We have, so far, only newspaper reports to rely on as to what recently occurred in the Canton Club, but so well informed a paper as the "Hongkong Daily Press" is not likely to have made a mistake. The Germans had the temerity and the bad taste to blackball " young British resident who had been proposed for membership by the British Consul. The British, arouse ed out of their easy-going attitude, gave the German candidates for election to the Club Committee their rouge. The atmosphere of the Canton Club has hitherto been, perhaps, the most friendly and genial in all China. The British have always gone out of their way to make things pleasant for othe: nationals and, though numerically predominant, to give all a fair field. They hav. on occasions, taken elaborate pains to avoid "incidents" out of respect for very jealously guarded tr ion of camaraderie which has made life on Shameen extraordinarily pleasant for generations of Germans. Unmindful of this, determined, apparently, to carry their bumptious pugnacity into private life, to insist on an importance which has never been anything but mushroom-like, the German members of the club set themselves deliberately to keep out new arrival and to insult the British Consul in doing it. They have got a great deal less than they deserve.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.