Three Previous Attempts Which Failed free 300 t "xce, nats Tt will have been seen in the daily papers that the Central Government has made a start on the building of the Hunan to Kweichow Rallwoy, beginning (naturally) at the Chang. sha end. "But in addition to engineers. surveying the route, men connected with the plan have visited Kweiyang, it looks as though business is really meant this time, "This time," for at least three previous attempts have been made to give Kweichow a railway. In' Manchu ays, an Anglo-French Company working quicksilver mines neat Tungien (near the Hunan border) tried to negotiate with the Kweichow Government subject no. doubt to sanction by the Peking Government for sole rights for mining throughout the eastern half of the province {from Kweiyang to the Hunan border), royalty to be paid to Kweichow Government and another to Peking, a ight railway to be built from Changich (Hunan) to Kweiyang and north for about 100 li to Pchmatung. In the Kalyang (then Kalchow) district and the steady employment of 1,000 or more Kweichow men, The Governor was favourably dis-Posed but the Kweiyang gentry remembering the threatened {roubles in. Yunnan over the building of - the Annan-Yunnan railway, petitioned Sgainst the proposal "saying they Would build the railway and work the mines; of course they never did. but the result was that the company's proposal fell throu British Proposat Messrs. John Birch and Ca. sent two engineers to survey for a line from Changteh to Hingifu (now Anking) vid Kweiyang, the Pek! Government having agreed, T belie fo their plan to build a line with British capital repayable in. forty years, several British engineers to superintend the building and three or four to supervise the line until the Joan was repaid. This, 100, fell through largely owing, I think, to the deaths of Mr. Birch snd one or two engineers (not in Kweichow).
A third plan was that proposed by the Kweichow Government for a line from Pahslensze (Chungking to Lille chow in Kwangsi, vid Kweiyang), No foreign capital was to be borrowed and no foreign engineers were to be employed. The money was to be advanced by a wealthy Chinese in Cai Two. or three "Important points were overlooked by the promoters of this scheme: first, "the Peking Government gave notice to the foreign legations in China 1 they would not agree to Provincial Government's building railways with out their sanction. "Ab a result, the wealthy Chinese referred to could not advance the capital which he had intended to borrow from British sources; secondly, the Kweichow Gov. ernment had not thought of first consulting the Szechuen and Kwangsi Governments,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.