The members of the British Economic Mission commenced their work in earnest yesterday morning. To a very large extent the work at the moment is of an individual character, the members Visiting firma and other organizations to which they have introduetions and meeting and discussing with local merchants the needs of the China trade, In addition to this the Textile Sub-Commission viewed an interesting exhibition of cloths, thie con sisting of many samples of cotton and other goods manufactured on the Continent or in Japan and laid down in China at a price with which British manufacturers are unable to compete. This important side of the Mission's work—personal investigation will be continued until the Mission leaves for Nanking to-morrow and resume thereafter, An important contribution to the work of the Mission is in pre-aration by the British Chamber of Commerce, this consists of a report in four sections, these being:—Engineering (inelading mo-for cars) piece goods, chemicals (refined and heavy) and miscellaneous, It is expected that the report. will amount to about 300 typewritten pages,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.