Mar, 15.
Wren the Chthese Post Office launched its scheme of a*savings bank in 1919 most of us pro-phossied failure. Mistrust lending money to any institution at all connected with the official world on the one Kian ud, on the other, the low rate of interest offered "as compare with normal prices of borrowing] in China were thought likely to prevent success. Actual experience proves that the foreign] control of the Post Office, guaranteeing honesty of administration, hag commanded] confidence and, as in other countries, the savings bank has proved invaluable to the class who can only put away two or three dollars at a time. 'Thus it is that the 800 depositors record. ed at tha end of 1919 had risen to nearly 26,400 at the end of 1922, for which year we have now' received "the—report: Deposits in big dollars during! this year amounted to $4,195,- 589 an increase of 62 per cent. was found inadvisable on account and "the impossibility of safely investing money locally] made it necessary to remit surplus funds to the various ports and this is not only " difficult but also a dangerous procedure! when the country is in a disturbed condition abnormally consequence." Alco, in Kuangtung, small coin deposits have slightly} decreased, the rate of interest! having had to be dropped in that} province from:5 to 8.6 per cent.
ing to "the difficulty exper'- enced in investing funds in} has notoriously} been shoving its money into Hongkong marder to save all it can from the claws of Kuomintang military collectors. But] how much more political tue might affect the Savings Bank is suggested by its table of investments, In 1919, its first year, it took up a modest $2,601 worth of the current Shanghai municipal debentures; in 1992 it took' up $460,821" worth. What! would be tie value of that investment, to-day probably the [finest gilt-edged security that the world can show, if extraterbishilt nat. satisfy military opinion non-committal manner, but it in the country or in the Empire. Tt was a carefully thought-out scheme by the Admiralty experts who had before them the problem of how best. to protect our trade of the plan were divided into. two} routes. The military opponents
groups, one who held that while a base was necessary in the Pactfi Singapore was not the correct place for: it, and, the other, led by Bir Perey Scott, who acted on the theory that the day of the battleship is definitely at an and Tu consequence, they declined, the view that docks capable of taking capital ships were a necessity of the case. Future may show that this latter view ix cor-reet, but nothing has yeo happen-to confirm it. The naval lessons of the late war cannot be sid. t0 give it the required confirmation, and any goverament which adopt: ed. the. theory in its entirety would. be acting inn very rash manner. "Fortanately the present Cabinet has not definitely decided against the base, and this is the most satisfactory' tenture of what very unsatisfactory, position,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.