thy Swoxey J. Powst, aoucek, fawes, Axle the great cities Shanghai is unique, not to say ridiculous, in that it has no means of quick transit, such as overhead or underground railways between the business centre and its suburbs, London has at least one hundred miles of underground railways, New York, Paris and other great cities similar facilities, Lon. don at the foot of Ludgate Hill has four railways passing under or over each other, one overhead and three underground, and they all carry millions of passengers every day and London is a city that hae spread out in all directions until it ix some 25 miles from North to South and East to West.
New York has the mont difficult traffic problem of any city, in that many out of the millions of inhabitants want to go somewhere down Broadway every morning; and there is practically only one way to the rear city ix bounded by important rivers on the North and South and as the office buildings on and off Broadway get higher and higher the traffic underground and on the surface and overhead gets greater and greater. It is a fearsome busi eas to go downtown say from 42nd Street to The Rattery at about 9 a.m-on weekday by underground the conditions could be moving teaffie than in New York because Shanghai could spread directions and the population could and should live Kast and West and South and North of the City, to be comprised the Central district, the Rue clu Consular and environs and Nantao, but we find that the bulk of the business people live within two miles of the city, crowded up in hundreds of miles of alleyways, in tenement sand apartment buildings.
Some lucky ones still live in old, ofer houses with their own gardens but these are few and fay between and they are rapidly being swamped by the crowded alleyway type of squalor or overshadowed by the gaunt tonement of apartment buildings It is no longer possible to build viflax within two miles of the Bund and make them pay. There ix no land worth leas than Tls. 30,000.00 per mow within thix area.
A short calculation as follows explains why. mow of land @ Tin. 30,000.00 Tia. 29,000.00 S-roomed modern House Tix. 16,000.00
Total Ts. 46,000.00 at any 69% Tle. 2700.00 yer anna Tis, 25.00 per month and who wants to pay Tie 225.00 plus taxes ete. per month far small house and no room for @ proper tennis court.
Mr. Ripley of "Believe it or not" the other day said that if the population of the world were evenly distributed there need only be 49 people per square mile of the habitable earth's surface. Shanghai has three million people living in an area of 12 square milex or 260,000 per square mile and it's very unhealthy for them.
Why crowd up so closely together and make handsome profits for landlords and certain people like architects and building contractors and municipalities? its rubber tyred wheels and solid reinforced conerete 100 foot "pan arches with rail level 20 feet above the present road level would take you from the Bund to Jessfield or to the neighbourhood of the new Civic Centre to the East of Kinngwan or to the South Station to the South of Nantao in ten (10) immutes for twenty cents (amall money)
You would proceed (given really good roads outside) by bux or motor-car from, say, Jensteld to your villa on Monument Road. which road runs from near the Sowhow Creek to Hungjao Read, in another minutes. That is twenty minutes from Bund to home, Another small calculation, Two mow (2 mow, mark yeo!) on Monument Rond (3 mallee frum the Band) Ts. $000.00 joomed modern Hoow and tent court, te 18,900.00
Total Tie, 18,000.00
Te 14,000 at GTi 1,000.00. per annum set Tis, 90.00 per month plan taxes, ete.
Note>—The price per mow of land on Monu-mont Read at present is only The 1,00000 per mow but the above figures caver the anticipated boom in land prices outside the Kettlement when the Shanghai City and Suburban Railway ix recognised by the Authorities concerned blousing to the inhabitants of Shanghai, The Mayor of the Municipality of Greater Shanghai would no doubt see to it that when the Shanghai City and Suburban Railway is announced as a possibility no one should be allowed to buy and sell land in the areas Indicated except at a reasonable profit of say 40 per cent and in no case should the sale price exceed Th, 2000.00 per mow. This ruling to obtain for two years from the auguration of the Shanghai City and Suburban Railway, What an immense increase im revenue would accrue to the serious authorities if the city of Shanghai to be allowed to have breathing space.
The existing transport companies would not suffer because they could feed the Shanghai City aod Suburban Railway and do well in doing so. At present they carry 500,000,000 (five hundred million) passens-ers per annum in the Settlement and French Concession. They would eventually do much deter if they altered some of their routes converge on the Shanghai City and Suburban Railway. At presen, it takes at least 25 minutes to get from the Bund to St. Georges (Bubbling Well) and 1% minutes more to get to Jeufield Station, "Time money" and nowadays in Shanghai there is a colossal waste of this coinage.
The Shanghai City and Suburban Railway would cot 1,000,000 (one million pounds sterling) but it would benefit 2,000,000 and more people The profit, based pen 00 million passengers per annum, on the undertaking would be at least 20 per cent nett after paying royalties. cost of power, administer sion expenses ete. ete. all based upon the Jotest figurex obtainable from the records of electrical underground railways where the cost of construction ix ton time a much as for an overhead railway in condi-Nous much better than those obtaining in Shanghai has a subsoil of waterlogged mud—London has stiff clay and gravel, New York ae rock, Paris has a treacherous much way of underground railways, subsoil similar to Shanghai so doses' do But the point is. and it's a point which is senssrning the soe ety po inti: Are we all going to pull together for the benefit of the people?
The Shanghai City and Suburban Railway offers an opportunity for China and her foreign guests to give the world an example of cooperative international constructive policy beneficial to every wage: earner, Think of the discomfort of present travel packed like sardines in bus and tea compared with an escalator and lift to train which will comfortably transport at rash hours 500 passengers every two minutes.
Profit i at present an inducement and it can be allowed to be taken legitimately bat the good of the greatest number the alm of all well-intentioned people,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.