25th Jan.
In our brief remarks on the then coming Municipal election on the 16th instant, we said that it was probable that of the fourteen candidates for the nine seats, the five members of the expiry ing Council would be re-elected, with Messrs. Beurmann and Macgregor, but we did not venture to pick out from the. remaining seven candidates the two still required. Our prognostication has failed in only one name, for Messrs. Jansen, Moses, Purdon, and Scott of the expiring Council have been re-elected, with Messrs. Beurmann and Macgregor, the other new members being Messrs, Anderson, Cooper, and Welch. The exact numbers of votes will be found recorded in another column. It will be generally conceded that a representative and efficient Council has been chosen; nor have the candidates below the line any reason to be dissatisfied, for there is hardly one of them whom the public would not almost as gladly have seen above it. Their opportunity to serve is only postponed.
The election tothe Chairmanship of the Council is in the hands of the members themselves, not directly in those of the public; but when the time for choice comes, the councillors will probably recognise the strong indication of their wishes which the electors have given by placing Mr. Macgregor at. the head of the poll by so marked a majority. It is only reasonable that a community so preponderatingly British as this is should prefer that the Chairman of the Council should be a British subject, particularly in the year which will see the celebration of the jubilee of Shanghai, whose opening to foreign trade was exclusively secured by British arms. There is no international jean lousy in this, but it is a perfectly natural feeling.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.