July 11.
Tue way of those who try to get anything done in China, as the saying is, is hard to tread and most apt to end in a, blind alley. We claim no originality for this reflexion. But it is suggested again by reading the annual report for 1921, with correspondence and minutes of the annual meeting, of the Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce, which ably competes with other similar organizations in conspicuous failure to achieve any result in spite of strenuous effort. Something of this sort seems to have been in the chairman's mind at the annual meeting when, lamenting a slight decline in the membership since last year, he said "Your Committee have been called: upon to deal with an increasing number of investigations and their advice and-suggestions are contin-nously sought in matters which could not be referred to any one of the National Chambers. The Report deals only with the outstanding activities of your Committee, but many matters of minor importance, including trade inquiries, come their way during the year."
The sad thing is that a body so important, composed of men who are banded together to consider the best interests of Shanghai from an international point of view and have abundant experience to help them in so doing, should find that so much of their carefully considered advice comes to naught.
Two notable instances of this appear in the present report in connexion with the handling of phosphorus and chlorate of potash and the storage of benzine in the Shanghai harbour. The correspondence about phosphorus and chlorate of potash fills pages 52 to 96 inclusive of the report and extends from January 12, 1921—which, as internal evidence shows, is not the beginning of the controversy—to February 9, 1922. The bone of contention is ''the difficulties to which shippers of phosphorus from England are exposed owing to the restrictions imposed by the Harbour authorities at this port'': and conferences were arranged between the Chamber, the Customs and the Municipal Council. By July 1 last the Customs had actually evolved an amended set of regulations, of which the General Chamber of Commerce expressed approval in a letter of July 8. But immediately after this, first the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.