27th April. We learn from the annual Report of the Committee of the Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce for 1891, which appears in another column, that the Chamber was not very much stirred during the past year, Excluding the Chamber's internal affairs, only four subjects are alluded to in the Report. The first is the Lsmeralda exaction at Amoy, which occurred in 1887 and of which up to this date Sir John Walsham, as far as is known, has taken no notice; but in which the Shanghai Chamber are no doubt justified in not interfering, now that the Hongkong Chamber has succeeded in drawing Lord Salisbury's direct attention to it. lhe second is the old vexed question of the difficulty of getting duty drawbacks cashed. The real cause of the trouble and delay experienced by merchants is the indisposition that possesses every Chinese official to restore money that he has once received, ''he Committee in their letter of 23rd May last to the Senior Consul—to which no reply has apparently been received from the Doyen the diplomatic body at Peking—pointed out that "drawbacks have to be and are paid eventually," and they asked that these documents should be issued within at the most one month after shipment of the relative goods that they should be available for the payment of duties of all kinds at the port of issue; and that they should, at the option of the merchant, be exchangeable for ready money. This is what seems so unreasonable to a Chinese official, however often he may be told that he must pay back the money sooner or later. It has gone into his treasury, where it becomes like the irrevocable verbum of the poet; besides which to pay it back confuses all his accounts.
he third topic mentioned is the importation of unch piece-goods and here theGhambertee done thoroughly good work, whatever the result may be; but unfortunately we know that with all the possible precautions in the world, there will always be swindlers. These unchopped goods are a double
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.