"Most of us here this afternoon have felt that we can best serve the empire by staying here and doing our accustomed duties.
I am happy to feel that there are very few indeed who have not assumed some additional responsibility in war service and there is something all can do as well as give. I hope no Englishman is failing to recognize his responsibility toward the various: war funds, "Of our local problems I do not, intend to speak nor of the war clouds which are spreading over this part of the world...,.I need only say that if the storm which threatens does break, our Consul: your committee ready to assume such responsibility as he may see fit to entrust to them and to carry it out in the true English spirit "Now before proceeding to deal with reports and accounts and the usual business of the meeting, I will ask you to rise while I read out the names of those members of the Royal Society of St. George (Shanghai Branch) who have died since the date of the holding of our last Annual Meeting. B. H. M. Broom-hall, M. J. Cox, W. M. Pett, J. R. Maughan, O. S. Benbow-Rowe, W. E. Holland, "The reports and accounts for the year ending December 31, 1940, having been in your hands for some days, I propose, with your permission to take them as read, "Turning now to the income and expenditure account you will notice that, in spite of the didicuit year through which we have passed and the heavy expenditures entailed under the headings of "Education" and "Charities"; we have ended the year with only a few dollars deficit.
"Our disbursements for charity include only one small item under passages, $164. In all the years I have acted as Hon. Almoner for the society I do not remember a year in which we have not had to pay a number of passages home for distressed Englishmen. As you can realize, even one such passage would have given a very different complexion to our balance sheet. In spite of this fact however our total disbursements for the year are only a few dollars behind the record expenditure of 1936....1 would again draw your attention to the monthly subscription scheme which was inaugurated last year I think I am correct in saying that only about one in four of our members have joined the scheme and yet it brings us in a monthly income of over one thousand dollars.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.