OCR Text |
Show RAILWAYS IN CHINA. It makes' a good deal of difforouce from what sourco tho information comes as to getting an exact view of inside facts. A remarkable instanco of this is shown iu a- recent consular report from Canton, China, with regard to the pushing of railway construction in that ancient empire. A good deal is said in it, and from timo to time elsewhere, about railway building in China, about the imports into that country of rails, locomotives, cars, etc., and about tho wakiug of China to the importanco of railway construction. We havo enumerations enumer-ations from timo to timo of the differ-out differ-out linos of progress, of the determination determina-tion to push them, and of tho groat do- ; velopments that may be expected in China upon tho completion of tho various vari-ous lines. All of which is very good and satisfactory as far as it goes. The i official report referred to is in tho fob I lowing words: j It Is said that the at ministration now has In hand ample fund$ to completo the Canton-Hnnkow Railway to the border of Hunan Province. Tho company has recently re-cently made a survey from ' V atshan to Konguiun. and It Is reported that It will construct this line when the main road has been completed to tho bordf-r oi the Province. II la paid that wUhln sis or seven months tills railway will be in tlie-market tlie-market for 200 freight cars and probably 50 passenger cars. , The owners of the Canton-faamshul division di-vision of the Canton-Hankow Hallway of the three Provinces are now about to undertake un-dertake the extension of Jlielr H port on the West River called Shui lling. a distance of about 2S miles. It Is be-lloved be-lloved that with this addition tho line will secure .practically all the passenger traffic traf-fic from the West River por Is. and that their returns will " t hereby bo lurguly 1- r Accompany is also "being organized to build the line from Canton to Macao, .i distance of about 05 miles- A survey has already beon made and the undertaking will doubtless be started before long. Construction work one or Canton on the Chinese soction of the Canton-Hongkong line to progressing satisfactorily and cars of British make arc now on the way out. They hope to have rails laid for construction construc-tion trains to Shoklung. a distance' of no miles, inside of four months. But thoro is another view of this same railroad construction; a view that comes from an outircly untrammclcd sourco, and that is uot bound by any restrictions of official amenities or that requires a courteous covuriug over of defects in order not to give international inter-national offense. This broozy and unconventional un-conventional account of tho sumo railroad rail-road is contained in a report by the British correspondent of the Loudon Times, who, complaining of tho waste of British capital on this line, says: The railway presonts every possible defect de-fect Bridges are unsafe. Ralls aro of native manufacture, of obsolete section, spiked into soft wood sleepers from Manchuria Man-churia and Japan. Sleepers are wrongly laid. Wrongly 'ballasted, tholr life In this soli Is littlo more than ono year. Eight different patterns of rolling stock arc in use. Where thero was difficulty In bridging bridg-ing a stream the Chinese built the bridge oil i drv land and then dug a canal. and diverted di-verted the waterway under tho bridge, both tho entrance to the diversion and tho exit from It being literally at right angles an-gles to the natural direction of tho stream. That is a peculiarly Chinoso notion which describes the way tho Chinose build bridges for the railroads, building build-ing tho bridges on laud and then dig-ding dig-ding channels to chango the course of tho rivers and mako them run undor the bridges. There may be some exaggeration exag-geration in the report of the correspondent corre-spondent of tho London Times, but probably he gives a far moro faithfui account of actual conditions than is found in tho official report. Ilowe-ver, tho main thing is to got tho railroads built ovon in primitive fashion, such as is described by the English correspondent. After that will como reconstruction as tho lines aro usod and-reconstruction is mado necessary. neces-sary. But the pity of it all is tho enormous waste of capital in building tho roads so poorly, in. tho .first place, and then having to build them right later on. |