the
United States, Russia and Japan, all had claims and concessions, many
of them conflicting; while as between Peking and the provinces there
was a quarrel mainly concerned with the spoils and "squeezes" to be
obtained by railway construction; in some instances the provinces
proved more powerful than the central government, as in the case of
the Su-chow-Ning-po line, and notably in the matter of the
Tientsin-Pukau (Nanking) railway. In that case the provincial
authorities overrode the central government, with the result that "for
wholesale jobbery, waste and mismanagement the enterprise acquired
unenviable notoriety in a land where these things are generally
condoned." The good record of one or two lines notwithstanding, the
management of the railways under Chinese control had proved, up to
1910, inefficient and corrupt.[23] Nevertheless, so great was the
economic development following the opening of the line, that in
Chinese hands the Peking-Hankow railway yielded a profit.

The Railway systems.

The main scheme of the railway systems of China is simple. It consists
of lines, more or less parallel, running roughly north and south,
linked by cross lines with coast ports, or abutting on navigable
rivers. One great east and west line will run through central China,
from Hankow to Sze-ch'uen. Connexion with Europe is afforded by the
Manchuria-trans-Siberia main line, which has a general east and west
direction. From Harbin on this railway a branch runs south to Mukden,
which since 1908 has become an important railway centre. Thence one
line goes due south to Port Arthur; another south-east to An-tung (on
the Yalu) and Korea; a third south and west to Tientsin and Peking. A
branch from the Mukden-Tientsin line goes round the head of the Gulf
of Liao-tung and connects Niu-chwang with the Mukden-Port Arthur line.
By this route it is 470 m. from Peking to Niu-chwang.

From Peking the trunk line (completed in 1905) runs south through the
heart of China to Hankow on the Yangtsze-kiang. This section (754 m.
long) is popularly known as "the Lu-Han line," from the first part of
the names of the terminal stations. The continuation south of this
line from Hankow to Canton was in 1910 under construction. Thus a
great north and south connexion nearly 2000 m. long is established
from Canton to Harbin. From Mukden southward the line is owned and
worked by