To the Editor of the "Norra-Curna Dairy News."
Str,—In_ your yesterday's view on Dr. Hodgkin's book, "China's Place in the Family of Nations," your writer questions the truth of Dr. Hodgkin's prediction that the present sysuwa of compradores will soon be replaced by direct agencies held and managed by the Chinese, who if not ousting the foreign business men altogether, will seriously challenge their supreme acy. Your reviewer doubts those statements, on the ground that we Chinese have not yet learnt the sacredness of trust funds and that the native dealers do not face their losses when the market goes against them. He does not give the sources of informations on vhich ho bases his conclusions, but let me hope that they are extensive enough to justify his coming, to those conclusions.
Rut so far as I know of my own countrymen, we have as good sense of the sacredness off trust funds as anybody else. We judge whether a person (be- a gentleman er not by the way he handles other people's money. Some of us may have forgotten to be scrupulous with their neighbour's property, but they are rather the exceptions, which, as Mr. Gordius Mielsen says in a letter to you en a similar topic, only prove the rule.
GAMBLER OR MERCHANT, And as regards the failure of the native dealers in carrying out their contracts owing to the big rise in the exchange value of ged, while I admit that their conduct will always be a stain on the good name of the Chinese merchants in their dealings with foreigners, at the same time J cannot hold the foreign firms who were parties to those contracts, irely free of blame. They must have known that those Chinese dealers were really gambling on exchange and not doing business for legitimate gain, and should not have compounded with their Practices but put a stop of signing any more speculative contracts. A Chinese merchant's word may, or may not, be his bend, but a gambler's word when ther he be Chinese or foreigner, rarely, if over, is, especially when he is playing a losing game.
Let me hope that it will not be attributed to my partiality to my nationals, if I say that where we Chinese are really weak, is not it our essential moral character, but in our knowledge of the modern practices and ethics of commerce. Like you we love beauty and honour nobleness in character. Like you, we believe in being, and desire to be, kind t> others, faithful to our duties, kenest, courteous and loyal in "ur engagements. But in the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.