Stirring Tale of How the Chinese Built the Port and were Ousted by the Foreigner The "Sinwanpao" reports a curious speech made by Ma Siang-pah at a meeting of the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce in honour of the newly appointed Advisors to the Municipal Council. The oration has a good deal of the picturesque, but seems somewhat lacking in point of fact and judgement. In the days of his youth, Ma Siang-pah visited San Francisco, and now in reminiscent mood he reminded his hearers that San Francisco was developed by the Chinese. The wharves and gold mines were all run by Chinese. The railway from San~ Francisco to New York, covering a distance of 10,000 li, was started and built by Chinese, but it was impossible for them to become owners of the line. Unwilling to become American citizens, they abandoned their rights. This in the eleventh year of the reign of the' Emperor Kwong Hsu.
Turning to conditions in Shanghai, the speaker drew a parallel picture. In the first year of the Emperor Yen Fung, he recalled, there were only 24 houses at the south of Szechuan Road bridge, which place was, therefore, known as the Place of the Twenty-Four Houses: from which apparently we are to gather that later developments are attributable' to Chinese. In the olden days, Chinese always participated in the Foreigners' Committee Meetings. But they failed to put forward suggestions, and sometimes even failed to attend the meetings, the unfortunate result being that the foreigners began to manage their affairs themselves; so that here, again the Chinese abandoned their rights.
The Technical School on Pakhoi Road, the speaker pointed out, was built with Chinese money, but did not now belong to Chinese. Was it not piteous, that all they had to show for their effort was five Chinese Advisors!
A Stone ror Brea, The reason for all this, the reason for the failure of Chinese to be. masters in their own country, said the speaker, was that they lacked unity. The departure of the five advisors to the office of the Municipal Council was the first step towards the restoration of their rights, and he trusted that these five gentleman would ever be in the vanguard in the fight against inhuman and virtue less treatment of Chinese by foreigners, ford, Mr. George A. Johnson and Mr. Gordon Morriss.
Some beautiful wreaths came from the directors of the Shanghai Life Insurance Ca., the Mercantile Printing Ca., the Royal Society of St. George, Messrs. John I. Thornycroft & Ca., Mr. Gordon Morriss, Mr. H. R. Sturt, and Mr. Joseph J. Evans.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.