At no time did the Council invite bids ov take any initiative in the matter, Tt contented itself by me forming anyone, who expressed th> desire to make an offer, that if any offers, were made they would considered and in the Cotineil's Aiseretion submitted tothe Fates payers.
The Council also felt that con-doting the magnitude and Import-nce of the issues involved in. the Possible sale of the clecteicity undertaking It woul be of rear assistance to the Council to have the advice and opinion of prominent business men of the community outside the Couneit itself. With jew to obtaining this independent advice and opinion the Coane appointed a Special Electricity Committee to consider the matter and report to the Council Department to the community of] Shanghai could not be gauged solely by the amount of money invested or the profits made. In the Committee's opinion, the prosperity' of Shanghai is closely bound up in the efficient administration of the Electricity Department: the rapidity of its development in the past and the favourable rates at which it has been able to supply electricity Is to a Inrge extent responsible for the enormous development of local industries. The Committee realized how important it was that ity of efficient running of the Department should be maintained, a continuity which can only be pos-if the undertaking is regarded purely as an industrial concern and beyond the scope of political fluence, and in view of possible! future changes in the status of the Settlement, was strongly of the opinion that it should be safeguarded from all possibility of interfercence. 'The Committee, therefore, desires the Council to realize that its underlying motive in recommending the sale outright was that it eon-led Sidered it to be in the best interests of the Council and the community' that the Department should placed in such a position as to enable it to function independently of political and other influences which might impair its efficiency.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.