis, 15,714.00; five per cent. Customs loan Tls. 1,140,400; and interest Tls. 4,208.69; while the penditure for the same period Tls. 526,435.85.
Although the tendency of the world is, in these days, to think in large figures, such sums, representing a year's finances of the harbour scheme, are by no means negligible, and the interests of China demand that this expendi. ture'shall not have been in vain.
This, accordingly, brings up once more the project of a railway between the port and Weihsien, for until Chefoo is linked up with the hinterland served by the Tientsin-Pukou Railway, she will never have her fair share of prosperity. While in occupation of Tsingtao, and out of a thoroughly selfish tenderness for their colony, the Germans succeeded in killing the scheme, and it is matter for a certain amount of brutal satisfaction that their policy failed of its object. It was a very German manceuvre, so utterly wrongheaded that at the. best it could only have had a transient success. Let the railway be built, remove, if possible, political considerations, and trade will naturally flow to its correct destination.
Chefoo might then look forward to an increasing trade in silk and
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.