Foreigners all over China are wondering whether the Hongkong strike is the first step towards the awakening of China to the possibilities of great wages as Labour elsewhere has succeeded in obtaining? Japan has already made a movement, and there is' enough general unrest in China to infect the rank and file of the labouring classes, hard-working and consequently contented though they are. As a matter of fact report on the future of the Huangpu written many months ago, Mr. von Heidenstam really drew attention to some such movement, though not in the same words. What he did was to premise a future condition when wages in all the large ports of the world would be almost on a par. In Shanghai a high exchange, plus the increases which scarcity of labour last summer induced, brought local wages in certain branches to a position commensurate with what they were in Europe prior to the war, though a present comparison would show no similarity. Meanwhile. important factors have been operating to make employers visualize a notable increase in the future. Our, trade reports have shown that owing to soaring prices Chinese are reaching the position when they can no longer buy in foreign markets, and to meet their requirements one of two things must happen. Either prices will have to undergo a noteworthy decline—of which little chance exists at the _moment—or wages must rise appreciably. Without any question, the Hongkong position, and the effect it may have in wider circles, demands the most careful watching.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.