Tue Annual Report of the Committee of the Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce for 1888 has neither the} extent nor the interest that some of its predecessors have had; and this is not! to be attributed to any apathy on the} part of the committee, but rather to the fact that things have gone ssu smoothly with the Commerce of Shanghai during the year that the governors of the} Chamber have not been called upon make any special exertions. In reference to the preamble, which deals with the Distress in the north of China, caused bythe bursting of the banks of the Yellow River," the hypercritical might remark that for the worst of the distress, that in Manchuria and Shantung, the Yellow River has very little responsibility, and it is to be feared that the closing of the breach will lead to still more suffering on the northern course of the river, when the usual spring freshets come down; for it is doubtful whether the improvement of the northern chanel, into which the river has again been diverted, was not somewhat neglected, in the unparalleled and successful efforts that were made to withdraw it from Anhui and Kiang-ssu. In the remarks on lea Deterioration the Committee mention a very able Report from Mr, Sentance (which is given in the appendix) on the methods adopted in Ceylon for the cultivation and preparation of the leaf. Mr. Sentance attributes the superiority of Ceylon tea to that of China in strength and thickness in cup to the heavy rollers employed in the manufacture, the greater cleanliness and promptness exercised, and the more careful fermentation of the leaf; all which improvements are practicable without waiting for the growers to merge their little gardens into lange
Warehouses will be read with some plantations. The para lit on Bonded amusement. lhe Committee tell the members that " they have kept a careful record, compiled from the returns issued by the Customs, of the business done at these wharves during the past year. The results are so insignificant that the Committee have not deemed it necessary to make a Report until a longer time has elapsed to shew more plainly that the facilities in their present form do not meet the wants of the port." Mr. McKean, the Statistical Secretary of the Customs, puts the same fact ina more apologetic form in his recently published report on the foreign trade of China for the year. He says: "Considering that oftentimes changes are wrought. slowly in methods of doing business, even when the advantages derivable are immediate and obvious, one can understand that the first year's results of Bonding are comparatively small." The experience of the year has borne out our contention a year ago that the character of the import trade of Shanghai has changed so much in recent years that facilities for bonding have not the value to imutility is much impaired when it inporters that they would have had, had cludes, as now, less than forty per cent. they been granted when the demand for We find by a rough calculation from them was first mooted; so little do the last Hong List, omitting, though merchants care for them now, that they they might well be included; individual will not move their cargo from their merchants and even the large foreign accustomed wharves to the only one to "stores, that there are in Shanghai 60 which they have been conceded, in order English, 25 German, 8 French, 6 Ameri-to secure them. The Woosung Bar is can and other! firms, 103 in all; really going to be dredged, and it is while the membership of the Chamber hoped that it appears in the report of the only includes 29 English, 5 German, Chamber for the last time this year 2 French and American firms, or 40 unless next year's report should possibly in all. The Germans, it will be seen, are contain a paragraph recording the final worst represented, and the Americans disappearance of the heaven-sent barrier. best. No doubt the present member-Even then there will be plenty of work ship is fairly representative of the whole for the Anding avd her consorts in the trade of Shanghai; but the Chamber approaches to Shanghai outside Woo-would certainly speak with more autho-sung. The long-agitated Drawback jrity, when it had to speak, if all the question, which has been open since foreign firms belonged to -it; and "we 1881, received in July last as complete believe that it would be well worth the a solution as could perhaps be expected.
Committee's while to canvass, before If there were but one Exchequer for the the meeting, the firms that do not whole empire, drawbacks issued from one belong at the present. moment to the Custom-house ought to be convertible Chamber, and find out what reduction into cash or utilisable for the payment of lin the subscription, which is mquesduties at every other; but as long as tionably high, Ins. 60 a year, would each Viceroy has his own exchequer, make membership universal. this, desirable as it is, is impracticable, for any clearing-house system that might be adopted is too complicated a
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.