July 7
The peculiar difficulties in which the administration of the! French Concession find themselves at the present. moment deserve consideration from the general public. Faced with the possibility of a general strike of all utilities, the authorities have had to handle the matter of the strike of the garbage coolies and other employees of the Council with the greatest circumspection. The knowledge that the strikers were prepared to go so far as to resist any attempt to remove the garbage by means of outs coolies weighed the balance favour of peaceful negotiations before any steps were (taken to clean up the streets. And it is to be hoped that by this morning the negotiations will have borne fruit and that once again the Concession will be restored to the sanitary condition its ratepayers have been accustomed to and have a right, to expect.
Should this not be the case, however, the authorities will have to face the fact that, strike or no. strike, peace or open clashes, something must immediately'be done to. remove the real menace to health the heaps of garbage in the streets have become. Heavy rains and baking suns have combined to turn the heaps of house refuse into purifying sores, the breeding places of fi potential sources of disease to residents. The downpours of Sunday served to spread many of these heaps of refuse along the gutters of the streets, an offence to the senses of the' pedestrian which calls for instant remedy. Every day that this condition of affairs is} permitted to continue means an increase in offensiveness and menace to public health.
If the garbage could not have been removed before, might not some effort have been made to sterilize it with lime or some other agent in order to minimize the offence? The adminietration's difficulties are appreciated. Bit the time comes when the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.