Letter from Automobile Club of China to S.M.C. Secretary. Shanghai, May 27, 1924. Source : SMA (SMC), U1-3-583 (1555).

We are directed by our Committee to state that numerous complaints have been received concerning the increase in the number of advertisement hoardings in the outlying districts of the Settlement. We are to mention more particularly the ones at Blydenburg's (corner of Avenue Joffre and Siccawei Road), corner of Hungjao, Warren and Great Western Road Extension, and Jessfield Park vicinity. 

The Settlement can ill afford to make its roads less attractive than they already are and our Committee feels that public spirited action is called for to bring about the removal of the hoardings; falling which other action could be considered with a view to rendering cost of maintenance of this form of advertisement prohibitive by taxation. 

Report R.24/651 by Commissioner of Public Works. Shanghai, June 5, 1924. Source : SMA (SMC), U1-3-583 (1556).

The Council is, of course, in full accord with any movement which would tend to keep unsightly hoardings or advertising of an unpleasant nature from the proximity of Municipal Roads. The case mentioned, however, are all beyond the Settlement Limits where the Council can assert no supervision, except in respect to Blydenburg's Turn which is the Council's Property. In respect of the latter, in my opinion, the hoarding are presentable and should not be a source of complaint. The property was leased by the Council to Carl Crow, Incorporated, for Tls. 250 per annum. Mr Crow has erected hoardings of an artistic nature, and has kept the area leased to him in a clean and presentable conditions. 

I recommend a reply point out the difficulty which confronts the Council in respect to hardings beyond the Settlement Limits and suggesting that perhapds the Automobile Club could intimate some definitve line of action which could be adopted in respect to restricting objectionable hoardings or advertising.

Letter from the S.M.C. Secretary.to the Automobile Club of China. Shanghai, May 29 or June 19, 1924. Source : SMA (SMC), U1-3-583 (1559-1560).
 
I have to acknowledge receipt of your letter of May 27, 1924, in which you deplore the growing tendency of advertising to disfigure the outlying deistricts of the Settlement with unsightly hoardings. 

The desire to preserve much natural beauty spots as the vicinity of Shanghai can boast is one with which the Council is in entire sympathy, but the difficulty of devising practical means of resistance to the activities of traders who are ever-seeking now an effective media of advertisement is one which is not singular to Shanghai but is well-high unversal in the world at large weherever surroundings of exceptional beauty are exposed to the like marring influence. 

The various advertisement boardings instanced in your letter are, save one, outside the Municipal control. The one exception, namely that of Blydenburg's Turn, though within the Council's jurisdiction, is not without measure of artistic merit, and kept as it is, in a clean and respectable condition, it is to this extent to free from offence that Municipal interference would not, it is felt, be reasonably justified. 

(p.2/2) In conclusion, I have to state that whilst the Council will respond sympathetically to any practical suggestion which you may be able, and are invited to advance, a solution of the problem which is presented in the preservation of local scenery from disfigurement, is more likely to be achieved by individual representations to advertisers on the part of public associations, such as your own, speaking on the grounds set forth in your letter, and pointing out that unsightly hoardings are more calculated to incite resentment than to promote the rule of the commodities they advertise.