The Chinese themselves are not without blame, for now that the new Russian ' vice-president and new member of the Board have arrived in Harbin, there is a. quorum, yet so far the Board have not officially met. Of course the Soviet people can avoid a meeting being held by one of their members, falling sick or leave town! on some pretext. It is a fundament tal mistake that seven members are necessary to form a quorum when, the whole Board consists of only, 10 members. As 10 directors are, sufficient this quorum should certainly be reduced to five, Chinese and three Russian directors on the spot. The fifth Chinese representative is now on his, way back from the Moscow Railway conference, whilst the Russian representative, Comrade Ismailoff, lives in Habarovsk, and comes, rarely to Harbin, and the fifta representative—vice Comrade Grandt, who, it is thought, will not return to the Far East—is still unappointed. It is nine months since a Board Meeting was held and without these meetings naturally the General Manager is pretty free and can do what he likes, for a strong representation of foreigners on the committee, because that was the only way to gain the confidence of Chinese subscribers. Traly, they may not want our religion, but they do believe in our morals!
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.