December 31.
Rarety, if ever, will Sbunghai have parted more gladly with an old year than on this occasion. The time is out of joint; the community is perilously near being out of humour with itself, and is by no means at one on the subject of setting things right. It is inclined to feel that it has been hardly dealt with during the past twelve months, not least of all in finding itself without a convenient scapegoat on whom to lay sing that are for the most part of its own commission. From /urce majeure it has been in the main free. Left to itself the year would have ran a normally prosperous course, Trade showed signs of a steady improvement after a few lean years, and prospects in China and in the world generally were fair. Then came the rubber boom, but there was no reason why that should not have been employed to enhance the favouring turn of events, for already enough companies on the world's market to receive all legitimate investments. Shanghai, however, deserted the narrow path of sound business and indulged in the wildest excesses of a gambling mania. And yet there was some line of reasoning in its madness. For the pur-of the boom the commanity regarded itself as a large family party. Promoters and directors wore among its prominent business men, and it seemed out of the question that they should allow themselves to be deceived or from want of the necessary precautions should ive others. Fortunes were being made out of rubber elsewhere, and it was nataral, when everyone connected with a new company was well known locally, that there should be a wild rush for the shares. What was not realized was that companies were being floated merely for the purpose of benefiting by that wild rush, without the least regard being paid—in many eases—to their! intrinsic merits.
This episode, dragging out its uncertain length over many months, has cast a shadow over the whole year. [von the favouring circumstances for which the community has reason to be thankful seem of a negative order. Plague made determined assault on the port, but! for the time being at least has been repulsed, and Shanghai has been saved this major evil. Thanks to the recuperative powers of the Settlement and its position as a port of delivery for: a vast Ainterland,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.