June 28.
FurtTHER correspondence on the subject of the Council's intention to license the rice shops appears in a special number of the Gazette accompanying this issue. But whether the rice shops will or will not put up their shutters on Friday morning, only time can show. It must be confessed that probabilities point to their doing so. On the other hand, the best informed investigators are uncertain as to the nature of the forces behind the opposition. Chinese suspicion of attempts to license a trade is an instinct born of centuries-old experience of their own officials. But there are many reasons for believing that the Rice Guild is not the representative of the small men but the tool of the big. Cornering rice is one of the most profitable speculations of well-to-do Chinese, officials included. Of such nefarious work there has been plenty during the past few months, and the Council's license ing measure will naturally be unpopular among those whose profiteering in the people's food it is expressly designed to counteract. It has never been the Council's desire in any way to hamper fair trade, rather to defend it, as Shanghai shopkeepers know very well or they would not
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.