Of course, this did not work for long, Chinese have never trusted teach other, and because he had to stand security for his fellow merchants, many a Chinese of capital was disinclined to join in. He knew that mo power on earth can Prevent a dishonest trader from pursuing his dishonest practices while he has some ong whom he can lure as his prey; the only remedy, the Chinese says, is not to trade with him, But at the present time in Shanghai, in any line of business, who can tell with certainty which is the honest and which the dishonest trader among the Chinese? One can, of course, distinguish firms of probity from the length lof time they have been trading and the general record that firm haa for meeting its obligations. So far, so good. But among Chinese there is no such thing as regular registration of partnerships, and it may be that a firm thet has always "played the game" may suddenly have withdrawn from its controlling personnel a man or men Jof undoubted integrity, upon whom the firm has depended for its reputation, and that firm conceivably may at once drop from the desirable category of an honest firm into the very reverse. Yet the trading public has no means bf ascertaining such changes. There is not a single means at the service of the foreigner for discovering the standing of a Eh cern that he is trading with. remark may be questioned, and the high and mighty may retort tha: they have never had such trouble, but my reply is that if there were such means readily accessible the banks of all people would not be called upon to register such frequent financial losses at the hands} of Chinese of this undesirable class accepts the contract that his Chinese client has signed. The standardizing of contracts will do much, boi, like the best Chinese Jock that ever was made, it will only safeguard you, as the Chinese themselves admit, against the honest man. Tt ought to be possible for a merchant to apply" to hi chamber of commerce for inform tion retarding all recognized dealfers in any trade, and if he found that the one with whom he was negotiating was not in the list, the [chamber of commerce ought to have the means by which they could at once ascertain the standing of such an individual or firm. The Chinese who intends to do straight business will never shy at any. reason-fable precautionary measures, for whatever the foreigner does to endeavour to stabilize trade reacts to his benefit indirectly. If any dealer refused to recognize any regulations that were drawn up for this purpose it would be better to the business pass, and that deal-for should be earmarked, so that no responsible foreign merchant would deal with him in the future. There must be ways and means of safeguarding trade. The standardizing of contracts is @ good thing, but, as I see, it goes only part way 10 event trouble. The fall solution Ties in cooperative effort among, foreigners as a whole—bat everyone reading this knows as well as I do hhow difficult ce-operation is in great cosmopolitan and strictly competitive community as Shanghai is.
But something must be done, and done now, if foreigners are to' con-Unuc Aying their flags with profit,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.