Jan. 9.
Raw; haste, says the poet, is sister to delay. We commented yesterday on the prodigious hurry of those who are agitating for Chinese representation on the Council; and their own letter is the best proof of how impossible it is to proceed in the matter otherwise than with due caution. For that letter raises points on which pages and pages might be written. And if its demands were granted, so far from ''a peaceful and satisfactory settlement' being reached, the chances are all in favour of further strife and envyings.
The words we have just quoted "'peaceful and satisfactory" have an ugly ring, conveying a menace which is certainly not calculated to induce a very peaceful frame of mind in the recipients of the letter. Still worse, however, are the next words ''for the purpose of securing justice and fair-play for the Chinese." Are we, then, to infer that in the opinion of Mr. Chu Pao-san and Mr. Ch'én Tszeming the Chinese in Shanghai have not received fair play all these years and have been treated with injustice? The insinuation is equally reprehensible as a gross misrepresentation and a studied insult which, in the interests of the cause they pretend to serve, the agitators are counselled instantly to withdraw.
Further down the letter, it is enjoined that ''the counsel of the Chinese advisers should be respected."" Now that is precisely one of the points about which' the most careful consideration will be necessary. If there are tobe Chinese on' the Council itself, their status will presumably be the same as that of any other Councillor, though it will have to be accurately defined how they are to be elected, and how many Chinese electors will go to the Ratepayers' Meetings. If, however, there is to be no more than an Advisory Committee, then again rules will have to be drawn up as to what they are to advise upon and with how much influence, if the Committee is not to prove a nuisance on the one hand or a dead letter on the other.
But the most notable statement is that the Advisory Committee which the Council is- asked to receive at once—as if it could do any such thing without the ratepayers" consent—is '"'to be elected by the two Chinese organizations
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.