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Show SUPPLYING CHINA. With tho gradual . awakening of China after centuries of lethargy, illimitable illim-itable opportunities are opened for tho extension of trade of the United States. The colossal giant, when once aroused to full activity, will have a voracious appetite and will devour our commerce with the greed of a glutton. Much in a similar vein has been written before and much is being written all the while, but in all that has been written there is a strange lack of the concrete. AVo are glibly told over and over again that China is destined to become the world's greatest buyer of things, we have to sell, but just what articles of manufacture or of produce China wants are rarely specified. At this moment there are in this country coun-try several high officials of the Chinese republic and other prominent men. The party iueludes, among others, K. C. Yie, vice minister of communication of the republic, and Dr. C. C. Wang, managing director of the Teking-Hankow railway. These two gentlemen head a railroad commission now traveling in America on the way to the peace conference. At Chicago they were guests of the Association Asso-ciation of Commerce, and in the course of a luncheon delivered themselves of some remarks of great significance. Mr. Yie spoke of the friendly feeling which China entertains for America for her generosity iu the return of the Boxer indemnity, and because of the efforts of the late John Hay for the open door. "The Chinese trade offers a great opportunity to the United States, and we hope you will take ad-antnge ad-antnge of it," was the speaker's cordial cor-dial invitation to American commercial and manufacturing interests. These happy sentences were the in- i traduction to a disclosure of the real mission of the party in the United States. Briefly, it is to buy all China's railroad equipment in this country. 'We hope to see the United States furnish fur-nish all our railway supplies in the future." is the way Mr. Yie put it. In the past, owing to China's financing having been done by a number of different dif-ferent countries, the railroad enterprises bought their supplies from all of them, and. as a result, they have a conglom- 4 ' 'cratjnn of equipment which ia as bcwil-i bcwil-i during as it is inefficient. "In the future," continued Mr. Yie, "we intend to buy from one country, to that our equipment may be standardized, standard-ized, and naturally we turn to America first, and we wish your business men to know this.' It is not often that so important a customer comes to the doors of a cation, ca-tion, pica-ling for the privijege of spending spend-ing money with that nation; and we predict that Mr. Yie and his associates will not have to knock twice at the door of American enterprise ere they and their dollars are admitted. The supplying of China with every kind of devico and apparatus used in railroad construction and operation, with locomotives, loco-motives, coaches, cars; with steel rails and bridge materials it is an enormous order to fill, and America is the country to fill it. |