網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版
[graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][ocr errors][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][merged small][subsumed][subsumed][ocr errors][subsumed][ocr errors][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][merged small]

The Great War stopped the through European express service of the South Manchuria line; but as soon as conditions in Siberia and Russia make it possible the management intends to restore it.

AS BUILDER OF CITIES

What the Company did at Dairen, it did on a different scale at Mukden and up and down the line to Changchun in the north and to Antung in the East. When the South Manchuria took over the railway there were about 5,000 buildings in the railway zone covering some 174 acres. By the end of 1917 the number of buildings had increased to 11,177 and the area to 336 acres. The first impression I got of the New Town of Mukden last year was almost bewildering. Night had fallen when the Through Express from Antung on the Chosen border pulled into the Mukden station. As I stepped out of the station building-decidedly too imposing for anything my imagination could have pictured in the heart of the Manchurian plain-out upon the spacious Plaza in front of it, with myriads of electric lights flowing away from it down broad Naniwa Dori, the scene reminded me of the spacious approach to the Pennsylvania Station at Washington, D. C. All the buildings lining Naniwa Dori and other streets leading away from the Plaza were of rusty red brick and entirely of occidental architecture. They were mostly shops and office buildings, with a profusion of electric signs on them. And this New Town of Mukden was almost entirely the creation of the S. M. R. At Changchun and other points one meets a similar sight, of course on a much smaller scale.

When the Company took over the Railway Zone, in April, 1907, there were less than 12,000 Chinese living in it. In 1915 the number was more than 51,000. In 1920 there were more than 103,000 of them established

and living within the zone. There is more than one sane and solid reason for the popularity of the Railway Zone with the Chinese. The zone is a mere ribbon of land on either side of the railway track and is insignificant in area-less than 61,000 acres in all. That does not cover much of the 382,627 square miles which happen to be the total area of Manchuria. All this does not prevent the anti-Japanese propagandists in China and America from painting Japan as a mailed villain spreading out over all of Manchuria, of course; but that is quite another story. Although an infinitesimal fraction of the total area of the country, the Zone is about the only spot which is practically, although not entirely, free from the blood- and booty-thirsty bandits who have made the name of Hunghutze famous throughout the Far East. And that appeals to the long-suffering Chinese merchants of Manchuria, who have been growing lean over the constant payment of peace money to the bandits from generation to generation for countless ages. The Zone is under the protection of the Japanese police; and the meaning of that has been pounded into the understanding of the natives at every bandit raid, so that by now the idea of Japanese protection seems to have got underneath even the Hunghutze skins. Another reason for the popularity of the Zone is that this narrow strip running through the heart of Southern Manchuria has become the business center of the Three Eastern Provinces. The transportation facilities offered by the railways running through made it so; also the protection for life and property offered within it. Still another and equally telling reason is that the South Manchuria Railway Company has been playing the rôle of a fairy godmother to the Zone all along, giving it educational institutions, hygienic facilities, recreation grounds; and through its own social welfare activities has made it a little modern paradise in the eyes of the Chinese, the like

of which the ancient Land of the Manchus has never known. Another, and by no means the least in the eyes of the Chinese merchants, is that it is free from the pestiferous likin tax.

S. M. R. MORE THAN A RAILWAY COMPANY

It is this function of calling cities into existence out of brown patches of acreage along its railway lines, of administering them-giving them schools and hospitals and parks and playgrounds and waterworks and electric light and power plants, sewage and other sanitary systems-which places the South Manchuria Railway Company apart from so many other great corporations of the world. And it is precisely this activity that eats up a major portion of the earnings of its railway and coalmining business. The Company cannot cut itself off from this expensive humanitarian work. The Government of Japan, which granted the charter and holds 50 per cent. of the stock, for which it is getting only 4.3 per cent. in dividends while all the private stockholders are and have been for years getting 10 per cent., has commanded it to attend to this work.

The Company has established at principal points in the Zone no less than twenty-six elementary schools for the children of Japanese colonists, and three middle schools, or academies; four higher girls' schools; ten girls' schools for domestic science; and one commercial college. For the Chinese children: thirteen elementary schools, one school where the Japanese language is taught, one middle school, and three commercial schools. In addition to all these the Company has established two really great colleges for advanced students: one is the College of Industry in Dairen and the other is the Medical University at Mukden, both open to Chinese and Japanese students alike on precisely the same basis.

« 上一頁繼續 »