From time to time our Chinese, contemporaries publish paragraphs of almost alarming import about things in our midst, and one of those, possibly tending towards a disturbance of the peaceful economic! routine of the port, calls for some explanation. The statement appears in the "Shanghai Journal of Commerce." and according to the ivanslation received by us is to the effect that "more than 200 Japanese' workers have been brought to Shanghai by local mills for the purpose of taking the places of Chinese workers." There are, according to current report, many Chinese mill-workers unemployed at the! moment, and the first thought that! occurs is that employers would! hardly proceed to introduce more} labour at present and so increase the distress. What seems the most! likely. explanation of the report is that these men are overseers, foremen of departments and the like, for Japanese mills in Shanghai employ considerable numbers of Japanese for this work. They are enabled to do so by the fact of the! wages of these men being comparatively low, whereas foreign mills are aware that it would be prohibitive, owing to higher pay, for them to have in the mills anything like an equal number of foreign super-'
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.