Rumour "was strong on Wednesday in business circles that a move had at length been made by one or other of the contending parties in the country and that hostilities were _imminent. At the time of writing the report lacks confirmation, put there has been enough in the way of movements of troops during the past week to have unsettled very much less sensitive body of men. than the Chinese merchants of Shanghai. Probably the chief factor in the case is the statement, which gained currency on Monday, that a telegram had reached friends of Dr. Sun Yat-sen here that the Cantonese troops were definitely on the move, Inquiries have failed to supply it with confirmation, but, in a case such as the present, this probably makes matters very much worse than if real definite news had been to hand. A later report on Thursday provided by the Dah Teng News Bureau, is from the other direction altogether, from tic camp of the Mukden warlord. He is said to be moving a whole division into Peking, while his other forces are so disposed as to be ready for a descent on Wu Pei-fu. It is all very formidable, and very uncertain, equally as much as the reports of heavy consignments of munitions of war and poison gas factories in the domain of Wu Pei-fu. Only the other week Chinese politicians were betting that all talk of war would fizzle out in some conference chamber, but that peculiar barometer, the merchant class of Shanghai, today indicates. the contrary.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.