Week after week British tonnage was laid up, and the resumption of British coasting services hax been a very gradual affair, made possible only by the employ ment of Russian labour and to some extent of non-union seamen; but while large distributing centres like Swatow and Canton remain closed to British trade and tonnage, it cannot be said that things are back to anything like normal, The long delay in the settlement of the international situation created by events in South China has constituted the most damaging factor to British interests. In fact, as one local shipping man puts it, "it has put the China Coast shipping trade in the melting pot." A feature of the last six months of the year has been the aequi tion of British and other tonnage by Chin ese merchants who, with their own car goes to support their ships, will soon prove themselves formidable competitors to British and other non-Chinese owners.
With British tonnage completely barred from the Swatow and Canton trades, Chinese, Japanese, American and Scan-Ginavian vessels have been profitably engaged in direct shipments. Since June 28 last, no British ship has carried a single cargo to or from Canton, and British owners in China waters have been compelled to swallow the bitter pill of either laying up their vessels and patiently waiting the pleasure of those in power at Canton to lift the boycott, or of running their vessels in other directions, mostly at a loss.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.