forces of the allies it was selected as a landing-place for troops and munitions of war, and to improve the facilities a contract was entered into with Messrs. Bott & Company for the construction of a temporary pier and railway line to Tangho, the nearest point on the main line.

Meanwhile arrangements had been made whereby the undertaking-mines, fleet, and all other property, together with the liabilities of the Chinese Engineering and Mining Company was taken over early in 1901 by a new company, registered under English law as the Chinese Engineering and Mining Company Limited. A few months later the new company took over the railway and the pier by arrangement with the British Admiral.

Since that time the company have improved the railway, made further additions to the pier, and also constructed a breakwater, thus forming a harbour, at a capital expenditure amounting to £220,000.

The railway is a standard gauge line some six miles long, which runs along the pier, so that goods can be loaded directly from trucks into steamers lying alongside. The pier is 350 feet long, the present length of the breakwater is 1420 feet, and both are faced with a rail and girder-skin. Originally they were constructed of Jarrah piles with stone filling in between, but it was found that these piles were incapable of withstanding the encroachments of the Teredo navalis, and it was necessary to effect extensive alterations in the work.

At the time of writing accommodation exists for berthing five steamers, and the depth of water varies between a maximum of 25 feet and a minimum of 17 feet. At the outer berth ocean-going steamers of from 5000 to 6000 tons burden have been able to come alongside and take in cargo of over 4000 tons of coal.

It is now proposed to construct further quay accommodation between the breakwater and the pier, and to dredge the interior of the harbour to a minimum depth of 23 feet with a passage out to sea. Work is also in progress in connection with the breakwater, which is being lengthened by the addition of some 300 feet, while a new iron facing to the pier, and the construction of further godownaccommodation and sidings is in contemplation in the near future.

The following table shows the early stages in the growth of a promising trade which has sprung up at Chinwangtao during the few years that shipping facilities have existed there.

The first steamer entering the port with general cargo was the S.S. Fuping (British flag), on the 14th of December 1901.

Some considerable development of the place itself has recently taken place by reason of the establishment in 1904 of a depôt for coolie emigration to South Africa, which involved the erection of quarters for the accommodation of 6000 coolies at one time,

and suitable houses for emigration agents, officials, and others connected with the business.

Looking to the future, a steady advance seems assured. Chinwangtao is now the recognised winter port of call for North China. Tientsin is dependent upon it for three months in the year, and when the Liao River is frozen it must in normal circumstances share with Dalny such portion of the trade of Central Manchuria as will bear railway freight.

Chinwangtao, however, is not merely a port of subsidiary importance. It is also the natural point of entry for the north-east portion of the province of Chihli and South-West Manchuria, and recently signs have not been wanting of the development of a local trade that should in course of time assume respectable proportions.

IT

CHAPTER X

THE BATTLE OF CONCESSIONS

was remarked in the opening chapter that the history of railway development in China falls into three stages. We have now traced two of them. In the first place, attention has been directed to the history of abortive foreign effort, illustrated by the failure of the Shanghai petitioners in 1863; the story of Sir MacDonald Stephenson's attempt in the following year, to induce the Chinese to allow the introduction of railways; and, lastly, by the fate of the Woosung Road. While, secondly, the period of progressive movement emanating from the Chinese themselves, and finding expression in Formosa and in the Imperial Railways of the North, together with the resulting developments in Manchuria, has also been reviewed.

We have now reached the third stage. This followed, and was indeed directly consequent on, the Chino-Japanese War, shortly after the conclusion of which commenced what Lord Salisbury described as "the Battle of Concessions," 1 or, in the perhaps not less appropriate language of a writer in the Forum, "that mad scramble for Chinese concessions," 2 which characterised the closing years of the last century.

As a matter of logical arrangement, it may at first sight be objected that the Chinese Eastern Railway should have been treated together with the other foreign concessions. A moment's reflection, however, dispels this view. The Manchurian line, as should now be clear, was the outcome of the inevitable collision between China and Russia in the north, which had been hovering on the political horizon visible to observers for more than forty years. Threatened Chinese development, which by no means accorded with Russian policy, was the direct causa causans of the Russian invasion of Manchuria. That matters took the concrete form of the grant of 1 Blue Book, No. 1 of 1899, No. 232. 2 Charles Denby, in April 1899.

a concession, and that the Chinese in order to construct their line to Newchwang and keep the Russians on the other, the east, side of the Liao River were compelled to borrow British capital about the same time as the syndicates of other foreign countries appeared in the field, was to a large extent fortuitous.

Inside the Great Wall, on the other hand, with the exception of the case of Germany in the province of Shantung and France in South China, which will be subsequently more particularly referred to, the determining factors were quite different.

The war with Japan had been fought, and ended for China in humiliating disaster. But it had left behind it strong progressive tendencies in the breasts of many patriotic Chinese. Among them was H.E. Chang Chih Tung, Viceroy of Hukuang, who vigorously set himself to apply the lessons of the war, as he understood them.

According to the view he took of the situation, the time had come when a great trunk railway, putting the capital in rapid communication with the central and southern provinces, was not only commercially but strategically necessary, if China was to maintain her position among the nations. In a subsequent memorial the compelling force is thus rather pathetically placed on record :

"The powerful foreign nations stand around watching for their opportunity, and, making use of trivial pretexts in the conduct of international affairs, swiftly despatch their warships from one end of the Empire to the other. It is impossible to say when our communication by sea may be blocked, and the establishment of internal communication by railways has become a necessity."

In the latter part of the year 1895, therefore, His Excellency revived and somewhat extended his old railway scheme, which it will be remembered was first formulated in 1889, and memorialised the Throne to authorise the establishment of a company which should raise capital and undertake the construction of all necessary railways, retaining full control in Chinese hands. This company was first to direct its attention to the upper section of the trunk line running from Hankow on the Yangtze northward to Lukouchiao, a place about ten miles to the south-west of Peking, which, as we have seen, had been already connected by a branch from Fengtai with the main Peking-Shanhaikwan line. Afterwards