Review of the Past Year's Acti Attitude Towards The annual general meeting of the American. Chamber of Commeres -was held at the American Club on February 28, when the President of the Chamber read his report on the past year, and the election of members of the Board of Directors. for the ensuing year took place.
"the report follows:—Regular meetings were held monthly by the Board of Directors, and the business which came before the Board covered a wide range of subject and interests. The Board was exceedingly unfortunate in resignations of membership due to departures from Shanghai of active members whose loss was so great as seriously to impair the working of the Board during the year. Most notable of the changes necessitated by absence was the substitution of Mr, Lyman for Mr. Kingsbury in the office of Chairman of the Board. Than towards the end of this Board's tenure, Mr, Lyman became ill and so many members were away from Bhanghai, that it became dificult to transact business, In this connection, the Board recommends that} the members select for the incoming Board of Directors members who fave likely to remain in Shanghai! during the next year, so that the! unfortunate experience of the past] year will not be repeated.
For the first time in many years, the Chamber has been without a paid secretary, due to the resigna. tion at the beginning of the year of Mx, Carroll Lunt and the inability of the Board suitably to fil the! vacancy. Miss Tebbutt has, however, efficiently acted in lieu of a secretary) andthe business of the Board has} been ably handled by her, Nevertheless, it should be one of the immediate tasks of the new Board to take up the question of the s0evetaryship with a view toward increasing the membership of the Chamber.
Among the innovations of the your was the organization of numerous committees, some of which met regularly and functioned effectively, while others were not completely organized, As American commercial interests increase in specific directions, the activities of the Chamber are bound to become diverse that the Board of Directors will find themselves increasingly confronted with the task of building up committees whose task it will be deal with specific subjects quiring expert handling. Due to] the constant change in the personnel of the Board, this Committee system was not given a complete try-out during the past year, but it is anticipated that after' some further experimentation, the entire system will have to be reorganized and placed on a permanent basis.
"Your Chamber ce-operated actively with other National Chambers of Commerce in Shanghai, particularly in the drafting of a joint resolution with regard to the question of extraterritoriality. Tt has been th this Chamber that while th people here and at home do not desire to combat the nationalities aspirations of the Chinese people, the political, economic and administrative conditions in China require that before extraterritovlality shall have been abolished, a most, thorough assurance be provided that life and property will be reasonably and legally safeguarded both during period of transition and after the abolition of extrater-
In this connection, year Charnder, together with the ' other national Chambers of Commerce of Shanghai, drafted @ memorandum Inst may which was seat to the various Governments, stating this principle and also calling attention to the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.