The French have small docks at Haiphong and Saigon. It will be seen
that as far as taking care of battleships is concerned, only Britain
and Japan have more than one string to the bow, Britain being easily
in the lead. America has only one dock, and that a floating one.
It could not lift a dreadnought, and therefore America has in the
meantime wisely moved her first defense line, as I think the writer,
Thomas Millard, a Shanghai American, recommended in his books, back
to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, counting on Cavite, Philippines, as a picket
post. Germany at Kiaochou, and Russia at Vladivostok are as yet out of
the running, with inferior docking accommodations. The Russians are
spending $10,000,000 in Vladivostok on a floating dock, ice-breakers
and a wharf. As far as America is concerned, she can count on Britain.
Dewey fitted out at Mirs Bay, Hongkong, despite all conventions. As
Commander Tatnall said at Taku in China, “Blood is thicker than water,”
which was reciprocated by Admiral Seymour at Manila. When Admiral
Diedrichs asked what the British would do if the Germans fired on the
Americans, Seymour replied: “You had better ask Admiral Dewey, who is
informed.” That is the story that goes the rounds in the East, and if
it is not wholly true in fact, it is so potentially.
There is a growing number of smaller Chinese docks, machine shops and
ways. Inland at the Pinghsiang colliery on the borders of Kiangsi and
Hunan provinces, China has machine shops fitted to turn out almost
anything, and the Hanyang Steel Works, across from Hankau, have been
already described. Railway shops are opening up everywhere, and do
creditable work, especially the North China railway at Tongshan; the
Shanghai & Nanking Railway shops at Wusung, near Shanghai, and the
Hongkong and Whompoa Dock shops. The Vulcan Iron Works at Shanghai
construct railway and street-cars.
The immense cement works which are already in operation are the
Indo-China Cement Company at Haiphong, in Tonquin (French); Tayeh, in
Hupeh province (Chinese); Chee Hsin Cement Company, at Tongshan, near
Tientsin (Chinese); Green Island Cement Company, at Macao and Hongkong
(British and Chinese). Half of the many bridges that are being erected
for the immense transportation development throughout China and the
Philippines are made of this new concrete.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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