A Special Meeting. the Harbour authorities for the. berth-To consider the proposed regulations of ing of houseboats and yachts in the creek and river, a "special meeting of owners was held at the Shanghai Club on Friday evening, convened by the Shanghai Yacht Club. Mr. ©. Murray Adamson explained ing, and Mr. Duncan Yacht Club, boats would have te go. fro present positions, as the trafic on the creek was Betting v0 Inrge that they could not remain Where they are. The Harbour Master was suggesting they could go up the crack to between the old upper boat-house and the Vu Yuen Mill. Another suggestion Mr. Tyler made was as to the registering of Isodahs. If anything could be done to control laodah and prevent them walking off with half one's gear and going to someone else for higher wages, he (the speaker) thought owners would be very pleased.
Mr. Adamson "said"he saw Mr. Tyler the previous day, and he (Mr. Tyler) was perfectly willing to meet them as long as the necessity of clearing out of the creek was recognised, He had received the following letter from Mr. Tyler Shanghai, 1st August, 1902.
My dear Murray Adamson—It appears to me that the usefulness of your meeting to-night may be lessened by not knowing what are the essentials in the matter of the house-boats and what can and what cannot done. T propose therefore to give you a few notes on the subj "Phe essential thing is that the houseboats be removed from the north side of the creek between the Kiangse Road and the Szechuen Road bridges, to enable that part to be used for the Iinding of argo. Tt nes that house-boats for native cargo:
There is, however, more than ate way of looking at that question, but that I will not go into here. The determining factor in this particular business is this. An application has been made to the Harbour Master by a frontage owner there (between the Kiangse and Szechuen Road bridges) for permission to erect a private landing place. In such a case I cannot reply that the permission cannot be granted because the frontage is required for house boats. In: this particular case I replied that I was giving no permission for private jetties along the new concrete bund as it Public ones erected by the Municipal Coun-lairable that jetties there should be Now with my knowledge of the state of affairs on the creek, of the amount of cargo that has to be landed—of the demand and necessity for landing accommodation at this specially for landing building seems certain to me that either the Council will erect a public landing place there or that I shall give permission (which is still however subject to a father permission from the Council) for a private one.
Now once a jetty is there Ishall have to secure access to it, and this will certainly mean the removal of the house-boats from the neighbourhood, If L wait until this matter of a jetty be actually decided.on, I may be obliged to settle the matter of the house-boats in a somewhat summary ner, and it has been to avoid the possibility of this, and in order that I might meet as fir' as possible the wishes of the owners that I have adopted the line I have, This I believe you to a certain extent already understand.
The matter, too, could not be settled by merely turning the house-boats away from that locality, for if this were done, they would add to the already nearly unbearable congestion below the Szechuen Road bridge. For this reason I thought it best to tackle the entire question of house-boats la the creek.
T would explain something, too, about this congestion in the creek below the Szechuen Road Bridge. Native boats of all kinds collect immediately above the garden Bridge waiting for the flood tide to carry them up. Aconsiderable number of these are boats which have come in from the Whangpu, bound up creek. When the first of the flood comes in with a rush they all make a start together, and only by the time that they have ranched the Szechuen Road Bridge have they "strung out" into a controlable line. I would not care to say that this condition could not be remedied to some degree, but toa considerable extent it must always exist, and for this reason it is more {mportant that the channel be kept clear below the Szechuen Road Bridge than above it.
T will now give you limits the boundaries of which I would like you to accept as bein, under the circumstances reasonable, anc within which I would like you to confine your recommendations.
Abreast of the General Hospital on the north side of the creek there is room for 15
On th south side between the Clapoo a ling of aix, three deep and the Szechuen Rod Bridges there is room for a single tier of six bouts.
Between the Chapoo Road and the Garden Bridges when the new boathouse is built and the old one joved there will be room for another tier of six boats, below the Szechuen Road Bridge there room for about 30 boats, As for the Whangpu. Our practice has been not to give permission to any houseboats to take up berths,. but on the other hand aot to interfere with them so long as they were not io the way.
Now off the Bund: the mooring of house boats must certainly be interdicted. At Pootung point there are a couple of boats, but these cannot lie head and stern on account of the chowchow water and there is room for any more, The only possible in the harbour available for housetsappears to be below the wharves on the Shanghai side, i.e, below -the Ewo Road Jetty. This, however, is not a choice place on account of exposure.
Most of the letters I have received the: subject of -houre-boata. refer to the willingness of the writers to pay a leo of Tls. 10 or 15 for registration, and the idea of registering boats and lomdabs seems to meet with general approval. My office, some arrangement with the Consuls, an however, cannot impuse a fee except by generally the ides does not commend itself tome.
What I uggest as regards registration is this:—That tle Council impose a nominal
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.