MODERN CHINA.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 158, 7 December 1874, Page 3

MODERN CHINA.

A work on modern Chinn, just published at St Petersburg by Colonel Wcniukoif, contains, says the Pall Jlall Gazette , much interesting information as to some hitherto little known portions of that country, based on the reports of Russian oiiicers, scientific men, and merchants. M. Fritsche, director of the meteorological observatory, gives an account of In's researches in southern Mongolia; eastern Mongolia is described by the Archimandrite Palladii and two oiiicers of the general staff ; and western Mongolia by MM. Matussc if sky, Wessclkiu, and Pederin. The commercial reports, by eminent Hussiau merchants at Tientsin, Hankow, Kalgan, and Dolon Uor, arc especially interesting, and Colonel Wcniukoff draws from them some important conclusions with regard to the commercial relations between Russia and China. He thinks that any successful competition of Russia with the other European States in most of the Chinese markets is out of the question so long as Russian goods are brought to China by land ; that such goods can only find a market in Mongolia, Dzungaria, and part of Mantchouria; and that a direct trade between Russia and China proper is only obtainable by adopting the sea route through the Suez Canal. As an illustration of the expense of land conveyance, the author states that that the charge for conveying goods from Moscow to Kalgan via Kiaehta is -197 roubles per ton, whllefrom London via Shanghai and Tientsin to Kalgan it is forty-seven roubles only. The quantity of tea exported from China to Russia has, it is true, increased during the last ten years by seventy-one per cent. This increase, however, has not occurred in the overland trade via Kiaehta, but is due to the opening of the sea route by way of Suez and Odessa ; indeed, the overland tea trade has diminished during the above period by fortyfour per cent, and the colonel thinks it would by this time have been almost extinguished altogether if it were not for the protection duties and the special privileges given by the Crown to the Kiaehta traders.