The question of the Soochow Greek congestion was gone into very carefully by representatives of the leading Chinese public organizations at a meeting held on Saturday afternoon at the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce, The question was divided under two headings, viz., the dredging of the creek and better water police control.
The section of the creek which at present has the heaviest traffic and demands immediate dredging is between Chiwangmiao and Fehsinching where the average depth of the water is only between two and three feet. This dredging, it was suggested, should be entrusted to the Whangpoo Conservancy Board. Work on this section would have begun several months ago, it was reported, had not the Shanghai Municipal Council demanded that the Sinza section of the creek should first receive attention and intimated that if the work was delayed any longer the Council] would undertake the dredging itself. (This is the Chinese press report. Of course the Council never made any such threat). A proposal was made that the steam launch companies and factories using the creek should bear part of the dredging expenses.
In connexion with the water police, it was decided that the present system needed general reorganization and reform as the present police were inefficient and had long been the subject of attacks in the Chinese and foreign press. The Provincial authorities, it was agreed, should be approached with the request that the water police lat be increased and the adminis-order to make it more efficient ration organized and refer: i
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.