Some of those wha oppose the control of harbour facilities by the Railway admit that the project in itself has much to speak of favourably. This being its terminal port, and over 80 per cent. of the merchandise brought here being for! export, the logical conclusion should be that the Railway is best fitted pyright owner. Further reproduction prot to' handle the loading "and unloading problem of the port. It is admitted that the volume of traffic which a line would carry cannot exceed the capacity of the terminal as has been proved by the American practice of railway control of terminal facilities. amount of merchandise now exported from this port is very great, and in the years to come will increase on a huge scale, especially in the case of coal. It is predicted that by 1930, the annual quantity of coal exported from Tsingtao will exceed 1,260,000 tons. All this tends to point favourably towards the control of harbour facilities by the Railway, which could be made to guarantee a fixed sum annually to the Administration whereas' the Inter could have the final say in all] questions arising between shippers! and the Railway as to the efficient handling or otherwise of loading and unloading operations. But} they point out that the drawback against this control is the debt of $40,000,000 hanging over the head of the Railway which will have to be met eventually and that failure '40 meet this debt will undoubtedly cause the Japanese to grab the line back.—Gonsequently, "should the Railway be placed in charge of the harbour administration, the Japanese could not be prevented to grab it also, thereby threatening the giving of preferential treatment to Japanese merchants at the expense of the rest.
On the other hand, the Japanese] are almost solidly in opposition of the prépostion to have the Customs place control of the harbour ration. Their fear seems lat inasmuch as the Customs] is largely controlled by the British, control by that body would not be altogether impartial.
In this connexion it is worth while noting that the "Tsingtao Lender," altogether Japanese owned, favours neither the one scheme nor the other. It has suggested two measures, viz, that either the shipping companies each contribute a sum of money towards the establishment of one mutual transportation organization, or that the Administration allowed to control the whole thing if, with the assistance of an advisory committee appointed by] foreign merchants, composed of one American, one Briton, one German and one Japanese. Those two suggestions are meeting with the ap-Proval of d number of merchants, but, as already stated, the whole issue docs not appear to be any nearer a solution than it was when the new tupan caused the Kiao-Ao Transportation Company's monopoly to be dissolved.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.