To the Bditor of the Nonru-Curxa Dairy News, Sm,—The Lords Commissioners of the Treasury have agreed to sell to the 1 Council for £400, the lot No, 35 which forms part of the Victorix Park, about which there was so much discussion last spring. The Council met to-day and accepted the offer, at the same time passing lution warmly thanking H.B.AL's ister at Peking for his prompt and sympathetic action in favour of the Municipally, Their thanks aco also dus Lord Rosebery who strongly urged the Treasury to sell the lot at this compara tively reasonable price. You will remember that the Shanghai Board of Works de manded at frst, Tls. 8,000 for the lot and afterward doubled their demand, They would have put up the lot for public sale, over the heads of the Council, had it not been for the vigorous protest of the Landrenters, supported by Mr. O'Conor, who caused the lot to be withdrawn from sale pending the decision of the Treasury. The Shanghai Board of Works did riffer for sale by auction July the corresponding lot on the other side of Victoria Road and having " Bund frontage, ut an upset price of Tientsin tls. 20000. At th dest sum there was not a single bidder; and, a division of the lot into two equal parte wt half the above sum, produced no better results, This and the park lot are the only Crown land in the possession of the Board o Works who evidently entertain an ex-tod estimate of their value. Mr.
will probably regret that he accept tier of the Council made some time ugo, to purchase their lot for Tls. 6,000; and perhaps be way live to regret that he was not more modest in his deumnd for the Bund lot, The Crown is losing the interest on a reasonable price which they might easily obtain, and they will probably lose a good deal more interest, before they realise the fancy price they are now ask You will remember that inthe spring also, there was a good deal of discussion about the power of the Landrenters to borrow money on the security of the Municipal revenue. The present Consul, Mr. Brenan, whose departure for Canton is imminent, first questioned that power, and stulfied the action of the Council by delivering coram popula a quite unauthorised legal dictum. 'The Minister was appealed t", who, while sharing the view of Mr. Brenan, promised with his usual promptitude, to obtain the opinion of the Crown' Advocate. The contention of the Council was that as the Lundrenters admittedly had power to pledge their successors in granting am: poly for years to a public gas compa they had power to bind their successors in any other contract for public purposes and consequently to borrow money, repayable as principal and interest, in w term of years. No official communication of the opinion of the Crown Advocate has yet been seen in Tientsin; but it is rumoured that the legal opinion is that loans can be legally obtained, if sanctioned by the Minister. If this be correct it will be a satisfactory result, so long as we have a Minister at Peking who will take the pains to look into niflers with his own eyes and not be content to accept the quite uncommercial authority of the gentlemen who are sent here to manage our commercial legal, and industrial affairs, without slightest knowledge of commerce, law or trade, and whose whole oficial object seems to be to draw their salaries, save as much of it as they can and get out the place with xs much of their savings as possible, It does not strike them that if they interfere at all in the affairs of the Settlement, it should be in favour of, and not in opposition to, every proposal at tends to the health and confurt of the habitants and the commercial progress and prosperity of the port, A letter has recently been sent to the ter by a number of inhabitants of iixin, begging his Excellency to use his 2 with the Postmaster at Hong-evement of French and shave post-otices and all postal facilities, Though this ix 1 Settlement, established more that thirty years, we are practically depend-dent on foreigners for the conveyance of our mail warier, Che British postal delivery end 2 the bays are brought i bring them free of charge, No pains are taken to see that they are pinder proper custody on board the steamer and no one sponsible fur their safety at either end the way. The exptaine and officers ly do not know whether they have on board or not. The bags go to the ese Customs Post Office here, and are made up and despatched thence, and as fur as that part of the business ix concerned is nothing to desire, But if an un-insufficiently prepaid lester arrives, the Shanghai Post Otice, having no duty beyond Shanghai, keeps your letter, sometimes sending you notice of the detention and requesting you to send riy cents for the deficiency, or simply notice but keeps your letter until accident reveals its existence to you, 1 do not think letters are often lost "in this way, but they are delayed in summer three Weeks and in winter as many fact they are kept all winte the navigation pens in the Now this might be eas ly obviated postal agent at Shanghai arranges to all American mail matter to the Chinese Customs' Postmaster here, who collects sums due on unpaid or insutliciently prepaid matter, takes acknowledgments of receipt of registered letters, ete., ete., and accounts periostically to the American agent, Why cannot the sane system be adopted with British mail matter? We have no pacd post; we cun get no British stamps; we have in short no postal facilities whatever afforded by our own postal authorities, Perhaps our Minister help us, xs we cly not doubt he will be disposed to do, and if Hongkong will not listen im or to us, we must try whether Lord Rosebery will not take as in hand with the Postmaster-General as hie has done with the Lords of the Treasury, and get us pur off the postal roll ut most un favoured British Settlements.
There are as usual fying rumours of the formation of carious foreign syndicates, They are unreliable and probably baseless, Private pique and absurd local jealousies breed and foster these rumours, No heed need be given to statements of certain
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.