Northern Areas Complaint To the Editor of the "Mobrh-ChimA Day News"
Sim,—It is a grateful and' comforting note that, notwithstanding the recent. heavy drains, the wells of charity have not yet run dry and on every hand there are impressive evidences of so many benevolent ones being abroad, busied with good works. So much so, indeed, is this apparent that general belief in the existence of dear old Santa Claus is being, engendered.
To refer. to one or two of the most prominent local benevolences: The Year started with the Japanese "New Years. Gift a donation to the foreign—or, as it is put nowadays, "third-party" bombed, bullied and be-devilled residents of Hongkew.
This seasonable gift, maybe? was 9ne of the time Danaos variety and for which, so far, there does not upbear-to have been any great expression of thanks to the donors, either by communications to the Press, or to C.H.9, Little Tokyo. A. Sift ig a gift for all that, however and, With the Editor's permission, the writer avails himself of this opportunity of expressing his thanks therefore.
Assuredly the age of miracles' Aot past, as now comes the Gas Company also bearing gilts to the timorous; their particular China New Year cumshaw being a 15 cent. increase in the cost of gas supplied by that monopoly!
The SAMURAI does not pose as a scientific or chemical sharp, although in the days that were he got a decent pass in "stinks." But he enquires, in all sincerity, if it is economically possible for the Gas Ca, to form a liaison with the S.P.C., giving. the latter fuel in exchange for the current which provides it?
The adjacent Huangpu provides an inexhaustible. reservoir of "raw material" for electrolysis and if it "were possible, and profitable, to set Up a suitable plant, the hydrogen derived might be passed into the Gas Co.'s gasometers, there to mix with carburetted hydrogen, while the by-product, the oxygen, stored in cylinders under pressure, would Prove to be a by no means negligible commercial asset.
The appended excerpt, culled from.
recent issue of the "North-China Daily News," does not seem to have attracted' the attention which it undoubtedly merits:
The board of directors of the Cha". pel Electricity Works has decided 10 Wind up the business. AN Us staff members, with the exception of a few officers, will be discharged with a non salary and a travelling allowance of $60, it is reporea.
The Works suspended (operations shotty after the outbreak of Sino-Japanese hostilities in Chapel. Its Power, plant located, at, Wentsaopang Mr. Loh Pa-borg. general manager Of the plant, was assassinated recently, It is nice to learn that the members of the staff have been presented with A a month's salary-cum-$80, travelling expenses to Ningpo mo' fah, but the question arises, what has become of the money left with the Company as deposits? A Many, like the present writer, settled in the Hongkew Park district on the understanding that gas, water and electricity were supplied by public utility companies of some standing. and. integrity, The first "wheeze" was the water supply. The service by the Shanghai Water Works being.a grave in-tingement of China's sovereign rights, was wangled by consumers paying the Chapei outfit for the water supplied by the Shanghai Water Works.
Later on, cables were cut, fuses exchanged, and in the twinkling of an eye, so to speak, residents found themselves committed to the tender mercies of the Chapei Electricity 1 Ca. which provided, an unsatisfactory service, both as' regards the voltage RP} and the "surging" of the current.
Consumers were- frequently circularized by letters, pamphlets, etc., L all in Chinese, and on representations made at the dirty, smelly office in North Szechuen Road, that as a number of the consumers were foreigners, a translation of these orders, advices and inhibitions was ad4 visable, one was informed with a contemptuous grin that the outfit was "a Chinese Government affair and that no change in procedure could be made."
This latter fact, if fact it be, leads one furiously to think and imagination boggles at the spectacle presented: The government of China "diddling" depositors out of er money, money demanded in the first instance to ensure that the consumer did not "diddle" it!
Similarly with the water deposit: allin-all the company demanded irom and received approximately $50 from the writer who wonders if it is quite "gone beyond recall"
SAMURAI, Shanghai, Feb. 3.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.