Chefoo, Feb. 18.
The Shantung settlement did nob arouse the enthusiasm or excitement in Chefoo that might have been expected. The student body was much more in evidence when it appeared likely that the Chinese delegation was not going to be as sureessful as the country thought it ought to have been.. The news of the settlement really came at a bad time. China was celebrating her New Year and for these festivities everything has to go. At such a time nothing matters: business, trade, industry all have to give way. Chefoo must have had nearly two weeks when there was scarcely anything doing. Shops were closed, it was difficult to get men to work, and altogether it might have been a city of the dead. The place. has awakened, however, and with the running of the ships up to Tientsin again things will soon be normal, There is a growing feeling toat the Chinese are inclined to think that now that they have got back Tsingtao, or that they are to get it, there is nothing more to be gained by way of trying to get the Chefoo-Weihsien Railway. They appel to have forgotten the great need for the commencement of this scheme and to have become oblivious to the possibilities that it will open up. The vistas of commercial prosperity and industry which were incentives for, keeping alive the agitation for the commencement of the railway communication between here. and Weihsien seem to have been Jost sight of, and a feeling that there is now no need to do anything more prevails. Just whether the foreiga merchants will be able to disabuse the minds of the Chinese on this mater remains to be seen.
It is known that the offer of the Chinese Government to the cities of Chefoo, Weihsien, Lungkow and Tenchowfu that they take over@the Chefoo-Weihsien road as a, monoply in return for an annual rental is resented by foreigners here. They will oppose it, as indeed they should, for the road has not been built by government funds but by the moneys provided from the famine taxes. The Chinese have yet to realize that Chefoo has the making of a great and growing port, but only as it gets the railway connexion will it be able to develop itself.
Asst. Bishop for West China London, Feb. 27.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has appointed the Reverend Howard West "Mowll of Mycliffe College. Toronto, as Assistant Bihsop under Bishop Cassels, in the diocese of Western China.—Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.