Chinese Desire That English Should be Subsidiary Recommending that the Chinese written language should be adopted as the official language by the Shanghai Municipal Council, the Chinese Ratepayers Association have addressed a letter to, the Coun-S{eil suggesting that English should be used only as a sul guage.
The letter says that all municipal councils should be administered in such a way as to meet the desire of the majority of residents, In the International Settlement of Shanghai, at the present time, the Chinese people form about 80 per cent, of the population and the taxes they pay amount to approximately 65 per cent, of the municipal revenues, spite of these facts, all documents, notifications, declarations, ete, issued by the Shanghai Municipal Council are in the English language fand the Chinese residents, who con stitute the majority of the popula tion and who pay the greater part of the taxes, do not understand their contents. This mistake should be rectified without delay and the Coun. jell should use Chinese as the official written language in all its do-Jeuments and English only as a subsidiary language. bandmaster, Melchior Vela, submits his report in French and the 1883 Estimate figure is Tls, 8,500.
In 1887, the sum of 'Tls. 1,000 was paid to the Recreation Fund Trus+ tees in full payment of all claims against the Council for the musical instruments, music, ete., lent by them to the Town' Band in 1879.
The band played 129 times during the year in the Public Garden and the French Municipal Garden, and JGive times on the Cricket ground, The 1888 estimate was Tls. 9,000, The band passed through various hands, Mr. Vela's, (Mr. Valenza's and Mr. de Castro's with increasing popularity; until in 1906 the Council took its great decision that, for the artistic life of Shanghai, picture galleries and architecture were unattainable, the orchestra must be developed to give of the best Western music.
Herr Rudoy Buck was brought out from Home with Herr Millie favourite pupil of Joachim, as first violin and five other European instrumentalists as leaders of their respective sections. Herr Buck was a fine musician and a commanding, though at the same time most charming personality, who managed heterogeneous crew with great skill, and developed the orchestra to a high pitch. Alas, the war cut] short his activities, but, wherever he may be now, we like to pay a tribute to his memory as a true artist. who gave Shanghai much splendid music, and one of the best of friends and' good fellows.
During the war, the band "carried on" on a diminished scale, Mr. de Krygor doing the best he could—and it was very good considering limita-
Acconoine to the "Shanghai Nichi Nichi" the Pan-Pacific Conference will be held at Hangchow next year. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Nanking Government has order ed the Chekinng Provincial Govern: ment to supervise arrangements, such as the construction of an hotel, ele., for the benefit of foreigners a tending the conference. tions—-with a reduced number of Manila men, On November 28, 1919, Maestro Paci with 36 musicians, of whom 14 were Europeans, all picked on the spot gave his first symphony concert Shangha The revival was an instant suc-gess and the concerts gained great popularity. In 1921 and again in 1925 Maestro Paci went Home and Drought out several first-class musicians and the orchestra now numbers 45 instrumentalists of the highest class, most of whom have been trained for the past ten years under the same conductor.
The 426th symphony orchestra was given by Maestro Paci last November, and in those years many new works of world-wide importance have beer given here. One Respighi's compositions was actually heard for the first time anywhere in the Town Hall. It is also interesting to note that last August performances of the Municipal Orchestra were recorded, with great sue-cess, by the Odeon and Parlophone Gramophone Company of Berlin, for world-wide distribution thus " de: finitely putting Shanghai on the map" as a musical centre,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.