In spite of the rice merchants' threat to ignore the order of the Rice Guild and the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce to limit! the price of rice to $14, the price, which last week went" up to a height unprecedented in history, namely $16, has been lowered and is still falling, until on Thursday class grain was being sold in mary stores for $12.30 a picul.
Had it not been for the prompt action of these two bodies, wae were backed up by the Shanghai Municipal Council and the Shanghai Native City Magistrate, who issued proclamations forbidding the hoarding of and profiteering in rice, prices might easily have gone up to the $20 mark. Even as it was, with the price at $16, Shanghai was threatened with a famine, strikes, and looting. The situation has now, however, taken a course which if it continues, will ease things! greatly.
Twenty thousand piculs of A nam rice, ordered by Mr. Kan Chit nar, managing director of the Nanyang Brothers Tobacco Ca., were expected to arrive yesterday from Hongkong. It had not done so, however, at a late hour. Further! orders have been sent to Annam and Siam, as well as_ to South China by this enterprising com. pany, so it is hoped that stocks sti continue to come regularly.
Eighty piculs of Changshu rice. destined for Shanghai, were looted by country-people on Tuesday. The boatmen have asked the Shanghii City Magistrate to despatch gunboats up river to give them the necessary protection, otherwise they say they will not transport any more of the grain.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.