The larger steamship lines now supplying the China ports are the following:

• American
• Pacific Mail—Trans-Pacific.
  
• Standard Oil—Trans-Pacific and Suez route.
  
• Dollar Steamship Company—Trans-Pacific.
  
• Northern Pacific Railway—Trans-Pacific.
  
• American and Asiatic—To America via Suez (agency, American; flag, British).
  
• Barber Line—To America via Suez (agency, American; flag, British).
  
• Shewan, Tomes & Co.—To Philippines.
• British
• Canadian Pacific Railway—Trans-Pacific.
  
• Peninsular and Oriental—Suez route to Europe, and coastal.
  
• Ben Line—Suez route to Europe.
  
• Shire Line—Suez route to Europe.
  
• Sassoon Line—To India.
  
• Jardine, Matheson & Co.—To India, coastwise and Philippines.
  
• Butterfield and Swire—Australia, India, coastwise, etc.
  
• Gibb, Livingston & Co.—Australia and Africa.
  
• Blue and White Funnel Lines—Europe, trans-Pacific, coastwise.
  
• British-India—India, trans-Pacific, etc.
• Japanese
• Toyo Kisen Kaisha—Trans-Pacific to America and South America.
  
• Nippon Yusen Kaisha—Trans-Pacific, Europe, coastwise and riverine.
  
• Osaka Shosen Kaisha—Trans-Pacific, coastwise and riverine.
  
• Nippon Kisen Kaisha—Coastwise.
  
• Mitsui Bussan Kaisha—Coastwise.
• German
• North German Lloyd—Europe, coastwise and probably trans-Pacific.
  
• Hamburg-America—Europe, coastwise and probably trans-Pacific.
  
• Hansa Steamship Company—Europe.
• Austrian
• Austrian Lloyd—Europe and coastwise.
• Chinese
• China Merchants’ Steamship Company—Coastwise and possibly trans-Pacific.
• British and Chinese
• Chinese Engineering and Mining Company—Coastwise and trans-Pacific planned.
  
• Peking Syndicate—Coastwise and trans-Pacific planned.
• French
• Messageries Maritimes—Europe, Indo-China and coastwise.
• Russia
• Russian Volunteer Fleet—Europe and coastwise.
  
• Chinese Eastern Railway Steamers—Coastwise.
• Spain
• Spanish Royal Mail—Europe via Suez.
• Holland
• Shell Transport and Trading—Coastwise and Europe.

When the Panama Canal opens, many more Atlantic lines, such as the Royal Mail, International Marine, German lines, etc., will probably extend their service in time to China, and many trans-Pacific lines, especially Japanese and the Pacific Mail, will extend to America’s eastern coast, not to speak of new lines which may be formed. The British-India Steamship Company intends to extend its Calcutta line across the Pacific and to New York. The American railroads could, at small cost, by a generous pro rata of division rates, have covered the Pacific and Atlantic with American steamship lines, but they have held off, expecting the really unnecessary government subsidies. The subsidy argument would possibly have a different complexion if it were assured that the steamship lines would remain forever independent, and permit no dummy holdings of stock. In the meantime, Japanese and British vessels have been employed on the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans on account of the lower cost of officers’ wages only, the crews’ wages being the same on a Pacific mailer and a Nippon Yusen Kaisha mailer, for instance. Both hire Chinese mainly, who are good and cheap sailors. The American railroad, controlling the west-bound freight, and the American banker, controlling the heavier east-bound freight, could make American steamship lines on the Pacific profitable; indeed, the Pacific Mail already pays its way. The government could, of course, pay a just amount for mails on an increasing ratio for time made, but if the American railroad, American banker, American shipper and American globe-trotter will come to the aid of the American ship, we can, without subsidy, except to independent smaller owners, cover the Pacific with our starry flag.

All the large lines are building new ships for the China trade. The Osaka Shosen Kaisha, running to America in connection with the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway, has ordered steamships from Armstrong, in England, and from the Japan shipyards. The Canadian Pacific Railway Steamship Company and the Pacific Mail are having twenty-knot ships built. The Hansa Steamship Company, running from Bremen, has ordered ships from the Weser Ship-building Company, of Bremen. The Russian Volunteer Fleet has ordered new ships from the Alexander-Nevski works. Wireless is to be used generally, the first shore station having been fitted at Hongkong. The Chinese Merchants and the Sino-American companies (both Chinese) intend to run ships to America, as their plans enlarge. We may yet see the Chinese flag regularly in New York. The Japanese are to run a line into the Black Sea in competition with the Russian Volunteer Fleet; they have already sent boats into Trieste in competition with the Austrians, and they have before now humbled the Germans in the Bangkok-Shanghai service. To show that the Japanese are not the least timid in declaring their maritime ambitions on the Pacific, I shall quote the following circular signed by Manager Iwanaga of the subsidized Nippon Yusen Kaisha (the steamship line in which the Mikado is a large shareholder) at the time of the competition with the long-established British firm of Butterfield and Swire, a firm which had been very friendly to the Japanese during the Russian War. Mr. Iwanaga says: “These foreign firms must be induced to pay respect to the Japanese mercantile flag. It is the duty of the Nippon Yusen Kaisha to check the arrogance of foreign steamers east of Suez.”

The history of China’s greatest steamship line, the China Merchants’ Steamship Company, is as follows: When Li Hung Chang was viceroy of Pechili province at Tientsin in 1871, on advice of Americans and British who were in his employ, he formed this government-controlled line, partly to carry tribute grain from the south; because the Grand Canal was allowed by the various governors to collect silt, while their pockets collected gilt (and guilt)! Merchants and guilds were invited or coerced to subscribe to some of the stock. In 1877 the company bought the Shanghai Steam Navigation Company and its dock for 2,000,000 taels silver. In 1878 Li diverted from the Grand Canal to the steamship company the Yunnan copper destined to the Peking and provincial mints. The great government university at Peking, with provincial branches, created by Kwang Hsu’s reform edicts of 1898, was to be financed partly by the revenues of this steamship company. The republicans used its revenues to aid the 1911 revolution because the imperialists used the railway revenues. The head office of the company is in Shanghai, and it has branches at Newchwang, Chifu, Tientsin, Chinkiang, Kowkiang, Hankau, Ningpo, Fuchau, Hongkong and Canton. The ships are distinguishable at the Chinese ports both by the yellow funnel, and by the immense Chinese characters which, in Austrian fashion, are not always borne on the bow, but midships. The fine vessels of this company were once put under the American flag in 1884 to save them from the French, who were at war with China.

One of the great movements of the future in the reforming Far East will be the Malay Peninsular Canal, about fifty miles long, which will save 1,500 miles in the voyage from Saigon to Calcutta, Madras, etc. It will not cut off and make useless the expensive garrison port of Singapore, which holds the five equatorial seas for Britain, as the Singapore-Rangoon railway will run along the entire peninsula. All these probabilities in the Far East should be considered in full by the student of world politics, finance, commerce and ethnology. A dozen Chinas, Americas, Britains and Germanies could well work many centuries before the world is restored to the economic Eden state, where each man will be free, and have enough to support him and his in peace. Every work of commerce is then a world-work, claiming the altruist’s enthusiasm, and while we often use the phrase, “war of the ports of the Far East,” we mean that joyful exhibition of strength which the wrestler, rather than the warrior, puts forth.

A movement is growing in Japan to deprive foreign ships of the right to trade between Japanese ports, which is similar to a regulation now in operation in America and Canada. Japanese vessels, of course, trade between British and China ports. Another plan that is advocated is to place on ships not built in Japan such a high duty that Japanese owners will be compelled to build in Japan, which would include a personal penalty if Japanese owners owned steamship stock under a foreign flag. All this involves considerable conflict with British interests that have loaned immense sums in Japan, and it is certain that the British foreign office, now so friendly to Japan, will hear from the British Board of Trade, as it is hearing every day from the consular service and such writers as Beresford, Colquhoun and Gilbert Parker.

Whampoa, the first port in China where Europeans traded, is to be opened by the Chinese as a treaty port for deep-sea trading. It is about six miles below Canton. The port will, of course, compete with Hongkong; but Hongkong opened up a railway to Canton to protect herself, and she will see that fast and cheap handling maintains her leadership. The taotai, and Chang Iu Hin who was educated and enriched at British Singapore, are representative republicans of Canton who are interested in Whampoa port. It is proposed to do dredging and make free grants of land for godowns, wharves, etc.

Portuguese Macao, the second port in China where Europeans traded, forty miles from Hongkong, is dredging her silted harbor preparatory to bidding for some of the great oversea trade that is expected. China, which has ambitions for native ports in the vicinity of Canton, frequently sends her warships into Macao waters. The natives of the Macao district (Heung Shan) do not like Portugal’s ambition, and much bitterness is shown.

The Whang Poo Conservancy Board has deepened the river from Wusung up to Shanghai, and larger ocean steamers are now able to ascend to the bund. For a long time the largest vessels must lie at Wusung bar, the “heaven sent barrier” against foreign intrusion, as the Manchus called it years ago. The Tientsin Conservancy is deepening the river up from Taku. Both of these boards are controlled by the foreign settlements, although the Chinese share in the expense. Foreign engineers are hired. Other trans-oceanic ports planned by China are at Chin Wang Tao in Pechili province; Hunchun, near Vladivostok on the Japan Sea, and Haochow, near the junction of Shangtung and Kiangsu provinces. The British may also develop the port of Wei Hai Wei, now that connection with the trunk railways of China is in sight.

Few of the great Chinese ports look after the foreign seamen, but Hongkong has established a sailors’ club and seamen’s institute on a liberal scale. This idea should be copied along the long yellow coast, for the devil’s whisper is loudest and his traps are most numerous in China.

The Grand Canal as a shipping factor is grand no more, for three reasons: it has silted up; it has been paralleled by the railway from Hangchow to Peking, 1,000 miles; and it has also been paralleled by the China Merchants and other steamship services from Shanghai to Tientsin. This once noble work, with its beautiful bridges, pagodas, embankments, sluices, aqueducts and picturesque junks, passes into history, so far as its transportation feature is concerned. It may be continued in parts as an aqueduct, for conservancy purposes in relieving the water pressure on the flood districts of the Whei and Yangtze valleys, or for water power for a vast scheme of manufacturing, but that is for engineers, and not economists, to decide. Marco Polo first made this famous work known to the western world. The southern section from Hangchow, the bore city and capital of the Sung dynasty, to the Yangtze River at Chingkiang, was dug about 610 A.D. The oldest, and most important section from a conservancy point of view, from Chinkiang to the Whei River, 130 miles, was built about 485 B.C. Kublai Khan is credited with being the dreamer of the idea, the digger of the ditch, the De Lesseps of China, and the fact is that he built the northern section of about 650 miles from the Whei River to Peking in 1289 A.D. in order to bring the tribute rice and copper of the southern provinces to Peking. Those who are interested in the canal in its last days of picturesque use should read the works of Sir John Francis Davis, who was governor of Hongkong, and whose experience in China covered the crowded years from 1820 to 1846. The American general, J.M. Wilson, has also written a book covering his inspection of parts of the canal.

On sections of the Yellow River and on the Kia Ling River in Szechuen province, lumber boats are made up to carry produce to market, the boats being broken up at Chungking. Return freight which can not be tracked through the rapids is portaged. Although the Yellow River is 2,500 miles long, it is only navigable 150 miles from its mouth to Tsinan City, and in short broken sections in Mongolia and Honan. The loess silt which it carries, and the porous loess bed through which it flows, make it only a roaring unmanageable spring and summer drain, China’s sorrow of flood and famine. Its memorable changing of bed to mouths 300 miles apart, from Kiangsu to Shangtung province in 1854, and from banks 100 miles apart in the Gobi Desert, are well known.

Most of the riverine and coast, junk and sanpan sails are square or oblong, but at Ichang there are strange wupan boats which use the towering peaked sails seen on the Arab dahabiyehs of Aden and the Nile, the object being to coax down the high breezes of the difficult gorges of the Yangtze. This is not the only instance in China of Arab influence in crafts, arts and blood.

Chinese riverine shipping is growing heavily. All flags are seen on the Yangtze, and several flags in the lower parts of the Kan and Siang Rivers. The British and Chinese, and some French flags go up the West and Yu Rivers to Nanning. Chinese shipping on the Liao River to Newchwang is heavy in the ice-free season. There are scores of other rivers which will be dredged so that they may feed the steamship and railroad lines.

The Chinese have an amusing word for captain. “Lao ta” is literally “old fellow”; because the captain of the old Yangtze rapids boats was generally the oldest man on board. The captain of the Hakka sanpans of Canton is often a woman, but she is humorously called “lao ta” with the rest! China led in all inventions, including woman’s rights!

In the coming great development of Western China, the one name to inscribe on the tablets is that of the pioneer merchant writer, Archibald Little, who, after twenty years of effort, broke the veil of the Yangtze gorges and took the first steamer to open up the ports of Ichang and Chungking in 1898. This brought him within beckoning distance of British Burma and Archibald Colquhoun’s propaganda, and split China in two with the wedge of commerce, despite the obstructive Tsung Li Yamen at Manchu Peking. Mr. Little’s three books on Western China are: Through the Yangtze Gorges, To Omi Mount in Szechuen, and Across Yunnan; and he wrote, moreover, a very important geological work which places him high as a prospector and explorer.