ly never expects to get through The Tramway Company probab~# any year without any criticism, but at the same time one can imagine that the heads of departments would feel more happy were they subjected to rather less than the flood of comment which has poured upon the system during the past 12 months. This makes it all tha more strange that the Chairman, at the annual meeting of shareholders in London, did not make a single word of reference to any of the popular complaints as voiced in Shanghai by the people who use the trams. He spoke about the company having already added to the income from the Singapore system, about the prospects for railless extensions in Shanghai which will add to the company's local revenue, and of the company's loss through subsidiary coinage, with regard to which the company is considering yet another scheme of counteraction. The Chairman also announced that the profits for the year amounted to the very comfortable figure of £113,299, and a dividend of 20 per cent. for the year was declared. However, not a word was said about the uncomfortable overcrowding of the trams, and though there has been talk for a long while of new rolling stock, no explanation was given as to the continued delay in its arrival. Some of the profit which London absorbs, Shanghai might be excused for thinking could quite reasonably be used for improving the conditions of travelling for those who pay that sum. Every official concerned was thanked at the end of the meeting "for the successful results of the past year." The board of directors could earn the thanks of a far larger body of people if they would do something more for the comfort and' safety of their customers.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.