- POLITICS AND FINANCE IN CHINA. - .
While there is news. of a kind every day in the papers con- cerning happenings in China; the City alwayS- reads"' with considerable- interest the 'exhaustive review of the situation which is made by the chairman at- the annual Meetings of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking -Corporition. They usually epitomize in an impartial-but----eichauitive mariner the net result of the developments: ,of the, year aid also make shrewd observations with regard- to the general OutfoOk. Not least among:the:Man -Y;stracing-_'.state-
nients made at the recent meeting by the Hon. G. M. Bernard, who presided, was one relating to Made
by the Colony of Hong Kong during 'the past thirty...years. In his remarks Mr. Bernard recalled certain obieixitions made by the late Dr. Sun Yat Sen, who, on one -occasion, said he wondered how " Englishmen could do such things as they had done, for example, with the barren rock of Hong Kong within seventy or eighty years, while China in four thousand year.. had no place like Hong Kong." Mr. Bernard seized the occasion to point out that, with an administration of law and order and consideration for her industrious population, China could accomplish equally wonderful changes throughout the country, and he added': " She would receive the -whole- hearted co-operation of all foreigners in China, as well as that of their Governments, in bringing about such conditions as would Make- China one of the most prosperous countries in the world." As regards the bank itself, I may pay tribute again to the manner in which the Hong Kong Bank has been, able to maintain its earning power and its general strength as displayed in the annual balance-sheet.
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