GETTING INTO THE HEART OF CHINA.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1218, 30 January 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

GETTING INTO THE HEART OF CHINA.

The great possibilities of China, with its population of nearly one-third of that of the entire globe, have long excited the longing eyes, and feasted the eager imaginations of European merchants, railroad builders, manufacturers, and others bent upon bringing the whole world under their sway as customers. New outlets for trade are wanted. Over production is going on a pace. Markets everywhere are pretty well absolved. Manufactures are at a stand still*because manufacturers have fully overtaken the demands of the portions of the world at present cpen to trade. More yards of cloth, more tons of rails and more steam engines are being manufactured to-day than there is an active demand for. The productions of combined skill, capital and labour are ever on the increase. The industry of this era is insatiable. It wants nothing so much as new worlds to conquer. If there were a railroad to the moon we could snpply 'the inhabitants thereof, no matter how numerous they may be, with all the manufactures they could possible absorb. The steam engine has so marvelously increased onr creative capacity that we begin to wonder -where we are to find work •nough to do. In this condition of things it is no wonder that the manufacturing „ nations want to knock down the Chinese wall of exclusion, and teach John Chinaman tobecome a customer. France seems to have made a pretty considerable breach in that wall. Railroads are to be builb into the heart of China, for which a first loan of 100,000,000d01. is to be raised. With railroads, the rest will surely follow. • John must be taught to buy as well as sell, and become a good "shopkeeper" like his neighbors. Four hundred million possible customers must be taught their wants, if they don't know them. The wave of commercial activity now .beating against that Chinese wall will cause its downfall ere long.