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The Daily
Press.
HONGKONG, MARCH 6TH, 1879.
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE MEETING. TO THE EDITOR OF THE "DAILY PRESS." SI-Unwilling as I am to court notoriety or thrust my opinion on matters before the public, yet after reading your report of the Chamber of Demmoree mosting yesterday I consider Mr. Liustent's proposal to have been so ill-judged'. and unfortunate, and the remarks which fell from the various gentlemen who spoke in its favour to bave been so ill-digested and to have displayed so great a want of thought, rather thau want of anowledge of the subject, that, at the risk, perhaps, of being considered impertinent, I will take the liberty of making a few remarks on the subject; as the actual fact is this sensible proposal of Mr. W. H. Forbes to admit certain Chinamon in their own names as members of the Chamber might have proved the thin end of the wedge to introduce a better order of things and a better understanding of the Chinese methods of carrying on their trade. If yon take the name of a well known wealthy individual, you have the opportunity of knowing to a certain extent the amount of his resources and how or where his property is invested, and if you desire to do so can came down upon him at any time; : but take the name of a firm composed say of one wealthy masu in Fatshan," another wealthy man in Sau-tak, with one man of straw managing the firm in Hongkong, who again aru- ploys a broker with a capital of say two jackets, a bed board, and a pair of trousers, the chances are that this last individual passes as the master and is known to foreign merchants as Mr. "Har- monious Prosperity," or whatever the style of the firm may be, and this would be the nobleman who, if Mr. Linstead's proposal bo adopted, would be sent to the Hongkong General Chamber of Commerce. When business prospers and things generally work smoothly, this arrangement may apparently do very well, but let the firm make losses or a heavy contract, say a rice contract, and the market go down, then, having timely knowledge of coming trouble, the two actual capitalists gracefully retire, there being no proof whatever to connect them with the firm. The broker, who probably speaks English with tolerable fuency, having perhaps spent some yoars in Singapore or Penang, comes to your office with a doleful tale, and in order to prove his friendship for you with a view to business when he may be connected with another firm (perhaps same individuals but under a different sign) discloses are of actual partner, Armed with this knowledge you go to the hong and there see a miserable, withered-up, dirty, opium-smoking specimen of humanity, who, if disposed to go in for extravagance, gives the necessary instructions to a solicitor and in due course becomes a bank- rupt, or, if economical, he puts up with a few months imprisonment, and there is on end of the matter.
With the wealthy individual, however, the ense is different. Bis suruame comes first and after it his own peculiar appellation. as Mr. "Wong,"--"Lam-shau" a partner in the firm known as Harmonious Prosperity." just the same as Mr. Hyrie,--Phineas, a partner in the firm known as Turner & Co. With Chinese firms it is precisely the same as with foreign firms, the firm' which to-day is wealthy and powerful, from the fact of one or two of its partnors possessing wealth, may by the retire- ment of those partners become a most petti- fogging concern altogether unworthy of credit. Yet, if a Chinese firm, Europeans would probably still go on doing business with it, because they would not know of its change of circumstances. With regard to the Chiness merchants proposed, probably after careful thought, by Mr. Forbes, I know them to be probably the three wealthiest, as the records of the Land Office will show, and also consider them to be among the best, most straightforward, and truthful men, in the Colony, not even excepting my fellow countrymen, and trust that, if admitted into the Chamber of Commerce as members they may be so in their town true names, as originally proposed, and not by some fanciful trading style or sign which, con- trary to the ideas expressed by those gentlemen ! who spoke on the subject yesterday, may be changed at any time, whereas the surname and name of the individus cannot be changed at all. Apologizing for this iutrusion on your space.-- Yours, &o.,
THOS. IDE BOWLER. Hongkong, 5th March, 1879.
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