March 17.
Tax romance of Shanghsi must often have appealed to the imagination of anyone gifted with the smallest historical sense; and although the outward form of presentation is unattractive, such romance is, perhaps, nowhere more! vividly suggested than in the Council's Annual Report.
Tt may be wondered what the of Shanghai, even the of forty years ago, would have said of this bulky Report and the hundred activities to which it bears witness. In the year 1870 Shanghai contained 1,666 foreigners. At the last quinquennial census, taken in October 1910, the foreign population had risen to 13,536, not including " shipping community of 1,755 persons; while the Chinese population had risen from 75,000, roughly speaking, to Tu many ways no doubt, sincerely to be wished that residents bad been able to exorcise greater imagination. The Engineer's Report, for instance, re-fors to the Bubbling Well and Jessfield Roads as " two of the few cases where we have to thank our forefathers for the exercise of considerable foresight." Even here, it is shown, are points at which, with the increase of house-building, traffic Bilsowbere, of course, the want of problems must in dae course arise.
proper anticipation of the recent growth of Shanghai, has entailed endless expense and almost insuperable difficulty in readjustment to modern necessities. While we are on this subject, a suggestion, born of the correspondence in this week's Gazette on the question of reassossment, may be mentioned. The Council has decided that it would be inadvisable to shorten the ordinary quinquennial period for consideration of the demand; and whether the question will be brought up for discussion at the Ratepayers' if, on the showing of twenty-seven Meeting has yet tobe shown. But
large land-owners or firms representing landed interests, the market value of land has steadily dropped during the last four years, the obvious policy for the Council is surely to buy extensively while prices are low. The fulfilment of such a policy would doubtless involve the raising of fresh loans, an expedient that must, in ordinary circumstances, be eyed narrowly. Bat in a case like the present one, of extreme public utility, the circumstances are not ordinary.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.