CHINA'S WEALTH.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 224, 21 September 1934, Page 9

CHINA'S WEALTH.

CENTRED IN TREATY PORTS. SHANGHAI'S ENORMOUS SHARE. PEIPING (China), August 15. Almost all of China's wealth now is concentrated in the treaty ports protected by foreign military forces. In the greatest of them all, Shanghai, there is concentrated not only half the total foreign investment in China, but by far the broadest proportion of native capital. Tientsin and Hongkong are other cities in which tremendous Chinese wealth is concentrated. This concentration has produced in the cities a smooth, suave, high living class of Chinese bankers,, property owners and big merchants alongside their friends in the foreign banking and commercial communities, ijjoney To Spend. Unlike any other classes in China, these gently have plenty of time on their hands and money with which to spend it on play. Although Shanghai has its racecourses, golf clubs, bridle paths and cabarets, there was felt a need for something on a grand scale, which could be hailed as sign of China's advancing progress in the family of nations, and which would, at the same time, provide an outlet for the deplorably restricted energies of the wealthy. The result is a grandiose project, just announced, for the creation of a huge playground in northern Chekiang province, which abuts close on to the Shanghai area. Financing the Scheme. A Government tourist organisation has been organised to finance the scheme, which is supported whole-heartedly by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, China's chief war lord. It is proposed to build motor roads along which Shanghai's Chinese and foreign playboys can race in they - roadsters and limousines, to construct no less than six huge hotels, with all the appurtenances required for a good time, along'the road to Hangchow, and to build a 1,000.000 dollar (silver) bridge across the Chiengtang River, so that motor cars need not be ferried across. Plans already arc under way for a Hangchow Race Club and Hangchow Golf Club, where it is planned to lay out the trickiest and most beautiful course in all China. The only others are in the treaty ports and in places such as Peiping, whore golfers such as the Japanese abound.