An observant reader, who has lived Jong enough in Shanghai to have learnt something about her and yet by his calling remains in the category of non-residents and is now indeed on the eve of departure, sends us the following parting criticisms, which may excite others in opposition but will certainly not fail to interest.
This is an open letter to Shanghai by one about to depart. 1 am not a business man and I know little or nothing of the - internal affairs and organizations of this Settlement, but, Shanghai, it is my intention to give you my opinion of you after a stay of some two years, and a few home truths which will perhaps amuse you and may be of some assistance to you in the future. In the first place, I want to say at once that you are the most hospitable city I have ever visited—for you are a city, you know, and nothing less than'a city. You are an institution, unshakeable and secure, a permanent monument to enterprise and the best sporting instincts of man. In short, you are a great, big, lumbering, happy-go-lucky, unprogressive, wholly loveable city.
But it seems to me, Shanghai, that you lack imagination. You have 80 very much to learn, You live in the immediate present. You are happy to make money while you can and how you can, enjoy yourself and make the best of the conditions available in this climate and latitude and then, having given the best of your years to mothering your children, you allow them to leave you in much the same condition as they found you. And that to my idea, is not right.
Counci anp Its DEPARTMENTS.
Let us, first of all, go into your system of government I suppose every month there are some millions of taels which pass hands in the administration, organization and general upkeep, etc., ete., of your great big self. You have paid permanent officials in charge of various departments to look after your internal organization. I know most of them and I must say they have impressed me as being very excellent persons in every way, but a paid official, the head of a department, if he is going to be any good at his job, must necessarily get into a groove. He thinks of his work, he looks ahead, perhaps, in connexion with his work, but other matters—things which do not necessarily touch his own department—he does not take any great interest in. That is very natural and, to a certain extent, as it should be You have a Council you elect annually. Vu have a number of candidates who submit their names for election, very little larger than the actual number required. They are all, or nearly all, business men who have little time to spare for outside affairs. Many of them are
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.