Reply to be Forthcoming in a Few Days to Second Note Tokyo, June 22.
The Government intends ceply in two or three days'
China's second protest against the despatch of troops by Japan to Tsingtao. The reply will reiterate the position taken by the Japanese Government in its first repl It is understood that the Government regards the second protest a8 purely due to the new Chinese Cabinet wishing to follow the example of its predecescor.—Revter.
One of the most serious menaces to business enterprises in China is becoming increasingly apparent in the sinister Tobacco Monopoly which being planned for Chekiang province and which Chinese tobacco manufacturers and merchants are fighting even harder than the foreign firms in the industry. To the Chinese manufacturer and dealer, the question arises whether he is have an opportunity to develop the tobacco industry freely or whether the industry and the trade to be destroyed by inexperienced politicians who are unfamiliar with their requirements. According to the last reports on the subject, there are approximately 100 Chinese manufacturers of cigarettes who are doing an increasing large share of the business. They have organized to combat the pernicious monopoly scheme. oppe that certain Chinese who have lived in France conceived the idea of instituting a cigarette monopoly scheme in Chekiang province after the unsuccessful French, model. It is known to those who have studied the matter that French cigarettes are atrociously bad and that the cost of good cigarettes in France is high, while the French Government receives a proportion-Jately smaller revenue from tobace: than do the British or Ameri Governments, where there isn. monopoly system but cigarettes and tobacco products are justly taxe!. The returned Chinese from France, Jseeking for a revenue, conceived the idea of organizing a sales monopoly and got the Chekiang provincial Government to approve fof the general plan and to permit them to finance it by levying an additional 20 per cent. illegal tax Jon cigarettes in Chekiang. The monopoly bureau since June 10 has then been collecting 20 per cent. tax in addition to the already illegal 20 per cent. tax. Practically speaking, this 40 per cent. tax has fairly killed the cigarette business Chekiang, throwing thousands labourers and dealers out of work and resulting in a cigarette dealers strike in Ningpo.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.