Chinese members of the Shanghai Municipal Council and also some Chinese committeeman of the same body have received threatening letters several times asking them to resign, it is reliably learned. The letters were addressed to them individually by the Chinese Rate-Payers Readjustment Committee, a new Chinese organization operating in Hongkew, the inauguration of which was reported by this journal many weeks ago.
The last time the S.M.C. members received such letters was September 19 when they were given only five days to reconsider their attitude but so far no harm has come to the receivers. They were asked to present their resignations to the Chinese Ratepayers Association, where they were elected, and not to the Council, It is stated that the reason given by the new committee is that the Chinese officials serving on the Council were elected more than three years ago and that no elections have been held since. It is obvious, it is pointed out, the Chinese Ratepayers Association in the Settlement has been following -Chungking's order, which provides that no elections in, public bodies are allowed during the period of resistance.
Tt is learned that at present one Chinese member of the Council, Mr, Eugene Y. P., Kiang, is already absent from the city in view of political threats, having been black-listed by the new Nanking regime. There are only four Chinese councillors here.
It was learned that the operatives of the French Tramways had no plausible reason for staging a walkout, any differences they might have had with the company having bee straightened out recently and the! terms of settlement laid down were described as paving the way for a permanent- understanding. M. J. Favret, the manager of the company disclosed yesterday that the strikers had not presented any demands to the company, but were prevented from going to work by pickets composed of men of the loafer type.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.