Electricity Department was obliged {to stop providing power to Chinese mills, a sharp advance occurred in the price of yarn, but unfortunate-_ ly, owing to the boycott against British goods, under which category our products were placed, we were) unable to reap much benefit from the position thus created.
While this boycott has since been raised in most districts it is still in two of our largest!
Kuangtung and Szechuan, and until such time as consumers in those districts resume trading in our products we shall be obliged continue to manufacture for other markets as at present, The folly of boycotting such con-teems as ours should be, but apparently is not, patent to the meangence. The bulk of the shareholders are Chinese; we employ thousands of Chinese workers to whom we pay some $1,600,000 annually in wages; our mills consume large quantities of cotton grown by Chinese farmers, trans. ported in Chinese vessels and marketed by Chinese merchants, not to speak of our finished pro-Jduets which give employment to large numbers of Chinese before reaching the ultimate consumer.
'The four months' stoppage cost our workers alone over $500,000 in It is to be hoped that the authorities will in future take drastic steps to curb the activities of professional agitators, and that labour: will look on these parasites, as in, truth they are, as their enemies. T have sullicient confidence in the good sense of the Chinese opera tives to believe that the time is not far distant when they will refuse to listen to the noisy minority, and obediently obey their behests.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.