responsible for the payment of the debenture bonds, and guaranteed six per cent. upon the company's subscribed capital for a period of fifteen years.[1] Each share is of the value of £5, the money to be called up as required, each call being at the rate of ten shillings per share. The whole of the 400,000 shares, which was the original allotment, was at once taken up, Japanese and Koreans alone being eligible as shareholders. The estimated cost of the line is £9000 per mile. Work has been completed as far as Syu-won, a distance of twenty-six miles, over which section trains are already running. Construction is, of course, being rapidly pushed forward, and working parties are engaged at a number of places along the line of route.
The length of the Seoul-Fusan Railway will be 287 miles. It is confidently expected that the undertaking will be completed within six years. There will be some forty stations, including the terminal depots, and it is, perhaps optimistically, estimated that the scheduled time for the journey from Fusan to Seoul will be twelve hours, which is an average of twenty-four miles an hour, including stops, the actual rate of speed being approximately some thirty miles an hour. The present working speed of the Seoul-Chemulpo railway requires a little less than two hours to make the journey between Seoul and Chemulpo, a distance of twenty-five miles, from which it will be seen that considerable improvement must take place if the distance between Seoul and Fusan is to be accomplished within twelve hours.
- ↑ The Japanese Government, on December 22nd, 1903, decided to find the capital necessary for the immediate completion of the railway. An additional million sterling has been allotted for this purpose, and the line will be finished within the course of 1904.
