Feb. 10.
ACCORDING to a paragraph quoted by us from the 'Shanghai Journal of Commerce' the negotiations over the Amoy dispute are to be transferred to Shanghai. Tf true, this appears to be a sensible move. The story of the boycott of Messrs. Butterfield Swire is a most unhappy example of wrongheadedness and unnecessary misunderstanding, not to speak of the injustice done to innocent people. It has been dragging on since last July, and, by reason of so long delay, it may prove difficult to settle in loco, although there really appears to be nothing in it which a little calm commonsense might not dispose of quite easily.
From what we can learn, the explanation given by a correspondent last Monday is quite correct, namely, that Messrs. Butterfield Swire have been made the whipping-post for the Chinese grievance against the walls and gates, erected by the British Consul in 1918 during one of the periodic ''revolutions', at each end of the Concession, this being complicated by some further misunderstanding as to the proportion of Chinese and foreign rights over the part of the foreshore which was filled in by Chinese soldiers in 1878. Now had the Chinese of Amoy come openly to the British authorities and said We do not like these gates and Walls, they offend our people's feelings', there appears little doubt that they would have got the wails. removed at once. Por} foreigners at Amoy live on the is land of Kulangsu, not in the Concession, to which, from the stand-! 5: point of defence, the walls appear to be a negligible quantity. As it was, they waited until Me: Butterfield & Swire wanted to rebuild the bridge to their hulk, as they have a perfect right to do, and then vented their displeasure on a perfectly innocent firm.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.