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England, at the beginning of December, he had decided to
resign his membership of the Board. One of his reasons for
this decision was, no doubt, the difficulty of absenting him-
self at frequent intervals from Hong Kong to attend meetings held at Nanking; another was the fact that the proceedings at the meetings take place (not unnaturally) in Chinese, a langu- age of which he (like all his four British colleagues on the Board) is completely ignorant. But the primary reason for his action was of a more fundamental nature, which a perusal of his minute makes sufficiently clear. Whether his British colleagues will think it worth while to retain their member- ship of the Board probably depends largely upon whether they find it possible to reconcile the existing facts of the situa- tion with their conception of their responsibilities as trustees.
When the statute of 1931 was going through its legislative stages early in that year, a good deal of critic- ism was directed against it both in and out of Parliament on the ground that it compelled the Chinese to confine their purchases of railway material to the British market. It was urged that it was unfair to the Chinese to debar them from buying in the cheapest market or from calling for tenders from all the industrial nations. It was indeed unfortunate that Great Britain considered it necessary to attach such a condition to her gift, but this is perhaps e comparatively trifling objection to the new indemnity agreement and is much less serious than others to which we have called attention. If British locomotives and other railway material were sub- stantially dearer than those produced in foreign factories, and were of no better quality, the Chinese would have real stantial grounds for complaint. We are glad to be able to re- port, however, that the very numerous adverse criticisms of the new agreement WWW which we heard from Chinese were in no case directed against that part of it which obliged