Apr. 7.
Mr. JouN JOHNSTONE is one who believes in' plain speaking. We have all known that in Shanghai for some years past; and his speech at the annual meeting of the Hongkong Chamber of Commerce shows that his vigour has suffered no diminution in the more languorous climate of the south. The most generally interesting parts of that speech have already been telegraphed. The remainder deals largely with affairs of purely local interest. Thus the Hongkong Fire Brigade comes in for some very sharp criticism the engines, it seems, are occasionally used for the carriage of beggars and the whole brigade was once turned out-as far as Repulse Bay for nothing more terrible than a matshed on fire: the whole equipment and organization is described as needing immediate attention. One reads of complaints to the Government of pilfering of cargo which appear only to have drawn forth the irritating and not very understandable reply that the onus of protecting property lay with the shipowners, not with the police. Mr. Johnstone's retort that, if special attention were paid to the receivers of stolen property, some surprising results would accrue sowars eminently just. The demand for a Commercial Secretary at Hongkong ''but not a Government cadet, whose hands will be tied, his work hampered and his judgement overshadowed by thoughts of where his bread and butter comes from,"' intensifies the feeling which the whole speech rightly or wrongly conveys, that the Hongkong Chamber is not satisfied with the way in which its representations are met.
Whether what might be called the "'direct action' speech or the dripping water that wears away a stone is the more effectual is ever a@ matter of opinion. And just now it is rather an important matter. The war gave rise to a general-desire that the mercantile community and the official classes in China should work in closer cooperation than they had or were supposed to have done in the past.
many Ways this aim is being achieved with most satisfactory results: in others, the drawing together has revealed, even more strikingly than before, divergencies between the business and official
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.