FOREIGN  TRADE  301
shipments  to  Hongkong.  Then  there  is  an  item  of  unrecorded ­
  trade  across  the  land  frontier,  which,  on  the
authority  of  the  Russian  statistics  of  trade  with  China,
must  be  put  at  over  Tls.20,000,000  excess  of  exports.
The  money  and  material  provided  from  abroad  for  the
development  of  railways  and  mines,  a  future  but  not  a
present  liability  of  China,  is  estimated  at  Tls.27,000,000.
The  sums  required  to  be  remitted  for  the  maintenance  of
foreign  legations  and  consulates,  foreign  garrisons  and
navies,  for  the  maintenance  and  repairs  of  foreign  shipping,
for  the  upkeep  of  foreign  missions,  hospitals,  and  schools,
and  for  the  expenditure  by  foreign  travellers,  were  considered ­
  in  the  light  of  all  the  information  obtainable,  and
were  estimated  at  Tls.51,500,000.  Finally,  there  remains
China’s  most  important  invisible  asset,  her  export  of  brawn
and  brains  in  the  emigration  of  a  portion  of  her  redundant
population,  whether  as  traders  or  as  laborers,  remitting
to  their  homes  the  fruit  of  their  labor  in  an  annual  sum
which,  on  the  lowest  possible  estimate,  is  Tls.73,000,000.
The  total  assets  so  estimated  amount  to  Tls.440,741,162.