13th September.
Tue August issue of this well-compiled monthly opens with a column of comment on the Treaty of Shanghai. "Honestly carried out," it says, "the bargain might prove a highly advantageous one for the general development of foreign trade, The unanswerable objection to the whole scheme is that no security can be given that its terms would be honestly observed.... Meanwhile, the American exporter of cotton domestics may be pardoned if he fails to see anything but a new obstacle to trade in the proposed surtax, be it seven and one-half per cent or ten per cent. Where his goods find their chief markets, the likin system remains undeveloped, and all he can discover in the change is a substantial advance in the price of drills and sheetings to the consumer in North China and a consequent contraction of the demand."
The second editorial note deals with the Philippine Administration Bill, which it is apparently thought would have been a better measure if the Washington Government could keep political and colonial questions apart. The "Journal" says of it: "Tt would be absurd to claim that the Philippine Administration Bill is the comprehensive and final measure it ought to have been, and the weak compromise it has made on the currency question can be productive only of trouble. But it is at least a long advance toward a permanent settlement, and its amendment may, happily, be effected without devoting tedious weeks to useless and mischievous political debate." Lastly, we have a sincere expression of regret at the intended departure of Mr. Wu Ting-fang from Washington in January next. "We have become accustomed," says the "Journal," take the Chinese Minister somewhat more seriously than his old friends in Hongkong and Shanghai are disposed to do." No one denies, however, that he has been a most excellent representative of China at Washington, and the " Journal" adds that he "has proved himself to be a highly interesting personality, were it for no other reason than that he has a sense of humour which is not usually found among educated Asiatics. It would be impossible for any map, however familiar with our institutions, fo fill the place occupied by Mr. Wu, and while no better selection could have been made for his successor, he will have to earn a place for himeelf which may be an equally honourable one, but can hardly be So absolutely unique."
Some comparative tables of statistics of exports from the United States to China and Hongkong follow, and
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.