1924

718
SHANGHAI
134 at top, is 80 feet wide at entrance between pierheads, with a depth at high-water [■
springs of 22 feet; the works connected with this dock cover an area of 16 acres; the #
Cosmopolitan Dock, on the Pootung side about a mile below harbour limits, is 560 feet
long on blocks, and 82 feet wide at entrance. The International Dock is a new and I:
larger dock. All steamers and most sailing vessels now discharge and load at the various .
public and private wharves. The premises of the Associated Wharf Companies have a
frontage of about three-quarters of a mile. The Chinese Government has an Arsenal,
Dock, and Shipbuilding establishment at Kao Ch’ang Miao, a short distance above the
native city. It commenced as a small rifle factory in 1867. The Great Northern f
Telegraph Company’s cable was laid to Shanghai in 1871, and that of the Eastern Exten- j
sion Company in 1884, and in 1906 was opened a German cable line connecting Shanghai
with the American Trans-Pacifle line at Manila: there being now three distinct lines of ;
communication with Europe. An overland line to Tientsin was opened in December,'
1881, subsequently extended to Peking, and in 1894 connected with the Russian land :
lines through Siberia to Europe. There is also a line west to Kashgar and south as far
as Laokay on the Yunnan border, there connecting with the French Tonkin lines and
to Bhamo, connecting with the Burmah line. During the operations in 1900, the Allied
Powers found it necessary to be independent of the Chinese landlines, and submarine j
cables were laid connecting Shanghai with Kiaochow, Weihaiwei, Chefoo, and Port j
Arthur. Within the past two or three years a wireless installation has been erected at j
Siccawei giving direct communication with Lyons in France. In January, 1921, an!
agreement was reached between the Federal Telegraph Co. of San Francisco and the j
Chinese Government for the installation of a trans-oceanic station of 1,000 kws. at!
Shanghai and the erection of four secondary stations at Harbin, Peking, Shanghai;
and Canton respectively. The first railway in China was constructed by a foreign
company and opened from Shanghai to Woosung in June, 1876, but after running
for sixteen months it was purchased and taken up by the Chinese Authorities, j
During the short time it was running the passenger traffic alone covered the working
expenses, leaving sufficient profit to pay a small dividend. Twenty years afterwards |
it was reconstructed. There is railway communication now with Nanking via j
Soochow and Chinkiang on the north, and Hangchow via Sunkiang and Kaching !
on the south. Bapid progress has been made towards the reorganisation of the!
Kiangsu-Chekiang railway under the control of the directorate of the Shanghai- i
Nanking railway. This line received no small damage at the hands of the rebels during ;
the disturbances in 1913. General plans for the linking up of this railway with the
Kiangsu line have been formulated and negotiations for the purchase of the necessary |
land are proceeding. There are several locally-owned lines of steamers running on !
the coast and the river Yangtsze. Many manufactories under both native and foreign :
auspices have sprung up of late years, and would have done so in large numbers long
ago had it not been that the native authorities offered strong opposition to any manu¬
factories under the control of foreigners and tried to strangle the importation of foreign [
machinery. Although the right under the Treaty to import machinery is quite clear,
the British Government hesitated to enforce it; but the Japanese, in the Treaty of 1895 j
which closed the war, obtained the insertion of a clause specially authorising its ;
importation. With the number of mills working and others in course of construction,
the place is rapidly assuming the appearance of a thriving district in Lancashire.
Indeed, Shanghai bids fair to become the principal centre of the cotton industry in the ]
Far East. There are also a number of ginning factories, foreign and native-owned. '
The silk filatures give employment to 20,000 natives. Other industries include
hydraulic packing factories, foreign and native-owned paper mills, and Chinese-owned i
match factories. There are also large foreign flour mills (for grinding native wheat,
which, it is said, makes excellent flour); two kerosene tank oil and tinning establish¬
ments and works, steelworks, glass factory, big cigarette factories, oil mills and various ;
other industries which are fast increasing in number.
No notice of the important place taken by Shanghai in the industrial progress
of the East would be complete without a reference to the large engineering
and shipbuilding establishments which now form a conspicuous feature in the
business of the place. Already in the early ’fifties, Mr. William Muirhead, an
engineer officer in the service of the P. & O. S. N. Co., had conceived the idea of !
starting a repairing shop. With the exception of the P. & O., which then ran a
fortnightly mail service from Hongkong, there was no regular line of steamers |
trading with the port, and the visits of coasting steamers were few and far
between. Still, as the northern terminal port in China, occasional jobs came in. After ?
the opening of Tientsin and the northern ports, and more especially after the opening |