APPLIED SCIENCE IN CHINA.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3345, 11 October 1911, Page 8

APPLIED SCIENCE IN CHINA.

THE DAWN OF INDUSTRIAL ACTIVITY. There was a Viceroy named Chang Ohi-Tung, and lie was far-seeing and able. In the year 188 She started, near Hank'ow, an iron and steel works. The situation is 600 miles inland, on tlie. Yang-tse River, but ocean steamers from all over the world may navigate the waterway, for it is deep, ancl at Hankow it is a mile wide. Ir you visited those works now you would see, not only the natural advantages under winch it is being developed, but the latest machinery from Europe. The ore seems almost inexhaustible, and is of excellent quality. There are blast furnaces, 'Siemens-Martin furnaces, a rolling-mill plant, two electric and two hydraulic power stations, together with machine and other repair shops. Millions of tons of ore and millions of tons of good cooking coal are available for the company’s purposes. About forty European technical experts are employed, and l 20,000 Chinese workmen. The most astonishing thing is that this place ts 600 miles inland, in the heart of a huge country blessed with a natural waterway, the river being navigable to Ichang, 420 miles higher up. In 1893 a great cottonmill, with 700 looms, was erected, and for years worked twentytwo hours a day, making yarn and cloth from native cotton. The modern economist accepts the fact that the wealth' of a nation depends upon the development of its industries, and that the great factors in such development are coal and iroil and easy methods of transport. Judged by these standards we see the enormous potentialities of China. In every province of that empire’ minerals abound. Experts tell ns that the coal held in Shansi is sufficient 1 1 supply the whole world—at the present rate at which coal is being consumed—for several thousands of years. 'be Ho and the Yang-tse Rivers have a course of about 3000 miles. This curious nation built a grand canal, which a hundred years ago caused an Englishman to write: “In point of magnitude, our most extensive inland navigation in. England can no more be compared to the grand trunk that intersects China than a park or garden fishpond to the great lake of Windermere.”