Recently a spate of suggestions for economizing has issued from officialdom, and in particular the pruning of festivities in connection with weddings and Invish displays at funerals has been recommended General Chang Ting-fan, Mayor of Greater Shanghai, has now gone one better than his fellows, for not only does he deprecate the amount of money spent on such events but he intends to forbid the observance of birthdays unless the person concerned has reached the ripe age of 60, We do not know how the average Chinese will feel about the matter, but certain it is that such 'a measure would break the hearts of all the children in Europe, an, furthermore, we should be bereft of those picturesque gatherings when the heir to the lord of the manor comes of age. One class of people alone, we fancy, would bless the General's fertile brain—those Indies of uncertain age, who a generation ago looked lier than they were but who nowdays—so the cynics tell us—look a great deal younger. But do they celebrate birthdays at all, even as things are? of course, something rather' fine about the thought thet increasing reverence will be added to the fact that not until a man or woman has reached three score years will he or she be publicly honoured, for by that time there should be a maturity, or at any rate the fact that for such a period they have kept their end up, which deserves. a certain degree of recognition, It used to be°said that people of that age liked to forget about their birthdays, but it cei tainly does net seem so in Shanghai, where rather there is increasing pride and abuest a spirit of com-Petition, Peaceful pursuits, and for the other to tone down its high demands to the pitch of practical realization.
There was, of course, too much impatience and inevitably much disappointment, Mankind does not become most noble, any more than the old aphorism tells us he becomes most base, in the twinkling of an eye, The immediate result of war in the field was war in society. But.
the years move on we are Justified in thinking that both these conflicts have begun tols bear fruit. The war that was fought to end war is crystal li: ing from a mere heady phrase into something of definite meaning. There appears a real effort among the different classes of for each one of us, a reality as much within reach of a common determination as was victory ten years ago. In all this the annual observance of Armistice Day and especially that wonder ful two minutes silence helps more than words can_ express, It comes as a reminder of terrible dangers and poignant, tion equally borne in the it speaks of ideals once but dizzily glimpsed through the heated air but now resolving themselves purpose; it is the embodiment of all the great dreams that sustained through the war, and a beacon of those hopes which it depends only on ourselves to achieve, Daily Except Sunday:
ACT p.m.—Musical programme Menday.—Operatie and in ite instrumental and. vocal Wedvestay—Light music, patter, "Thursday Organ, piano and voeah che vocal and instruc mental Each' programme will' be inter:
Suturday—Light aperu, bund, eter
srersed with orchestral music.
At 7 pam. News service" and market report, followed by dance musie and light vocal pieces, At 9 pam, The Majestic Hotet Orchestra will be broadcast and during the intervals, instrumental, Yocal and light orchestral music will be played when no concert or lecture is announced, From 10-11 am, all dance musie will be given,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.