Hongkong, Nov. 10. and allow a discount of 20 per cent, to local dealers, But it is Nowhere does the amazing industry of the Chinese show to better quite possible to. buy a chether advantage than in Hongkong, Grade for 10 cents, and peddlers where the budding manufacturer dispense broken bits for 2 few cop-can bring in raw materials, duty-pers. free, and proceed to work' them Everybody likes biscuits, especially up, all under the.protection of the jin summer, and a crisp soda crack-British "government, Of course, Jer makes merchant prince and lowly. people have never bitten the hand chair boy kin.
That, feeds them quite so shameless-Some Imposing Figures ly, for they have driven any number of British imports out of a 'The machines that beat and stir large part of their logical eastern market. and knead in the On Lok Yuen factory devour a vast amount of raw material each month. The whole in the manufacture' of soap, tinne world sends its products to satisfy. goods, aerated waters, beer, rot to their "ravenous" appetites—5,000 forget "rubber shoes and cheap bags of American flour, each weigh-printing, the Chinese can make Pio, ing 60 pounds; 48,000" pounds of jucts that undersell anything the sugar from Java; 1,000 pounds west could possibly offer. One in-fresh milk and an equal amount teresting industry, the manufacture wwdered; chocolate, cherries, ral of biscuits, shows clearly what Sins and currants, os well as colour-Hongkong can expect from local ing matter. The nuts are Dractlindustry in the near future, The cully the only local product used, Colony, however, encourages this except for eggs, which are needed sort of activity, for when the by. the hundred.
Chinese prosper, the people as 'And these ave the imports of only whole are better' off one firm. The M. Y. San, Biscuit The matter of raw material is Company, for instance, which shares not to be overlooked, for vast first place in the industry with On amounts must be brought in, and Lok Yuen, uses. $10,000. worth of that gives trade in general @ turn imported" materials "each " month, for the. better. while the M. P. San Factory, re-"A. plain soda biscuit may not seem cently established by a younger particularly vital in, the affairs of brother, will consume more and A nation, but when 8,000 pounds of more similar products. them are turned out daily by two Flour from Australia und the factories, working at much less!
United States; milk from the Unit than capacity, because of the dull ed States and Holland; British and season, there is something to make American chocolate, are only a few the foreign importer of American of the necessary imports, bought, of and British biscuit stop and begin course, through local d to think, Another important import, also Chinese children dote on sweet bought locally, is tin, used ud 30 do their elders, as mmufacture of containers for, th we of the popula biscuits. The On Lok Yuen, tion of China—when the people can pany buys $6,000 worth of British buy anything of that nature. Most tin'each month; the MY. San the time they can't, so they con-Company uses. $5,000 worth. Yent themselves with plain unadorn-"This Tatler factory. was organized ed soda biscuit, often a very coarse grade at that, by imparted talent, 20 to spaaly for some 15 years ago it employed the People in the Philippine Island services of an American to teach in the Malay States, in the Straits the staff their trade.
He did his Settlements, and even in Java dis-work well, for to-day many sweet covered that they too liked soda and plain' biscuits unown to the Biseuits when Chinese-made products American market, and a large num found their way into shops there. ber of others, go'oat from the fac-For to these countries do the two tory.
Tending manufacturers of biscuits "There are huge xyuure tine conin Hongkong Took, when the local taining Family Assorted; red tins market and the outports have absorbed all they are able to. age reminiscent ofthe American George Washington package; dainty oblong boxes bearing the most con-'The Happy Garden ventional of garden scenes are labell-'The warm feageant odour of ed. "Boston Cream Biseuit—Hong-baking day on a grand scale hangs Kong." The silhouette of " junk around the On Lok Yuen, Biscuit on the side of one tail tin gives a tory In the Causeway Bay die.
Pleasing local, touch tafet, Its name means "The Happy All these companies are deeply is Some dozen, years ago he left hi restaurant in Canton, went to the United States to learn the busi ness, and came back with not only machinery for the new factory, but batch of recipes which he pro Seeded. to demonstrate to. the enrlest staff. To this day he turns pastrycook if the occasion demands.
jow the four-storey plant covers 18,000 square fect and 's valued at some $900,000. Under normal con-ition, 200. men and. women work tarning out all sorts of his.
confectionery, ice cream and Soft drinks.
Whether the Chinese housewife wants Boston cream wafers for Tift a: wedding cake for a coming feast, or @ bag of jelly beans for! iter small sony, these needs and scoves of others may be taken care! of in the five local branches of the factory. There are two Canton and one in Shanghai, and
dealers as well the factory supplies countless local What becomes of the 100,000 pounds of biseuite and confectionery Which, this factory: with the happy sounding same turns out thonth, as for example in October of this year? Here were products alned At $120,000, the work of a star of 180, not counting outside itelp in printing labels and making packing eases, which caused the Lomn-aver of another $2,500, this factory fils orders ly as they are received, all the mths output is taken care of in advance, Hence, the Malay labourer, coming in from his paddy field, may have a" very cheap grade of Diseuit for lunch, These manutacturers; by shipping their less expensive sorts in enormous tins, save the cost of packing which adds to the price of the British biscuit.
Hongkong manufacturers allow. ircount of 80 per cent. on exports, So there ig something within the reach of all but the slimmest purses the remote places to which the biscuits go. They sell, the same product for 25 cents in Toeal shops.
'a sincere, form of flattery People like all these smarily turned out packages to use as gifts. Sweet, cream or soda. they much in demand at hol for whenever a gift is in order. Who knows how many packages of strav-Merry tea biscuits find their way into the company of bowls of steaming noodles and Jare of preserved fruit Chinese New Year?
And there are even packages of animal crackers, for the children The factory which has discovered the importance of the holiday trade] to-day exports each month 150,000 1b, of biscuits to other parts of China and the south. Of course most of this is. destined for anything but the luxury trade.
Both these factories make every~ thing by, Only the dipping of chocolates in the cot feetionery department of one carried on by hand. They wor hours each day. and the scale. why foreign manufacturers may as well bid one fast good-bye to the eastern market.
The On Lok Yuen factory has payroll of $6,000-—for from 180 to 200 employees. The plant engineer receives the princely sum of $200, for which the factory has all its machinery Kept in repair. An experienced baker will draw $100; chocolate dippers, $20; the women who pack the biscuits, '$15.
'Small boys earn $5 while they are learning to be useful about the fac-for 'And these are the highest salaries. im' the business; elsewhere a chief baker may receive only $75.
So it is not surprising that dur~ ing the past year imports in the biscuit line have fallen off by one-half. When local factories can make what passes for a biscuit cents. a pound, the packages marked §2,60 and §3 will remain on. the. shelves of aristocratic shops.
Hongkong unmistakably has the corner on this market; until the Tavanese, for example, decide to
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.