"The committee will also have the task of considering the needs of the British Medical Missions in China, who have been lately in sore straits for the necessary funds for carrying on what is undoubtedly not only a great civilizing work, but which has been and will cot tinue to be of great value in wain-taining our national prestige.
"There are those who hold the opinion that this Association has outlived its usefulness and that now that we have a live British Chamber of Commerce the Association has lost its "raison d'étre." Gentlemen, I am not one of those. The Chamber of Commerce with its excellent organization is able to handle purely commercial questions with a thoroughness and efficiency which this Association could never aspire to do, but there are many spheres of usefulness which can more properly be filled by an Association which has a personnel such as this. The Association gives a medium of expression to every British subject of good character and reputation in the Port, and is the only Association collectively representing the individual elements of the various nations which go to make up the British Empire.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.