"سيستان" [و‎‎٢‎٨] (٩٨/٥٥)

5
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existing route by which British goods now find their way into the North-
Western Provinces, and (2) the best practicable line for a railway into Szechuan.
(1) As regards the former, which goes up the Han and Tan Eivers to
Jvintzekuan and thence over the mountains to Singanfu, it has maintained its
position, despite the heavy li-kin exactions all along it, from the fact of its
having only, five days (150 miles) of land portage, which costs on an average
twenty to thirty times as much as water transport. It would probably be un
able to compete with the railway entering Shensi from the east under the
present conditions; but with a station of the Imperial Maritime Customs
established at Kintzekuan the trade would be materially relieved, while the
considerable revenues, which now enrich a few local officials rather than the
Provincial Treasury, would be deflected to Peking.
(2) A railway to Szechuan could follow the river from Laohokou to
Tzeyang or Hanchung, the one 290 and the other 230 miles in a straight line
from Chengtu. Its advantages are that it would pass through easy and fertile
country for four-fifths of the way, while the passes of the Tapa-shan do not
rise above 4,000 feet and are not difficult. Though it might not take much
of the direct Szechuan trade, it would have the Han Valley to draw on, and
would carry the wool from South Kansuh, and should it be built, a branch
might be added to Kintzekuan and Singanfu, which should do much to revive
that city by developing its trade with Hankow and Chengtu. But the con
struction of this branch would be expensive, and, as an isolated undertaking, a
doubtful speculation.
The chief feature of Hupeh, however, is the treaty port of Hankow, which,
with the contiguous cities of Wuchang and Hanyang, bids fair to become the
London of China. The seat of a Viceroy, the centre of the tea trade, and the
limit of ocean-going steamers, it has already a population of close on a million,
and as the prospective junction of the trunk lines from Peking and Canton will
become, on their completion, the commercial focus of the Empire, and receive
a vast accession of importance. Should the present dynasty ever be induced to
alter the seat of Government, now that the raison d'etre of Peking has dis
appeared with the control over Manchuria, Hankow could well be advocated as
a new metropolis. Nanking is too exposed, Chengtu too remote, and Singanfu
untenable against a Power that commands the approaches from Central Asia ;
but Hankow, 600 miles from the sea and close to the loyal province of Hunan,
might well, by its central position and its affluence, inspire the most reforming
monarch or tempt the most reactionary Court.
Hunan (21,000,000) is about equally divided between hills and alluvial land,
the former lying to the west and the latter occupying the valleys of the Siang
and Yuen Bivers. It produces coal and tea, and buys cotton and piece-goods,
but of its waterways, the Siang alone can be ascended by launches, and that not
beyond Siangtan (150 miles).
This city, which formerly received and distributed the Canton overland
trade, has rapidly diminished in wealth and population (now about 300,000)
since tiie Yang-tsze has been navigated by steam, but the railway should restore
its prosperity. Changsha, the provincial capital and the home of the literati,
and Changte, where some missionaries have recently got a footing, are both
large cities; but Yochow, the new treaty port, though its situation at the
entrance to the Tungting Lake appears commanding, does not seem to have any
brilliant future, for it has a bad anchorage, and the Shipping Companies have
decided that Hankow is a better place to break bulk for goods to and from the
interior.
The Hunan Bailway, which is to run from Hankow by Changsha and
the Siang to the Cheling Pass (1,000 feet), and thence by Shaochou and the
North Biver to Canton, will probably insure the opening of Siangtan—the
project has already been mooted among the local Chinese merchants—and
this will still further modify the importance of Yochow.