Sept. 30.
We mast confess to some feeling of disappointment that our article under the above heading of a week ago should have drawn forth so little response in the way of correspondence. Two letters have been received, but with all respect to the writers neither has much to say that is worth listening to in the way of constructive criticism. Both writers take us to task for the shortness of the original article. It is to be feared that such an accusation is not often levelled at these columns. If quantity were the only requisite for such a discussion, then our correspondents fall under the same condemnation. In exact number of words it may be—we have not counted—that "Ex Necessitate's" letter is larger than the leader, owing to the difference in size of type. In actual length we have the advantage of him by some ten or twelve lines. For the rest, "Ex Necessitate" complains that we have " brought forward, discussed and decided upon fa proposal of the most far-reaching importance, s proposal moreover which is repugnant to the spirit of the Treaties, the Land Regulation and to the views of the Ratepayers expressed in no uncertain voice at the Meeting of 1906". fact which does not prevent the writer from reviving the proposal put before the Ratepayers in 1906, which by the way was entirely different from the one now under discussion, and argoing for it as "a far-seeing and statesmanlike measure." The second correspondent confines himself to a logical point: If the claim for Settlement extension is sound, it should be argued on its own merits, not enjoied out of the Chinese Government by a guid pro quo.
To take first the logical point, with which on grounds of pure equity no one can possibly disagree, it may be replied that even logic must at times submit to be modified by the circumstances of the case. The demand for Settlement extension has been pressed for four years "without regard to whether it does or does not involve the admission of our Chinese fellow citi to a share in our government," and on its own merits, plain and indisputable. But what is the result The Chinese Government turns a deaf ear to such representations and the foreign Governments are either too far away or too mach occupied with other affairs to take up cudgels on bebait of their
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.