It is satisfactory to learn that Messrs. JarQi Matheson & Ca, have found the direct method of engaging labour for their Kung Yih Mill much to the taste of the workers and so con-due ive to general effcieney, since its institution orber in the year, that when their Ewo and Yangtszepoo mills reopen in due course at the] termination of the present tribulations, they will adopt it there. Thus another British cotton textile operating company in China has assumed lity for all phases of employment isos involving several It constitutes 2 step forward which progressive employers will watch with in-rest and sympathy. This abolition of the con tract system could not have been attempted without much planning and careful forethought and the Company' is to be warmly congratulated fon its courage and vision, especially at a time like this. It gives scope for due consideration of further adjustments which modern experience commends for the full protection of the worker against exploitation. Even when payment made direct there ix a danger that recruiting agents will somehow manage to secure control fof the workers' waxes by direct means such fas the provision of accommodation, On this point it should eventually be feasible to consider the possibility of providing substitute. living accommodation either through public agency or! through social organizations working under oft cial countenance, The dormitory plan, tentatively adopted in some parts of this country, is nol free from abuse in that it virtually reproduces: the whole-time control of the worker which not the least of the drawbacks of the contract system. Shanghai has reason to welcome this definite movement toward improvement of itt Industrial regime. It should stimulate confidence in the eventual success of meastires for enforein legislation designed to bring industrial con ditions Nere up to modern standards. Messrs B.D. Tata & Ca. ae from 1021 have dispensed with the contract labour system Shanghai. 'The China Printing & Finishinx Company, by far the biggest calico printing concern and British up to the hilt, has never done other than engage its Jabour direct. 'The China' Printing & Finishing Company is the only British firm in China which deals with the whole processes embraced by the cotton textile Industry from the handling of the raw cotton to] the out-turn of the finished product in the bleached, dyed and printed forms. Its parent] company, the Calico Printers Association, Amongst the premier textile concerns in Great] Britain, and probably the largest combine of its kind in the world, Messrs, Paton Baldwins, Ltd., snather important British firm, engaged in the woollen textile industry, has never employed contract labour nor used the compradore system; from the time of its starting operations in China three years ayo, it has consistently recruited its labour direct. This, of course, does not detract from the merit of Messrs Jardine, Matheson & Cos adoption of the direct Feeruitment method. As the oldest British textile concern their abandonment of the contract system is, however, specially significant The Custom House at Shanghai will be closed to business on November 12, the anniversary of the birth of the late Dr. Sun Yat-sen.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.