'I'ux course which has been adopted by Mr, Hughes in making arrangements for the approaching visit of the Duke and Duchess of Connaught seems to us to be peculiarly adapted to make the reception of our distinguished visitors a fiasco. To call a private meeting of a few British residents selected by himself and elect from them a committee of ten, all British subjects and three of them British officials, seems as if it was intended to indicate that their royal highnesses' vas not to Shanghai, but to that 1; section of it of which the British ""Consul-General is the head. lo argue that this is right, because when other distinguished vi tors have come to Shanghai, their entertainment has been left entirely in the hands of their nationals, is, it seems to us, a mistake, even if the fact were accurately stated; but, to take two cases that occur readily, the Duke of Genoa and General Grant were both the guests of the whole community. It seems to us not only ungracious to ignore our fellow-residents of other nationalities, but to involve a very serious difficulty. In whatever is done to en-terrain our visitors, all nationalities have to be called upon; the volunteers and the fire brigade are neither of them exclusively British; all our clubs are cosmopolitan; and if the Duke is to be asked to unveil the statue of Sir Harry Parkes, he will find that the Chairman of that Committee is an American. The Municipal Council, which will of course be called upon to assist in whatever it is decided to do, is a cosmopolitan institution. Wecannot understand a committee of residents of which the majority are not officials agreeing to such a hole-and-corner way of tendering the hospitality of Shanghai to a distinguished guest as this is; and we should not be surprised if the Duke were to reply that he is coming to visit Shanghai, and not to visit exclusively the British community in Shanghai.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.