This is not to be wondered at, for joint stock companies and corporations as conducted in the West were unknown in China before the advent of foreign merchants in our midst.

Since then a few joint stock companies have been started in Hongkong, Shanghai, and other ports; these have been carried on by Chinese exclusively, but the managers have not as yet mastered the systematic Western methods of conducting such concerns.
Even unpractised and inexpert eyes can see great room for improvement in the management of these businesses.

Here, I must admit, the Japanese are ahead of us.

Take, for instance, the Yokohama Specie Bank: it has a paid-up capital of Yen 30,000,000 and has branches and agencies not only in all the important towns in Japan, but also in different ports in China, London, New York, San Francisco, Honolulu, Bombay, Calcutta and other places.

It is conducted in the latest and most approved scientific fashion; its reports and accounts, published half-yearly, reveal the exact state of the concern's financial position and incidentally show that it makes enormous profits.