Secondly, it is about the curtailment of expenditures. According to The report from our, General De-Dartment, a saving of about $85,000 nay be expected in the salaries and allowances, of staff, and over. $200,- Soe, in printing matter, stationery, medicines and sundries." Again, ae: fording to. the report fom Stores Department, a saving of 100,000 war effected in the first half year, double that amount may" hough no statist have been made faved. during the whole year," Al-
by the other departments, savings are expected in the expenses of all of them. opening of sources of revenue aside from the curtailment of -expenditures. "In opening up the sources, capital has to be invested first. If the Nanking-Shanghai Railway is to increase its transportation business, double-tracking and construction' of wharves at Woosung would be necessary. Similarly, the Shang. hai Hangchow - Nin Railway, would have to complete the section From Tsao Ngo River to Chien Tang River in order to increase its traffic. All such works need an outlay suitable amount of funds. On the other hand, curtailment of expendi-ending. less money; but sometimes a certain amount of money has to be spent first. For Instance, we have to pay every month a' sum of $1,200 for the present fourteen telephones at Shanghai-North Station. We may reduce this expenditure to $600 per month by installing an eighty-line.switchboard of our own, but we have to spend about $10,000 first in pur-fassing the switchboard Again, we have to pay at present about 36,000 per month for the leased office premises in the Embankment Building. This is very _uneconomical, indeed. Much savings can be effected by ig our own, offices, but a construction fund of Several hundred thousand dollars would have to be provided first. In short, we need money to spend either in trying to increase our revenues or in attempting to reduce our expenditures. We wish to call Mr, Mayers's attention to the point and hope the British and Chinese Corporation will give us their support in such things.
'As regards the staff of these two railways, we have often received complaints' 9f overstating, and "the consequent heavy expenditure on! salaries and allowances. I would point out that this state of affairs fea result of many years working. The chief cause of the same lies in the fact that no definite number} has been specified for the employees, of each department. We are now considering. the present and future Tequirements of various departnents with a view to fixing @ limit for each of them. Another thing we are carrying out is to place the Tight men in the right positions, to dispense with the useless ones, and to stop filling up the unnecessary vacancies. In this manner, we are Sure that in the near future all the men employed will be suitable for the work to which they are assigned. As already stated, a saving of about $85,000 has been effected in our ex-Penditure on salaries and allow-Ences since I and Dr. Wu took over charge of this Administration. We wish Mr. Mayers and the British and Chinese Corporation will pay attention to this.
In Mr. Mayers's present trip to China for investigation of the railways in which the British and Chinese Corporation is interested, the first, reiways he will see are Nanking-Shanghai and. Shanghai-Hangchow-Ningpo Railways, We earnestly hope Mr, Mayers will give ts his valuable advice for our guidance in the administration of these two Railways.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.