It is in dealing with the statistics of Eastern countries the greatest difficulty is encountered of securing even an approximation to a correct estimate of the number of sheep and their product in wool. From the English consular reports I have prepared a statement of exports so far as they are given. No attempt has been made to reduce the weights to a common unit, as there is no guide for so doing, no common denominator for bales, packages, and bundles, all of which terms are employed. This compilation will be found in the appended tables. I have supplemented it by a summary of certain reports, submitted to the Department of State by U. S. consular representatives in Eastern countries in the year 1891. The subject is of interest from the standpoint of the wool manufacturers of this country, because of the important contributions of wools of the third class, derived from these countries. In 1893 more than one-fourth of the total importations of that class were obtained from the two countries, China and Turkey in Asia, and it is very probable the imports assigned to other countries were in reality produced in these or neighboring lands. I shall begin with the largest of the contributors, China. CHINA. Consul-General Leonard reported February 1, 1891, that the bulk of what is commercially known as China wool comes from Mongolia. The flocks vary in size from 500 to 2,000 head, and the wool comes to the market as ball, loose, rope and lamb's wool. Generally the wool is gathered by shearing; but in ball wool, which comes from Chi-li, the wool is combed with wide combs from the backs of the sheep and `afterwards twisted up into balls. Rope wool is so called because it is made up in coils in the interior for transportation to seaboard. A bale weighs about 150 pounds avoirdupois. Until within a few years the exportation of wool from China was trifling. The following table shows the amount exported in piculs of 133 pounds avoirdupois each from Shanghai during the years 1880 to 1890: From the British Statistical Abstract I take the following figures, showing the imports from all China, exclusive of Hongkong. I should not omit to revert to the great and growing importance of the trade in sheeps' wool from northern China, described above. It is evident that this commerce may well assume huge dimensions and become one of the principal exports of Manchuria and Mongolia. On this subject Her Majesty's consul at Tientsin says that every year wool is collected from more and more remote regions from Mongolia, the province of Kansuh, and northern Thibet. It is all brought to the town of Kuei Hwa Cheng, the great entrepôt for wool, where it is repacked and dispatched to Tientsin. The difficulties of transport are great; sometimes, when camels are scarce, wool has to be left at Kuei Hwa Cheng for six months, waiting for the next season, when camels can be obtained. The natives up-country exercise no care in sorting or packing the wool; dirt and sand are willfully mixed into the strands; and, although the foreign merchants at Tientsin, who buy by weight, deduct for all the dirt thrown out by the cleaning machines, still the practice continues, and a large quantity of sand is transported in the wool from distant localities to Tientsin, at a cost of something like 158. per cwt. |