29th June, Tue Municipal Council's Minutes ly published last week contained a letter ing once granted t, the Commis-had no right to interfere with the shipment or to exact the bond which Sylvester signed. Mr. Goodnow brushes this He shows that it was the special duty of the Chinese Authorities to see that the neutrality of the country was preserved and that no permission was given to export arms to the detriment of a friendly State. The Customs are the proper people to watch this matter; ink vhen the Commissioner of Customs at Canton, Mr. Drew, received the permit from the Hoppo to export these arms, he would have been derelict in his duty to the Chinese Government had he not held such permit until he could call the attention of the Viceroy to the danger of clearing the Abbey with arms, and to the suspicions aroused by the fact that clearance was asked for Singapore under a Ieuchao (permit) implying clearance to Hongkong." Later on Mr. Goodnow says:—'It is plain, therefore, that China was not only under the general obligations of neutral nations, but also that special agreements had been made to have the Viceroys and the Customs officers use every diligence to prevent shipments of arms to the Philippine rebels from Chinese ports. The circumstances surrounding this shipment were such as to arouse suspicious in the mind of Mr. Drew and the mind of the Viceroy as soon as he understood them; which suspicions events justified. These arms could only be exported by special permission of the Chinese Government, as. a favour and not asa right. It follows that the Chinese Government was competent to dictate the terms from the Rev. Timothy Richard, the Rev. John C. Ferguson, and the Rev. F. L. Hawks Pott, writing as representatives of the Society for the Diffusion of Christian and General Knowledge among the Chinese, urging the duty of the Municipality to give grants in aid of the education of the children of Chinese residing in the cosmopolitan Settlement, and the Council's reply. The question was brought up by the late Mr. Jansen when he was on the Council some five years ago, and he represented very strongly the responsibility which really devolves on the Municipality to see that the Chinese children of Shanghai, as well as the foreign children, do not grow up without at least a plain" primary school education. We were fully in sympathy with Mx. Jansen then' and we are very glad to see now that the Diffusion Society, one of the most valuable institutions we have in Shanghai, has taken up the question. For ourselves, we regard the educa: tion of the Chinese children in our midst as an absolute duty, particularly in view of the large proportion of the Municipal reventte that_is contributed by the Chinese the Diffusion Society representatives are rather more disposed to press the matter on the ground of expediency. They say: "We only wish to call attention to the tact that other things being equal the peoples who are best educated prosper most. If therefore we wish to keep abreast of other places we must see to it that all classes of our community are well educated. As the Chinese are taxed like Europeans they should also reap the advantages of education, for there is a solidarity
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.