for China, however, is not rapid development, but national development. Japan is poor in minerals, and has set to work to acquire as much as possible of the mineral wealth of China. This is important to Japan, for two different reasons: first, that only industrial development can support the growing population, which cannot be induced to emigrate to Japanese possessions on the mainland; secondly, that steel is an indispensable requisite for imperialism.
The Chinese are proud of the Kiangnan dock and engineering works at Shanghai, which is a Government concern, and has proved its capacity for shipbuilding on modern lines. It built four ships of 10,000 tons each for the American Government. Mr. S.G. Cheng[1] says:—
For the construction of these ships, materials were mostly supplied by China, except steel, which had to be shipped from America and Europe (the steel produced in China being so limited in quantity, that after a certain amount is exported to Japan by virtue of a previous contract, little is left for home consumption).
Considering how rich China is in iron ore, this state of affairs needs explanation. The explanation is valuable to anyone who wishes to understand modern politics.
The China Year Book for 1919[2] (a work as little concerned with politics as Whitaker's Almanack) gives a list of the five principal iron mines in China, with some information about each. The first and most important are the Tayeh mines, worked by the Hanyehping Iron and Coal Co., Ltd., which, as the reader may remember, was the subject of the third
