A New Land of Promise

Horowhenua Chronicle, 5 September 1910, Page 4

A New Land of Promise

Tourists are overrunning Manchuria and Korea. The grand detour from the grand tour of the world is now from Japan across the narrow straits of Fusan in Korea, thence by train to Seoul, and from Seoul to the Yalii river and on to Mukden, precisely following in Kuroki's footsteps. There is a standard guage railway with American cars, locomotives and rails across all Korea,' and one travels in comfort to the Ynlu's banks. Those historic banks are lined with rafts of timber floated down from tihe headwaters of the Viilu and are about to be linked with a groat railway bridge. Daluy, "far away," has been renamed Rairen, and according to the National Geographical Magazine, is a wonderful place. Op Witto's city has felt the touoh of

JAPANESE PROGRESS and sanitary science, while the good roads movement and village bcautilieation societies maty n,ul object lessons there. bairen has changed its face as well as its name and is a city redeemed, where the steam rollei ■ha:; rolled continuously for __ three years, fast transforming Kwangtiniff mud sinks and clay bogs into smooth park roadways. A film of green on the hillsides shows whcrV afforestation's miracle has begun its work. The Russians left their droskics, the Japanese brought their jinrikishas, and havo since provided electric cars more luxurious and up-to-date than some of tihe green chariots that are propelled through the- streets of "Washington. The Japanese are not pulling the jinrikishas, driving the vehicles, oi doing any inch manual labour IN MANCHURIA. They are emlpoyers of labour, and labour in unlimited) supply comes over from Chefoo. Fifty thousand husky Shantung ceo lies' cross ever this land of silver and. opportunity as to a lesser America eacli year and return nrter the harvest is gathered and outdoor work suspended for the winter. Dniren is a city of experts—of high priced experts and specialists in all technical lines—and nearly all of them are gradniiatop from American institutions. Brick works. ceni'Mit works,, mills, and factories fringe the town, and a bank gives all the marble and mosiac, black iron and plate glass a

A DEPOSITOR is supposed to want. A Japanese laboratory at Dairen is always discovering something for the. benefit of Mannhuria. The insatiable young scientists and technologists assure one that _ aftei beans wild silk of pongee is the future great crop of Manchuria. The silk-worms fed on the leaves of oak trees instead of mulberry, produce fine thread for pongee ol tussnr silk, Besides the steadily increasing demand for pongee as clothing in China, Europe and America, pongee is the best material for the wings of flying machines and the bodies of dirigibles.

The Ghefoo market was stripped last year after the great flight of the aeroplane across the English Channel. As the world may be FLYING ON WINGS of pongee in a few years it becomes a matter of interest tli.it the supply of pongee should be increased. Beans are the great crop, however, and by beans alone, Manchurin could live and supply the world The bean plant should be the crest, the symbol, the coat of arms of Manchuria. Along with the banana and after the kaoliang, or giant millet, beans are the most prolific crop. Thirty varieties grow in Manchuria. They have alwavs been sent by tons by junks to South China for food, fertilising, and illuminating, and a little to Japan. After tihe China-Japan war of 18!)5, when the Japanese commissariat learned their value for man and boast and crops, the exportation to Japan increased throe times, replacing fortunately the failures in the herring fishery that year as a fertiliser. General export continued to increase until in 1809 beans, bean cake, and bean oil were exported to the value of

G2,500,000, and in 1909 the value was nearly £75,000,000. Dairen harbour was CROWDED ALL last winter with waiting ship*. One hundred ships at a time lay at anchor waiting their turns; ten at a time at the stone quays, and loading went on day and night. The beans when ground and presi}d yield 10 per cent of oil, and the refuse compressed into great cartwheel cakes weighing 601bs and more provides the best of all for-

tilisers far the rice fields of Japan and the sugar fields of Formosa, the Phillipines, and even Java. Tho beans are converted into soy and bean curd in l>oth Japan and China, and furnish those two popular articles of food—soy, the dark brown, pungent sauce resulting from a fermentation of bean dough. This bean soy is sent to England and America by ths shipload, and when treated with cayenne, pepper becomes the familiar red-labelled WORCESTERSHIRE SAUCE. Bean curd or bean cheese is a common and nourishing article of food, popular with the people, and is a clean and attractive-lookins, dish. The Japanese with their mania for investigation and analysis have found that a liquid left from making the boan curd and which used to be thrown away has the same chomienl value as milk, and is, of course, many times cheaper.

Europe at present uses the -beans for making caudles, soap and <lo» biscuits and as an adulterant fo? ofchor flours. The oil is a substitute for olive oil that threatens to displace the cottonseed imitation of olive oil. The poppy fields of Manchuria cove rod for solid , acres with billows of soft pink or white flowers, are more beautiful than tiro tulip holds of Holland, but with the Kron-ing moral sense ami the rule or reform, the poppy must now disappear, and the gro'und will be given up to the harmless and profitable soy bean. As one journeys across THE PRAIRIES of Manchuria no sign of war remains. As far as one sees are luxuriant fields of beans ami sorghiitn and newly-built houses, the very newness of their mild Walls significant of the utter waste and desolation left on that same plain wlien the two armies had gone by. In suoh vast levels one cannot understand how anyone could know, not seeing, where the battle was nlJ'f n ne !" tenan , fcs > or rather, tlie old tenants on their return, c eanJ and tidied Port Arthur, paved the streets and made the kace model of sanitation and oSer Every wrec k has been raiseTS ed nnT 7 blt + ? S f a P iron <Mg|a "P fiom the harbour, everr hSr nt ° f the dead S Port Arthur affotds a thy or two of the most tragic 7 , SIGHT-SEEING

forts and another leads to the 203 Metre Hill. A great mortuary temple has been built to the spirits of the dead on the high liill facing the (harbour entrance and also a great column to their memory built with the granite blocks taken from the blockading ships which Hirose and his fellows sunk at the harbour entrance. They had ballasted their ships with their own tombstones.

Tihe South Manehurian Railway was only a track without bridges

or rolling stock when the Japanese acquired it as almost the only prize of war. They floated a loan of £20,000,000 at "t per cent and double tracked the road with steel rails from Pittsburg, equipped it with locomotives from Philadelphia, Pullman cars from Chicago, and spent many more millions in the purchase f>f railway materials in America, as they are again about tx> do for the Autung-Muk-den railway.

Besides paying 5 per cent interest on , this loan and (3 per cent on the stock the South Manehurian Railway reaps a surplus each year. Receipts are increasing by leaps and bound's, partly owing to the wonderful bean trade and to the opening and working of more and more coal mines, coal that is said to he second! only to Cardiff in quality.