Tr is the duty of all ratepayers to read the "Municipal Gazette" each week and some issues call for careful study, if the functions of citizenship are to be carried out intelligently. This week's "Gazette" is a case in point, and it might be thought that many of the subjects touched upon, owing to their pregnant concern to the community at large, would give rise to discussions in the correspondence columns of the local Press. A sense of closeness of touch between Council aad ratepayers, manifested in this way, could not fail to be of advantage to both parties. If public interest is to be confined to the Annual Meeting alone, the Council must inevitably be affected by the general apathy, however keenly admin tive work may appeal to ind ual members.
It may not be out of place, therefore, to analyse th current issue of the ' Gazette," for one Minute alone, bearing on the "Council for 1911", emphasizes the need for an awakening of inter rest in the Council's affairs. Every fow years some difficulty is experienced in filling up the vacancies on the Council and the community is reminded that one reason for ti state of affairs is to be found in the fact that some of the larger firms represented in Shanghai refuse to thow their managers and other employees to perform their obvious duty to the Settlement by serving on the Council. More critical readers will note that the Minutes of a meeting held on December 14 contain references to events that happened on December 18, as well as correspondence dated December 17. They will wonder also when ther the letter acknowledging the courtesy of the Governor of, Hongkong in sending literature on the subject of plague prevention will ring true in the diplomatic ear. Finally a straight-forward report on police matters by the Captain-Superintendent reviews in a masterly manner, the events of November connected with the safety and order of the Settlement.
The question of education, however, occupies the most important place in the "Gazette", In,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.