Native Opposition to the Work. RAILWAY BUILDING IN CHINA

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 218, 3 September 1887, Page 6

Native Opposition to the Work.

RAILWAY BUILDING IN CHINA

A Tientsin correspondent of the " News " has the following in regard to the difficulties of railway building : The railway people are experiencing a good ieal of difficulty with tho inhabitants along the line, and it seoms quite on the cards that the grievances of a fow individuals may grow into a general opposition to the railway. Afc Tongku, opposite Taku, the salt people are up in arms, headed by an important village Hampden, who wears a button of &ome kind. They will not have either thenhouses, their graves, their land or their water courses interfered with, and as they muster a pretty strong force of men employed about the salt business they simply refuse to allow the railway navvies to proceed. The foreign engineers have also been threatened. At Sinho, the village in rear of the North Fort at Taku, the state of matters is even worse, and the latest news is that the whole force of the railway company, foreigners and all, have beBn driven off. The delay as well as expense will be serious, for the line has been all pegged out, and if they are forced to alter it a fresh survey will require to be made. The main cause of the opposition is said to be that the land has not been bought; the officials morely proceed to occupy it, promising to pay afterward, but the Chinese have an incorrigible mistrust of such promises. The Keelung railway line is making progress. Five thousand soldiers are employed, under the superintendence of two Euro- | peans, and the tunnol excavation is about to commence.