the National Council of Bill providing for Chinese control of the Postal Administration. It appears that this Bill is the outcome of a feeling of pique on the part of three students, who have returned to China after receiving education in Austria. So- much disappointed were they at not being offered good positions in the postal service that they refused to enter for the postal examination and, having made a futile demand for impossible and nonexistent posts in the service, engineered the Postal Administration Bill. At the outset it should be stated that the passing of this Bill would mean the dismissal of some 115 foreigners, who are engaged in the Chinese Postal Administration. In order to appreciate the seriousness of such step it is necessary to explain that not only have foreigners, beginning with Sir Robert Hart, been the means of bringing this service to its present state of efficiency, but the fact that there is foreign control has engendered confidence in the Administration, confidence that has never existed in any other branch of the Chinese Government service except the Customs. To dismiss the foreigners who are at present in control of the Post Office would be, at the least, to stay the progress that is being made, if not to court open disaster. It might seem absurd to sug, that the National Council could be dominated by a group of disappointed students, obviously seeking personal advantage, but s0 weak does the Government appear to be at the moment that it apparently surrenders itself to those who clamour the most loudly and, putting aside vital problems of State, threatens to meddle with one of the only two departments that are satisfactorily administered in order to secure posts for malcontents. Foreigners are by no means alone in depredating such a policy, the weight of Chinese opinion being distinctly on the side of those who plead for leaving well alone especially at a time when there is so great a demand for urgent reforms in questions that go to the root of the existence of the Republic.
China has to thank the late Sir Robert Hart for her postal service, for it was through his efforts that the decree of March 20, 1896, which created an Im-Perial Post for all China, was is-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.