In reply to a suggestion from the chair, Mr, J, T. Read, of the A.P.C. spoke of the problem of supplying Shanghai with petrol and fuel oil during the hostilities. Normally, his company and the Standard Oil and Texaco companies shipped such fuel from their Pootung and Gough Island plants to the Point at, Yangtszepoo, where lorries picked the fuel up and brought it into Shanghai. With the outbreak of hostilities, this route had to be abandoned and the old system of bringing it right up the river had to be employed, The three companies combined to use three. pontoons off the Bund in front of the Shanghei Club, and here one of their greatest worries was the danger of fire; despite the efforts of both the companies' employees and the police guards, both foreigners and Chinese would insist on walking on and around the pontoons with lighted cigarettes or cigars in their hands. Fortunately, an untoward nature occurred.
Finally, Mr; A. Corritt was invited to speak and he told the meeting briefly of some of the difficulties attendant on the building of bridges, in particular the Chientang River Bridge at Hangchow, where work was often held up owing to the frequent air raid alarms. The first train ran over the bridge on the night of September 27, and since then the bridge had been opened Later, his company told by the Chinese authorities that the bridge-building equipment would have to be either moved up-river or sunk, He immediately protested against the latter, but was handed a written copy of these orders, given a "receipt" for his protest, and two big cranes were then sunk in the river The rest of the equipment was, he hoped, safe up-river,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.