Aug. 3.
One of the chronic complaints of Shanghailanders is that smoke gets their eyes and not as pleasantly as when Miss Irene Dunne discusses that subject, In spite of the allusion, that does not of course refer to' that other smoke nuisance, the casual pipe or cigar at the cinema. In the early morning any one who is enterprising enough to ascend to some convenient eminence in his city will probably surprised at the pall of smoke: which'seems to hang over the whole. place at that time of day, and it therefore not surprising that the Shanghai Municipal Council should. And Itself impelled to take serious notice of what is known as the smoke nuisance, Last month the.
Council issued an important state: ment on the subject with special reference to the Riverside Power Station belonging to the Shanghai Power Company. That partteular source of complaint has veer. frequently examined in these columns, and the Council's an= nouncement disclosed the existence of experiments for further reduction of the smoke nuisance in so far as it is aggravated by the Power Station. Briefly, the position that the Power Company has successfully eliminated the smoke mulganee from 61 per cent, of the coal which its plant consumes. It the experiments which will completed in November are success~ ful there will be an elimination of further 31 per cent, Thus only 8 per cent, of the Company's coal consumption may in future con= tribute to the smoke nuisance of] Shanghai. These figures can examined in a special article which appears elsewhere and it seems that. they are essential toa complete understanding of the problem as pounded by the Council in its recent statement, For when it is) appreciated that the coal consump~ tion of the Power Station represents only 21 per cent. of the {otal coal consumption in Shanghai, will be understood that the Council has a much bigger problem to solve than that of merely encouraging the Company to continue. ts experiments, which have already cost nearly $400,000. In other. words, it 1s important that the: Councit should consider whether, adequate measures are being taken cope with the smoke nuisance in the whole of the area under its Jurisdiction, Tt will be seen from the state ments which have been made from time to time that the Shanghai Power Company has seriously at~ tempted to eradicate the nuisance and it has very frankly explained. the diMeulties confronting any effort to make a speedy sweep of the Shanghai atmosphere, Those dif culties are in greater or less degree experienced by other concerns. First of all, Shanghai is compelled by the present prohibitive import duties fo purchase its coal within the country, There is every ground for sails faction on this account, for the stimulation of home industries recognized everywhere as desirable, Unfortunately, however, the type of coal thus made available to Shanghai is exactly the type which most intractable to the earnest eliminator of the smoke nuisance.
From the public's point of view there are three different forms In which a nuisance is caused by the burning of coal: smoke, fly ash or grit, and sulphur, As any procedure which reduces fly ash and sulphur will also tend to eliminate smoke, the problem is treated as concerned exclusively with the elimination of fy ash and sulphur. From the statement published to-day it will be seen that the Company has eliminated the ash and sulphur from its largest boller house, where pulverized fne! is burnt, by the installation of washers." That particular class of fud lends itself more readily than the other kind to this form of treatment, but the experiments now being conducted to deal with the coal fed to the dollers by means of stokers will be watched with considerable interest and the lessons learnt may ossist the Council in grappling with: the problem generally. It can, of course, be argued that the Councit should insist on the use of smokeless: coal by the various industrial con cerns and other nuisance consumers, it the term may be politely used. The cost of such a remedy would, however, be prohibitive for the rea son already stated, and in the present economic conditions no sensible person would expect Shanghai to) commit financial suicide In that way.
The public has a right to ask whether the Council has been suf dently alert in dealing with the smoke nuisance caused by concerns; other than the Power Station, The point is of importance because the total contribution of these concerns to the smoke nuisance involves 79 per cent. of the total coal consumed in Shanghai. It must also be remembered that coal is} not the only cause of the nuisance. As is pointed out in the special article, a bus may In a few minutes! generate more noxious vapour than a chimney will do in an hour. Shanghailanders are all too familiar with the vagary of the bus which suddenly stops and belches out black fumes for the space of a few minutes, to the intense discomfort of the neighbourhood and, probably, danger to the traffic.
An important point should. be made, (00, in considering the actual location of the Power Station works.
a member of the Council could ascend to the top of the building in which this newspaper is published and would look down the Whangpoo he would se the Power Company's plant lying in the dim distance like a huge black many-logged elephant lying on its back. But between him and that elephant could be discerned a positive screen of chimneys throwing out their full quota of black smoke. It is, therefore, exceedingly doubtful whether the smoke nuisance of which the majority of Shanghailanders complain emanates from the Power Station, always excepting, of course, the residents in the immediate vicinity of Riverside and those factories to which special reference' has been made. Another device for: reducing the smoke nuisance is by the erection of higher chimneys. This Is to be attempted by the Company, but exports are divided in their opinion ofts efficacy. There is 'a strong body which-holds that the elevation of a chimney merely means that the nuisance Is spread over a wider area. In the event, therefore, of the urban development of Shanghai being increased, it will simply mean that the inner circle will ko protected at the expense of the outer. 'This, however, is a matter on which' dogmatic' views cannot be expressed. The conse quence is that the Council should realize that its obligations to the public have not been fulfilled by the negotiations with the Company, valuable though they are.—The public will wish to know whether the Council's officials are actively taking steps to review the nuisance. in all its aspects in Shanghai, for there Is a distinct impression that closer attention to the performances: of certain smaller concerns would) be beneficial to the Settlement. In. the area in which the Council itself moves and has its being this nuisance is particularly rife. Along the Bund the combination of the belching chimneys. in the} central district with the eccentric-_ cities of the various types of river craft {ends to produce a nuisance which is quite inexcusable. Shang-hollanders, if they are sensible, will realize that certain penalties have to be paid for being residents of a highly industrialized urban area, but there.are limits. The con: sensus of opinion is that they have been greatly exceeded owing to the Haxity' of oficial supervision and, perhaps, undue concentration on the activities of the Power Com-any.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.