Handbook to Canton, Macao and the West River.

Description

This is a very rare 1900 first edition example of the Hongkong, Canton, and Macao Steam-Boat Company’s Handbook to Canton, Macao and the West River.

The booklet contains basic information about the company, including the names and descriptions of steamer ships in its fleet, schedules, fares, meals, and descriptions of its major ports of call. The rest of the text primarily consists of advertisements. Two foldout maps are included, ‘Delta of the Chu-Kiang or Canton River’, that is, the Pearl River (Zhujiang 珠江) Delta, and ‘Si-Kiang or West River. Canton to Wuchow-fu’, with both maps displaying steamer routes and tables of distances.

The Hongkong, Canton, and Macao Steam-Boat Company 

Founded in 1865, the Hongkong, Canton, and Macao Steam-Boat Company (H.C.M.S.C.) was a major operator in the Pearl River Delta’s waterways during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In an era when improved roads were minimal to non-existent, the H.C.M.S.C. served as the primary circulatory system for trade and travel between the British colony of Hong Kong, the Portuguese enclave of Macao, and the major commercial hub of Canton (Guangzhou). The company operated a fleet of iconic, shallow-draft river steamers that were celebrated for their reliability and, for first-class passengers at least, their surprising luxury.

However, navigating the South China Sea was not all smooth sailing; the company’s history is a gritty chronicle of pirate attacks, typhoons, and shifting geopolitical tides. While it held a near-monopoly on the “river trade” for decades, the mid-20th century proved too turbulent to weather. The Japanese occupation during World War II led to the seizure and destruction of much of its fleet, and the subsequent rise of rail transport and changing trade relations with mainland China eventually rendered the old steamship model obsolete. By the time the company wound down its operations in the 1950s, it had left behind a legacy as the definitive maritime bridge that helped knit together the economic fabric of the Pearl River Delta.

The West River Trade

This booklet was issued in the wake of an 1897 diplomatic agreement (‘Special Article’) between Britain and Qing China which opened the West River (Si-Kiang or Xijiang 西江) and several newly-designated treaty ports, especially Wuchow-fu (Wuzhou 梧州) in Guangxi (Kuang-hsi) Province, to British traders. This was one among a raft of agreements between the weakened Qing and various foreign powers who were vying for influence in China and a slice of the country’s vast resources and domestic market. While Britain clearly was the leader in these respects, it felt threatened in southern China by French inroads into Yunnan Province, bordering their colony (‘protectorate’) in Tonkin. 

Wuzhou quickly developed into a major customs station through which all trade between Guangxi and Guangdong (Kwang-tung) passed – the Imperial Maritime Customs Service at this time employing a multinational staff headed by foreigners and known for its efficiency and honesty, though most of its revenues went to pay off China’s debts and indemnities to foreign governments. As can be seen from the included map of the West River, this expansion of trade deep into the interior of Southern China connected what had been regional markets with the international market, all facilitated by the H.C.M.S.C., which dominated the West River trade in a partnership with . Jardine Matheson’s Indo-China Steam Navigation Company.

Publication information and census

This booklet was printed by the Hongkong Telegraph newspaper office for the H.C.M.S.C. in 1900, with the cover printed by The Oceania Litho. It was issued in multiple editions (at least ten) between 1900 and 1914, with later editions sometimes adding the article ‘A’ to the start of the title, and attributing the text to one J. Arnold (usually cataloged as Julius but sometimes John).

In any edition, the booklet is rare, and we have been unable to locate any other examples of this first edition in institutional collections or on the market.