Dec. We are all glad to know that so many industries have been already established in Shanghai, and we look forward to the time when this, with its cheap coal, cheap labour, and other facilities, will become a great manufacturing city. In one industry, however, that might very well have been established here, Yokohama is ahead of us. There were imported into Shanghai in 1892 over 60,000 clocks and something unde: 30,000 watches, and there is no reason why all of these should not have been made in Shanghai, American capitalists have seen the field that there is in Japan for this industry; they obviously calculate on including Chin: 5 their scope, and they are starting Japan, in conjunction with old residents in Yokohama and Tokio, a Watch Manufacturing Company, whose prospects will be found in another column. Iwo old Shanghailanders, Messrs. E. Whittall and H. C. Litchfield, are on the direction, the former being President of the Company and the latter its Legal Adviser; they start with an ample capital of one million dollars, of which three-fourths are already taken by the founders in payment for the machinery, plant, and stock, and their labour and experience in preparing and procuring the machinery and_stock, while ten thousand shares of $25 each are offered to the public, There is a constant and increasing demand in China and Japan for watches and clocks, a demand that every foreigner should do his best to stimulate; for the comfort of all foreigners here would be vastly increased, if we could but teach the Chinese punctuality. It is understood that watch companies in the United States have paid very large dividends to their shareholders, and in Japan the new company will have, we are told, the best and most modern machinery, and a Superintendent who is himself the inventor of some of the best of that machinery; it will have cheap coal and cheap labour, and it starts with ten thousand watches in various stages of completion, and material on hand to turn out about twenty-five thousand more. No calculations are given as to what the watches will cost to make, and how that cost will led compare with the cost of American and Buropean watches; but intending shareholders will no doubt take the assurance of the founders that the Company can make a watch of the best workmanship, suited to the requirements of the local trade, "at a price far below any watch of like character that has ever been offered to these markets." We shall watch the progress of the Company with interest, as it will be a good indication of the capability of the Far East to compete with the howe countries in such industries; and if it succeeds, it will no doubt be the precursor of many other manufactories in Japan and China,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.