onstruction 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[105] (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 group in the Twenty-one Demands. The total amount of ore in
sight is estimated by the _China Year Book_ at 50,000,000 tons, derived
chiefly from two mines, in one of which the ore yields 65 per cent. of
iron, in the other 58 to 63 per cent. The output for 1916 is given as
603,732 tons (it has been greatly increased since then). The _Year Book_
proceeds: "Japanese capital is invested in the Company, and by the
agreement between China and Japan of May 1915 [after the ultimatum which
enforced the revised Twenty-one Demands], the Chinese Government
undertook not to convert the Company into a State-owned concern nor to
compel it to borrow money from other than Japanese sources." It should
be added that there is a Japanese accountant and a Japanese technical
adviser, and that pig-iron and ore, up to a specified value, must be
sold to the Imperial Japanese works at much below the market price,
leaving a paltry residue for sale in the open market.[106]

The second item in the _China Year Book's_ list is the Tungkuan Shan
mines. All that is said about these is as follows: "Tungling district on
the Yangtze, 55 miles above Wuhu, Anhui province. A concession to work
these mines, granted to the London and China Syndicate (British) in
1904, was surrendered in 1910 for the sum of L52,000, and the mines were
transferred to a Chinese Company to be formed for their exploitation."
These mines, therefore, are in Chinese hands. I do not know what their
capacity is supposed to be, and in view of the price at which they were
sold, it cannot be very great. The capital of the Hanyehping Co. is
$20,