Discord Over An Investment in Electric Light Shares Fwom Ove OWN ConnesPoxDEn.
Tsingtao, Mar. 28.
For the first time in several years the Japanese community is the cone of a hitter controversy and two josing factions appear to have! been formed, The matter all hinges on. the purchase of $100,000 worth of stock in the Tsingtao Electric Light Company by the outgoing executive committee of the Japanese Re-
The Axsociation acts as a municipal organization in Tsingtao and under its administration Japanese institutions are controlled. In the course of a year the Association collects und expends large sums of money. The actual handling of the funds ix done by the executive committee.
For some months the executive committee, which hax just, finished its term, had recommended the investment of a large part of the Association's assets in electric light Stock. The majority of the membership of the Association had opposed the suggestion, however, feeling that it was a more or less risky speculation. The committee was requested to take no action. The instructions of the Association, however, were ignored and on the eve of the biennial election of Association members, from whom the exeetitive committee is selected, the committee purchased the stock' and delivered the cash.
When the new Association gathered, following the election, the action of the executive committee was condemned in the strongest terms and there were even veiled references to the committee's having profited personally by the purchase of the block of stock. A motion roundly condemning the action of the committee and censure jing the members for their wilfulness and violation of the express instructions of the Association was passed. This, of course, produced an uproar, as many felt that the committee had acted out of unselfish motives and considered the investment a sound and profitable one.
In this connexion it may be said that the light company's dividend for the last fiscal year was 15 per cent.
Tts action repudiated, the exeeutive committee offered to resign en bloc, although, as a matter of fact, its term' had expired. Consul-General Horiouchi then stepped a and declared that the action of the committee should not be sub-Jiected to suspicion and that he looked with disfavour on the acceptance of the resignation based suck oe aga Association' is still actively Cheers ok, debating the subject.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.