'The Chairman—The report and accounts have been in sour hands for some days and with your permission I will take them as read. " Your chairman last year opened his remarks by saying, that he' had several important subjects to bring to the notice of the members, first and foremost being the question of the Conservancy Board: for the Huangpoo River which had not been properly constituted, owing to the dilatory conduct of the Chinese Government in not having appointed their special representative. Gentleman, that also is the position to-day. We are exactly in the same position as we were last year.
With regard to the question of uniform currency for China the Committee forwarded the copies of the resolution passed at the last annual meeting to the Diplomatic Body at Peking and to the Commission of International Exchange of the United States of America and we ce-operated with the Tientsin and Hongkong Chambers, in a memorial to Peking, but the exigencies of the situation generally, have made it hopeless to press the matter further at present.
Dating of telegrams from United States. This matter is referred to in the Report. We have just received a reply from the New York Chamber of Commerce enclosing a letter from the Vice-President and General Manager of the commercial cable company, which I am sorry to say is very unsatisfactory. I quote you the concluding paragraph, but the whole letter will be published in due course.
"Tu view of the important reduction made in the rates and of the regularity of the services furnished by the Commercial Pacific Cable Company we cannot admit that there is good reason for requiring the Company to transmit this extra free information." The matter will no doubt have the further attention of the incoming committee.
T may here refer to Native Bank orders and the Hui Hua stamp. From the minutes of our last Committe meeting published in the "North-China Daily News" of this morning you will have observed that we wrote further on this important matter to the Bankers' Guild, nearly a month ago, but so far no reply has come to hand.
The stringency on our money markd during the latter part of the year and the uncertainties of the political situation seriously hampered our trade. War has broken out and we are now passing through times of considerable anxiety and uncertainty. The work of the Chamber cannot under such circumstances be of a very pushing or brilliant mature. On reference to the report and the very Yoluminous correspondence which will be attached thereto, you will, I think, admit that we have done good work during the past year. I should like to see a further Crease in our membership that we may main-ain and even extend our position as a thoroughly representative body. Before moving the adoption of the report and accounts the Committee would be glad to hear any comments you wish to make and I shall be happy to afford any information you may require, asfarasT can.
Mr, B. S, Little asked if any attention had been given to. the rates charged for Chinese telegrams throughout the Empire. These, so far as he knew, were exceedingly high. He was not prepared to say they were the highest in the world, but they were considerably higher than in most countries and something might be done with the object of bringing them down.
The Chairman did not think the matter had yet been brought to the attention of the Committee, but they would be very glad of Mr. Little's observation.
There were no further questions or remarks and the report and accounts were adopted on the motion of the Chairman seconded by Sir Charles J. Dudgeon.
Mr. H. A. J. Macray moved and Mr. J.
Scott secunded: That the following twelve genilewen form the Committee for the your 1904:—Messrs. E. de Bavier, H. M. Bevis, Brodersen, J. Chapsal, Sir Charles J-Dudgeon, Jas. N. Jameson, H. Keswick, H.
Kinnear, W. D. Little, A. M. Marshall, C. Michelau, and A. Wright.
This was carried and the meeting ended.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.