With every desire to be fair to all the officials concerned we find it impossible to applaud the action now being taken to hasten the reform of the law courts. More than one message has come to Shanghai (our authority is the Chinese press) mentioning as a matter of great urgency that the judicial house here be put in order, the latest containing instructions not to await the arrival of the commission arranged at Washington but to get on with the business now. Local officials are equally zealous, and only the other day we were told that an application had been made to transform the Taoyin's old yamen into a detention house for foreigners. All these messages and suggestions contain an admission that everything is not by any means right so far as China's indicia] system is concerned, and we should like an explanation of the sudden hurry which is now the order when in past years things were allowed to drag on in their own way. The principle of the ultimate abolition of extraterritoriality has been laid down, for years—it received formal recognition in the Mackay Treaty for instance—and this being the case there ought The British Chambers Fund Elsewhere in this issue will be found a further list of subscriptions to the fund which the British Chambers of Commerce have_ inaugurated for the support of British schools and hospitals in China. As will be seen from the figures the. total has now grown from Ts. 98,500 and $150 to Tls. 103,000, the very dull times through which $3,700 and £25, which considering,
trade is passing is satisfactory evidence of the determination of the Chambers to make this fund a success. A great deal is involved: in its success. Both schools and. hospitals have been making a very hard fight for efficiency, in some cases even for continued existence, and it is highly important that their effort should be backed up by the British mercantile community. There never was a time when China was in greater need of soundly educated young men able to face the problems which beset their country on all sides, and it is equally true that merchants whose interests are. bound up in the prosperity of the: country should assist in this work to a greater extent than they have done in the past. The money which has already been collected is: a good augury for the fu€ure and should show the British Government that in asking for a remission of the Boxer Indemnity for educational purposes merchants are willing to put their hands in their own pockets first. We are requested to. state that subscriptions can be sent either to the Secretary of the British Chamber of Commerce or to the Hon. Treasurers, British Chambers. of Commerce Education Fund, care:
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.