Trade Increasing in Spite of War: Expanding Market Prince George was the principal: speaker at the annual dinner of the China Association, held in London recently. Lord Southborough, the president, occupied the chair.
Proposing the toast of the China Association, Prince George said:—It is my privilege to propose ths toast of a great ahd important body, representing British and Chinese trade here and in the Far East, including those vast undertaking upon which commerce so much depends—the railways and shipping. For many years—some 40, I believe—you have played a very important part in cultivating those great com-
Drought friendship, wealth, and emmercial rests which have ployment to several generations of Your organization has for England and far apart, and the admi-of such a vast business. watching markets, anticipating the demands of customers, and ensuring the delivery of all kinds of goods in a distant land, must have called for great administrative capacity. T do not say exceptional eapaci as what you have accomplished the past has been just the kind of adventurer's business for which w2, as a nation, are so eminently suit (Cheers.) J Needless to say, when confronted with heavy obligations, you have been fortunate in producing some remarkable men to deal with them, not merely men of business hi students of life and character partiularly suited to deal with the complicated affairs of the Far East.
British Leaders in China In other words, the opportunity has always found the man. Sir Thomas Wade, for instance, who was President in 1890-01, a great Chinese scholar of whom it is said that there are naval and consular officers still struggling with text-book on China, even to thi day. Sir Robert Jardine was another—the name of Jardine has been a household word in China from the earliest days of our commercial relations with her, and Sir Thomas Sutherland was closely a: sociated with those mysterious letters—"P. & 0." What recollections, sensations, even romances, do these two letters bring to most of us. Then in the War came Mr. George Jamieson, and, after him, Lord Inch-cape, Mr. 'Frederick' "Anderson and Sir John Jordan, the last a distinguished representative of. Great Britain in China—a malter of diplomacy, a man for whom, I believe, the Chinese entertained a special regard.
My appearance here to-night as your guest is duo no doubt in part to my desire to become better acquainted with the origin and distribution of trade, which goes to enrich the Empire, and to make the acquaintance: of men who shoulder heavy responsibilities which, in good (Continued on Page 559.)
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.