BRITONS IN CHINA.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 12 October 1925, Page 9

BRITONS IN CHINA.

WHAT THEY DO. SUPPLY OF BRAINS AND CAPITAL There are about 12,G00 Britons, a great number of whom are Scotsmen, in. various communities throughout China. Without them the Government, trade, or industry of the country could not endure. Unofficially the Central and Provincial Governments are glad to seek advice from British diplomatic and consular officials, states an Englishman who has just returned from China, in an article in the Daily Mail. There are large concentrations of British in Hongkong, Shanghai, Tientsin, and Peking, who are fairly well equipped to look after themselves. In Canton, Swatow, Foochow, Amoy, Hankow, and at the Yangtse River poits there are small groups who are not so fortunately situ, ated. Britons are also scattered, sometimes singly and sometimes with their womenfolk and children, throughout the interior of a vast country. The docks and wharves of the great Treaty ports emj)loy 220 Britons as supervisors, harbourmasters, and in other capacities to handle the merchandise of the 700 British firms established in China. In every considerable town there are branches of British banking firms. All of these employ British managers and clerks. There are also several Englishmen employed by the English newspapers published in China.

Revenue from the maritime Customs, the salt tax, and the “likin,” or internal Customs, is controlled by an international board, whose inspectorgeneral and many of whose other officials, are British. By the nature of their work these men are compelled to live often in the most inaccessible and lonely stations.

The great coalfields, as yet almost untapped, are largely managed by British mining experts and engineers. The railways that carry their produce to ports and distributing centres have been built with the help of British brains and capital. The ports were unsuitable fof handling modern shipping and the harbours were undredged and neglected until such bodies as the Yangtse Conservancy Board were established at the suggestion of the British chambers of commerce. Under the direction of Mr. F. Palmer the channel was made safe for navigation, and it is now Central China’s great highway of commerce. Life in' a- British concession is pleasant enough. There are- fine buildings

and broad metalled motor roads, roomy bungalows for the married folk and comfortable messes for “chummeries,” where haif-a-dozen bachelors club together to keep- bouse. Every settlement, however small, has a club as the hub of its social life, and- perhaps a sports, club as well.

The scattered Consular Corps, distributed from Harbm to Yunnan, and the minor officials who help them, are less .to be envied. In the various Treaty port concessions there are municipalities with their services ranking from the chairman of council to the humble and most essential constable. Hongkong has the essential elements of a- complete British administration. British experts are employed by many Chinese enterprises in Shanghai, which has long oeen known as the Manchester of the Bast. There are venturesome young men with the gift of tongues (for China has many dialects) who venture far into the inhospitable interior to sell machinery, piece goods, oil, cigarettes, sewing machines, t-nread, soap, and the like. Life for them is full of hazard. Then ■ there are the navigators and engineers of the coasting and river boats, who live a hard life and never know when it may be their turn, to encounter pirates.