June 14.
Av last the Municipal Council has laid down definite policy to be followed where interests outside the Settlement are concerned. The subject is one of long standing, one of its most acute aspects being protection against fire, and it is in this respect that action has now been taken. The Fire Brigade receives instructions to stay within Settlement limits except when called to the assistance of firms beyond who have signed a contract committing themselves to payment for its services. The rights and wrongs of this question are not at all easy to decide, for ihe past practice of the Fire Brigade, resulting from its first beginnings, enters largely into the case. To a very large extent the Brigade was built up, by the great hongs of old who wished to take measures to protect their properties and cargoes. They bought their own fire-fighting appliances, manned them through volunteers drawn from their own staffs, and Settlement boundaries were no concern of these units. Wherever the property of the firm was in danger through fire, there the firemen went. A natural development was that these different units should be extended both in personnel and duties, and the transition from a purely private force into one under the auspices of the Council came about readily. Finally there were four companies on the north side of the Yangkingpang, and the French had their own.
This system lasted Jong after a place such as Chapei had ceased to be a collection of insignificant dwellings and shops and when its beggar village had been cleared out to make room for structures of a substantial character, and the business people there naturally came to look to the Settlement for protection against fire. Godowns made their appearance accommodating valuable cargo, and although the Chapei authorities have, as the years passed, established a brigade of their own, it has never been of a. calif bre to admit of property owners in the district leaving the Settle ment Brigade out of their calculations. The same may be said to apply to other adjacent regions.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.