Mar. 9.
Not many readers, we suppose, have had time to read the lengthy supplement to the Municipal Gazette, published yesterday, on tramways and electric railless traffic. But it is to be hoped that they will do so, in order to form a clear idea of its main features, before giving their vote on whatever policy the Council may put to them. The issue, though confused by masses of verbiage, is a very simple one. It is nothing more nor less than whether Shanghai's transport, freight and passenger, is to become a monopoly in the hands of the Tramway Company.
Seven out of the ten—not quite ten—pages of the report are taken up with correspondence between Mr. McColl and the Council, devoted to railless car exten-us, railless freight lorries, contributions to road alteration and maintenance and reconstruction of bridges. It occurs to one, in' passing, that if Mr. McColl were less voluble, he would get a more sympathetic audience, and if he -were less agile in argument, his: readers would be less prone to suspect a pigger in the woodpile. One rather amusing incident in the controversy must be mentioned. Last January Mr. McColl sent to the Council a petition from the shopkeepers of Jessfield village that the railless trams along Jessfield Road might be extended through their domain to the north entrance of the park. (The Council forbids this, no doubt wishing to preserve some space in the cars for foreigners, and says the railless trams must go by Brenan Road to the south entrance of the park). A month after this petition had gone in the Chinese Commissioner for Foreign Affairs' wrote to the Senior Consul alleging that the petition was not a spontaneous act by Jessfield villagers, but that their signatures had been collected to a ready-prepared letter by an employee of the Tramway Company; and that, anyway, they wished to withdraw the petition and beg that trams should not come through their village.
Nobody, having waded through these terrific letters, will be surprised that the Council ultimately found itself hopelessly fogged getting some expert advice from!
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.