Feb. 19.
Tue deadlock that has arisen over the appointment of the Chinese Advisory Committee will be widely deplored, because, in spite of the Council's studiously conciliatory attitude, ai shown all through the correspondence, such accept an Advisory Committee not of five but of twenty-seven.
The Chinese Ratepayers' Association protest that the Council have misread the regulation defining the powers of control of the Association over the Advisory Committee and append another translation, as published by us yesterday. But for all practical purposes the result is the same: differences of opinion are but too Wherever the Directorate of the prone to misrepresentation and) heat. Yet there can be no question of the impossibility for the Council to accept a Committee so fettered as would be the nominees of the Chinese Ratepayers' Association. For the Council themselves are not free agents in the matter, and were they to accept the five Chinese gentlemen nominated, it is certain that the Consular Body, with whom the final approval rests, would reject them.
Precisely what has been happening in the Chinese community we can only vaguely surmise. The Chinese General Chamber of Commerce were first requested by the Council to call together the guilds and other associations and to nominate a Committee. But rightly or wrongly we get the impression that they were reluctant to undertake the task, which in October they surrendered altogether to the Chinese Ratepayers' Association, apparently an entirely new body. It will be remembered that the' members of the Advisory Committee must possess certain qualifications, and it appears to be debateable whether the five gentlemen nominated are all thus qualified. But the Council, in order to avoid the least semblance of obstruc-
Ratepayers' Association want to; interfere with the Advisory Committee, the rule, even as interpreted by the Association, is quite elastic enough to let it do so. The waste of time that must result, not to mention other still more undesirable possibilities, would be intolerable, while independence of judgement by the Advisory Committee simply disappears altogether. It is difficult to suggest any way out of the difficulty, which must be left to the good sense of the Chinese community. The Council have no desire whatever to obstruct the appointment of an Advisory Committee and their letters are irreproachable in courtesy and reasonableness. They merely ask that the men selected shall be free agents, fit for the confidence that will have to be reposed in them by both Chinese and foreigners. The crux of the whole situation is well put in the following sentence from the Council's letter of February 17:—
It may perhaps assist you (the Chinese Ratepayers' Association) to appreciate the position still more clearly if you ask yourself how the Council can be expected to accept or repose any trust or confidence in five nominees, whoever they may be, when those who put forward their names for nomination are not prepared on their part to trust them, but must needs seek to place them under a controlling or supervisory body of no less than twenty-two other persons?
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.