Tne letter of the Foreign Piece Goods Brokers to the Chamber of Commerce, is, we think, deserving of more notice than has been awarded to it. The Brokers have had their share in the great development of the Import trade of Shanghai, which has marked the last five years; and in any suggestion that we make, we would wish it distinctly to be understood, that our object is nob to seem to hit harder a class of men, who have certainly been somewhat harshly dealt with, but to point out what we consider to be the mistakes committed, and to suggest a remedy. The want of systematisation we may state in a few words, has been at the bottom of their misfortunes, but inthe interest of the trade in general, we hope that they will themselves see the necessity of conducting their operations on some settled basis. Their letter to the Chamber of Commerce discloses the fact .thattheirtrade is in danger, but though Swe may sympathise with them in their misfortunes, we quite agree with the Chamber that the question is one which must be left to the good sense and judgment of the members. The Brokers hit the mark when they stated that their intervention in the sale of goods was not a necessity, but having acknowledged this much, they should have seen that to maintain their position, they should make their intervention as nearly as possible necessary. This, however, is what the Brokers did not do; and having failed in this, the legitimate result followed that they were placed to one side while operations were conducted with natives direct. Probably every member of the Chamber will agree as to the usefulness of a body of foreign brokers, whose acquaintance with the native market must be more extensive than that of any particular importer. 'That usefulness is, however, founded on the extent and varying nature of their acquaintance with the requirements of the moment, and' in order to render it of the greatest value, this acquaintance should be of the widest kind. It is, however, just on this point that the Brokers have failed. A sufficiently wide experience could only be obtained by such a unity of working as would enable each broker to know not only his own immediate settlements, but also to interchange his own knowledge with that of the other brokers. This was not, however, the mode of operation. On the contrary, each individual tried to keep every other broker in ignorance of what was being done, with the natural consequence that the knowledge of each was little, if at all, superior to that ofthe celler himeel*, T! e Br here, count of the information they are able to give to sellers; they are themselves to blame that that information is but fragmentary and disjointed. Even fragmentary and disjointed information has its market value, and therefore in the interests of the Brokers, we may point out to them, with perfect friendliness, that their own conduct has shown that the rate nominally fixed, is far in excess of the ordinary value of their labour. There was a time when piece goods brokers charged one per cent for selling, and much indignation was aroused against the man who first reduced the commission to one half. "Even this rate was proved by experience to be too high. That a broker could make from one to three thousand taels a month by simply driving about for a few hours daily in a pony trap, was a state of things that could not last. Every man who found himself out of employment, and a few even who had employment, rushed to so profitable an avocation. Competition became so strong that rates were bound to go down, and down they did go. The number of new hands introduced disunion into the trade, and in place of consulting together as to what was to be done, the old hands followed blindly on the same road. The proper way would have been to have at once reduced the rates to a nominal as well as actual amount, more consistent with the requirements of the trade. This would at once have put a stop to the irregularities introduced by the outsiders, as it would have given them no ground to work on. The Brokers, as we suggested above, were not wise in their generation. They kept the nominal rate at a half per cent, and divided first a half of this, and afterwards, as competition became more keen, almost any proportion of it demanded, with the native brokers. We have heard of a large operation, in which many hundreds of taels commission were charged, returning five to the broker. Now, not only was this system bad for the brokers, but it was likewise injurious to the sellers. It in fact made the broker the instrument of the Chinese purchaser, rather than of the foreign seller, to whom, notwithstanding, he looked for payment of the work he had really done for the other. This. feeling, rather than any want of thankfulness' for the information he may bring, it is, which has caused the foreign broker to be looked upon by many men of business, as an individual whose interest was opposed to, instead of being consonant with his own. We conceive that the remedy for this state of affairs lies with the brokers and with them alone. We would advise them to be more liberal in their information one to another, but above all to reduce their nominal to a par with their actual commissions. This last would at least have the effect of putting them ina better position with regard to those snee uterents they profess to sub. serve. They are a useful body of men, but their own mistakes prevent their usefulness becoming a fair marketable commodity. Above all, they should remember that in returning commissions to native buyers, they have only them. selves to thank for setting the example.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.