But the Customs Service has not, stopped at taking care of China's revenues. Under the wise administration. of Sir Robert Hart, with his wide vision and unbending integrity, other activities have been inaugurated. China needed a Postal Service, and it was in connexion with the Customs Service that this was started, again at the instigation of Sir Robert Hart. In 1896 an Imperial Edict was issued con-\stituting the Customs Posts a naional institution and Sir Robert Hart the Inspector-General of Customs and Posts. Subsequently, the Postal Service was more or less separated from the Customs, and the directorship was given to a Frenchman as fulfilment of certain obligations on the part of the Chinese Government to France, But the fact remains that the Chinese Postal Service was conceived and started by a Briton, Another important public service that was commenced and has largely been ferried out by the Customs under Sir Robert Hart was the lighting lof the China coast. Numberless lighthouses, lightships, arfd. light-buoys have been distributed along this dangerous coast till now it Jone of the best lighted coasts in the world.
This introduces us to another service rendered to China by the British, and that is the surveying of the coast and coastal waters by. the British Admiraley. This work ha: been done, and well done, too, almost entirely by the British and it is to the excellence of this work that navigation along the China coast is now as safe as it is. Again, the only really reliable maps 'China are those of the British War Office, the surveyisfg and mapping personal to' themselves, by Hhaving been done, often at great British officers China, These maps were not kept for British use" alone, but have been published, and anybody, including the Chinese, may enjoy the use of them. Thin alone should be convincing proof of the sincerity of ish in their dealings with The Railway Pioneers Finally there is the question of {the railways of China, and here the opponents of Great Britain might, suggest that at least other countries have had an equal share it the developing of China's railways. This may be true if it is confined the period after the establish. ment of the Imperial Railways of North China, but it should never be forgotten that it wi who pioneered the wa} face of all kinds of opposition succeeded in getting the Chinese Government to admit the principle of railway:
The first attempt to establish a Hieved he was subsidized by the officials to throw himself in. front, jof the train. The officials then! instigated the people to raise op-[position against the railway, and in the end ant agreement was reached, whereby the railway was bought ey the Chinese Government at cost price. AS soon.as the last instal-iment was.paid, the line was closed, {the rails torn up and the whole of the stock shipped to Formosa. So lended the first British effort to get railways going in Chin
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.