Consternation is said to have been aroused among the Chinese merchants in the Philippine Islands.through the passing of a law quiring all business houses, re-gardies of their nationality, to Keep their account books in English or Spanish, Circulars describing the new law as impracticable, especially in the case of Chinese firms, have been printed by the Manila Chinese and distributed to Chinese—business houses both in China and abroad urging the people to sympathize with them in their fight to have the law cancelled. Telegrams and letters, both official and unofficial, have been sent to the Peking and the Canton Governments vequesting them to open negotiations with the American Government on the subject. The Chinese Chamber Commerce in Manila, P. I., has sent a circular describing the various objections to the North China Daily News." Among them are objections that Bas few Chinese doing business in the Philippine Islands know little or no English or Spanish, hence considerable inconvenience will be caused if the merchants ave required to keep their account books in English or Spanish. This being the case and in order to abide by the law, either Americans, English. or Filippinos will have to be employed by the Chinese merchants, which means that the latter, being unfamiliar with English, will be at loss to know whether or not the transactiong recorded in their books are correct. At the present time, the Chinese merchants, who are mostly importers and export. ers, are keeping their books in Chinese and a change is sure to cause much misunderstanding and many errors in their dealings with the home country."
It is stated that the enforcement of this law~ does not correspond with the free trade policy formulated in the Sino-American Commercial Treaty.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.