For those who have given any attention to railway affairs in China and those of the Shanghai-Nanking Railway in particular, the memorandum by Mr. J. J. Mantell, adviser rte. the Minister of Railways, contains no novelty in respect of the advice given as to what the railway requires.
All the recommendations advanced by Mr. Mantell have been urged upon the Chinese authorities again and again for many-years past, as no In spite of these reductions in the "expensive" foreign staff, we understand that the monthly wages Dill has increased by 23 per cent. Large numbers of Chinese clerks have been engaged on the staff of the Chinese managing director; and only within recent weeks we are Informed that the offices of the engineer-in-chief and other foreign officials have been relegated from the first to the upper floor of the S.N.R. building in order to make room for the teeming: employees of the Chineve managing director.
As regards Mr. Mantell's state. ment that "goods wagons have been seriously neglected in the matter of painting, and they are deteriorating rapidly by corrosion," this is an old {trouble and has the same explanation in all probability now as it has he Traffic Department cannot release the ents and wagons for the necessary overhauling, be-ande the railway is ard has always been starved for rolling-stock.
'A few weeks ago we published! details of the new steam coaches which are to be put on the Woosung me. Tt is many years since the management of the S.N.R. first began pressing for these with view to running a service every 20 minutes, to forestall the omnibuses and to set free large passenger cars for main. service. But it was never lo to persuade the Chinese railway authorities to spend the money, though every annual report for' many years past has! dwelt insistently on the need of more engines and rolling-stock.
The demand for a train ferry between Hsiakuan (Nanking) and Pukou, to link up the S.N.R. and northern railways has been pressed repeatedly but every memorandum jon the subject has been shelved.
It will be interesting to see what Mr, Mantoll has to say on other railways in China, Hitherto, for some unexplained reason, he appears to have confined himself to railways jin which there is; or soams to be, foreign: management, the Chinese railways. all Eastern and the SiH. and S.H.N.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.