Gleanings from fifty years in China . ncapital and science, railroads will never penetrate thosedistant regions. One railway—a short line of eightymiles, connecting the coal-mines of Kaiping, on theManchurian border, with the shipping port of Tientsin—was finally completed and opened to traffic in line runs through a marshy, thinly-populatedcountry, but which has the advantage of being immediate-ly under the jurisdiction of the powerful Viceroy of ChihH,Li Hung-chang. Yet even his influence failed in prolong-ing the line eighty miles farther to its natural terminus,Peking. ^ This lin
Gleanings from fifty years in China . ncapital and science, railroads will never penetrate thosedistant regions. One railway—a short line of eightymiles, connecting the coal-mines of Kaiping, on theManchurian border, with the shipping port of Tientsin—was finally completed and opened to traffic in line runs through a marshy, thinly-populatedcountry, but which has the advantage of being immediate-ly under the jurisdiction of the powerful Viceroy of ChihH,Li Hung-chang. Yet even his influence failed in prolong-ing the line eighty miles farther to its natural terminus,Peking. ^ This line was built with native capital, butwith imported EngUsh rails, and the roUing-stock was * The line was taken into the heart of Peking by the AlliedPowers after the Boxer Rising of 1900, and since then the Chinese,unaided, are carrying it through the Nan-kou Pass on to Kalgan,from which point we may hope ere many years are passed to seeit connected with the trans-Siberian, thus bringing Peking twodays nearer Europe.—a. e. n. \*Sf^ Chang Chih tung, one of the most energetic and most learned of Chinese Viceroys, whose Appeal against opium-smoking and foot-binding roused all the literati to the need for reform. Vo /,ac /). 37. WESTERN CHINA 37 also imported, mainly from England. But, now it hasbeen decreed that future lines are to be built by Chinese,of Chinese materials, and with Chinese capital exclusively,the progress of future railways will be slow Hukwang Viceroy, Chang Chih-tung, within whosejurisdiction lay the line from Hankow to Peking, wasfor years engaged with two German mining experts,searching for suitable coal and iron ore with which tocommence operations, and in a country like South-WesternChina, even were foreign capital to be invited to constructthe roads, they could hardly prove remunerative, as longas free exploration of the mineral resources of the regionis prohibited. The Chinese have neither the capital, theknowledge, nor the energy, to d
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectchinade, bookyear1910
