ANTUNG. ) The economic wealth of Manchuria is not confined to agricul ture in the plains or to lumbering among the hills, but includes also the mining of coal and iron, for which South Manchuria is at present one of the chief centres in the Far East. This intensity of production is the result partly of the accessibility of the coal and iron-fields and partly of the interests of Japan. Considering the scale of her industrial development, the coal resources of Japan are of no great magnitude and her iron resources are quite insufficient for her needs. Manchuria has coal reserves about equal to those of Japan (4,000,000,00o tons) and iron reserves that are quite ten times as great. The bulk of both coal and iron lies in South Manchuria, whose attraction to Japan on this ac count alone requires no further emphasis.
The coalfields of Manchuria fall into two main divisions, those occurring in isolated synclines within the East Manchurian High lands and those lying in a more or less continuous strip along their western foothills where the Highlands sink down into the plain. The fields within the Highlands yield the better bituminous coals but only those which are accessible from the railways crossing the Highland zone are worked for more than local consumption. These include the Penchihu field along the Mukden-Antung line, the Mulin field along the N.M.R., and the Suchan field (actually out side Manchuria) close to Vladivostok. The belt of coalfields along the western foothills of the Highlands, lying near to the arterial railway from Mukden to Harbin, is more accessible but produces brown coals of much poorer quality, and they are worked only on a small scale. The coalfield of Fushun close to Mukden is of quite a different nature from any of the above. Although Tertiary in age, its seams are of enormous thickness and its coals of good quality. Its intrinsic character combined with its strategic position near to the railway focus of Mukden and the Japanese interest in its development have given it the greatest production (now ex ceeding 5,000,000 tons) of all the Manchurian coalfields. It domi
nates the coal trade of South Manchuria, supplies one-fifth of the coal consumption of North Manchuria and even then has about half of its total production available for export to the ports of North China and Japan. The consumption of coal in North Manchuria is more limited than in the south. It is supplied partly from Fushun, partly from Mulin and Suchan along the eastern N.M.R., and partly from the Chalainor field along the western N.M.R. on the Mongolian slope of the Great Khingan.
The Liaotung peninsula contains the iron-field with the greatest reserve of iron ore workable by modern methods in the whole of China. According to the Chinese Geological Survey, its reserve amounts to 740,000,000 tons out of a total of 952,000,000 tons for the whole country. These have not, however, a very high content of iron, and in recent years Japanese interests seem to have relied more on the richer ores of the Yangtze valley and to have left for the future the more intensive working of the Liaotung fields, over which they have a more secure control. Two blast-furnace plants have been set up on the Liaotung ore-fields, at Anshan along the Mukden-Dairen line and at Penchihu along the Mukden-Antung, and in recent years their output has been maintained in contrast to the fall in production in the iron indus try of the Yangtze valley. A big proportion of their pig-iron output as of the production of ore along the Yangtze is exported direct to Japan. Indeed the whole Chinese iron industry is at present functioning mainly as a subsidiary to the iron and steel industry of Japan.