Peking never tires of talking about what an unsightly tug the tramway will be when completed. The Chinese population is of course conservative and opposes the introduction of electric trams on principle. The foreigners are sentimental and fee] that the trams wil! not be in keeping with Peking's general character. Motorists fear that the roadway will not be kept up and that when the surface on either side of the rails has worn away the tracks wil] be a real obstruction. The Chinese merchants plead the cause of the ricsha coolie and the Chamber of Commerce looks forward in horror at the prospect of hundreds of awkward and _absent-minded people being killed by these new engines of death.
Now that the rails are laid and the posts are up, the foreign engineers resident in the community are the bitterest critics of the new tramway.
They say tnat a worse job of its kind has never been done. There are no Sleepers. The rails are simply laid on a bed of broken stone, not too tightly packed and are held in place by steel tie-bars. It is pointed out that street railways in the Occident are laid on concrete Beds in the cities and on ordinary wooden sleepers in the rural districts where the railways own their own right of way.
One group or another of critics has finally contrived to get Wu Pei-fu's ear and the Loyang Marshal has now written to the Peking Government a letter asking that the tramway contract be cancelled. The Chinese papers have for some time hinted that the opposition was wasting valuable energy because the new tramway company was short of money and would never complete the project anyway. There seems to be some truth in this, for recent ly persons claiming to represent the company have been canvassing possible lenders with an appeal for a loan of $8,000,000, with which to purchase more equipment and to complete the power house at Tungchow. The security offered is the tramway itself and the cavipment already landed here. The agents of the company claim that $4,000,000 has already been invested in equipment and construction. If for any reason the contract is cancelled or the company is unable to raise further funds one wonders what will become of the tracks and poles. If no one is-interested in upkeep "the rails will undoubtedly He a1 Sign the funds "remitted" for
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.