The Shanghai Municipal Council, in its cfücial Gazette, has repeated its appeal for earnest ce-operation from Chinese and foreign residents in making early direct remittances to the Revenue Office of such monies as may be due to the Council This appeal will be sympathetically received by all thinking citizens. Everybody, great or small, realizes how essential it is to have cash available for carrying on. The Council is the Settlement as a whole in respect of its efforts to keep the machinery running and all are interested in ensuring that that machinery should be enabled to function as well as possible, and that where it has been damaged the repairs should be made with the greatest possible celerity. No doubt these are times when it is far easier to put aside reminders of a ratepayer's obligations and vaguely excuse the action by comparing shrunken personal resources with the imagined potentialities of the Council's Finance Department. It, however, thought be given to the amount of destruction which these unfortunate hostilities have effected in Shanghai, it will be seen that, however large may be the individual loss, the Council, or rather the Settlement, must inevitably be the chief sufferer of all. In the long run this will react grievously on the economic position of everyone for obviously the Settlement will have to recover its financial equilibrium and the process will involve retrenchment or increased taxation, or both—unpleasant operations which, as recent experience tells, invariably create uncomfortable emotions in the public mind.
Shanghai does not normally require elaborate instruction on these points. In a city which has built itself up so largely on commercial enterprise the relations between the credit and the debit side of the ledger are thoroughly understood. This was notably shown in a recent letter from a Chinese correspondent who aptly pointed out that the maintenance (f efficient services, which afforded protection from the ravages of war and disasters and pestilences, cost money. He went on to underline the heavy loss involved in the destruction in the Northern and Eastern districts and the increased appropriations for the mobilization of the Volunteer Corps. He was of course on sound ground in pointing out that the Settlement affords a sanctuary to a large civilian population engaged normally in trade, industry and commerce, and this population is as much concerned in cooperating with the administration of the Council as any official who after all is really the servant of the community. It is as the servant of the community that the Controller. and Treasurer, through the Council, makes his appeal for prompt payment of dues. Many people find it almost impossible to fulfil this obligation but obviously they have to make the effort if they wish to avoid complete disaster, for payment of taxation is an. essential part of the maintenance of the family household. Some may find it necessary to defer meeting their obligations in full until they in their turn have been able to obtain: dues for which they are creditors. There are, however, many for whom this operation is perfectly simple and' feasible and they in particular should not hesitate in thus rendering real community service. This journal has no compunction in saying that for a citizen of the Settlement the payment of rates or land tax due is an obligation which should take precedence over any other. Admirable though it may be to give money in the cause of charity here, the generosity which facilitates that donation but omits to pay the Council's just dues is of dubious worth.
It has been suggested that the situation might be eased for the Council if some further relaxation could be made in the handling of "wei wah" cheques. The problem is very delicate, Every firm in Shanghai is endeavouring to cope with it according to its lights. The Joint Committee of the four Government banks, in close contact with and enjoying the ce-operation of the foreign banks, is tackling this problem with caution and due regard to the various complex factors involved. It would seem undesirable io attempt in any way to make suggestions which might hamper the work of that Committee. Its difficulties are many, and some of them are not capable of full appreciation. by lay opinion. On general principles it will be admitted that the Settlement itself, and indeed the wider interest of the Government which is naturally specially concerned at this moment in preserving the economic fabric of the country wherever safeguarding provisions can be made, will be best served are double-deckers and, as their name suggests, it resembles the bus rather than tram with the exception of the arm which brings the necessary current from the overhead wires to the motor. The London Transport Board's it pro-present gramme also includes a notable extension of as way. A joint scheme costing £2,500,000 is to be put into effect and when completed it will, among other things, extend the Central London Tube to Ruislip, eight miles beyond Ealing. In the present dislocation of Shanghai affairs it is pleasant to contemplate the ability of London to extend its transport facilities.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.