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Company has been the target of a good deal of criticism both within and without FormOSA. in the one hand, it
has been claimed that it has so muddled its enter rises
and lost its prestige with the banks that it could not raise the proposed debentures without a government
guarantee.
On the other hand, it has been urged that it is not sufficiently enterprising to act as an adequate instrument for the execution of the national policy in
Barly in the year the representatives of
South China
the Formosan Government were rather severely heckled along these lines by the Budgetary Committee of the list.
In order, perhaps, to meet the second criticism,
Ideut mint-General umie Ura was shortly afterwards appoint da conseller of the Company; there was even rumour that this officer might before long be made pres- ident of the company in r Kate's plaos. of this,
however, nothing more has recently been heard
Moreover,
it has been made clear that lato, who when first
appointed was known as an advoeste of sound finance, and an opponent of the reckless application of the company's resources to uneconomie political ends, still enjoys the confidence of the authorities from the fact that when Fr. Natsuki, dias Iresident of the Taiwan Blectric Company, died suddenly a month ago, it was . Kate whe was nominated to take his place, inaddition to his
existing poets.
It almost looks as if the authorities
take the not unreasonable view that, when a semi-official company is formed, as the Formosa Development Company was, for the express purpose of carrying out development works of a kind insufficiently remunerative to appeal to
ordinary private enterprise, it is hardly fair to
criticise it for
ences which would appear to follow
inevitably from the faithfuls execution of the terms of
ita