All the government contracts go to them: and they are gradually driving the Chinese out of the private building trade as well but it is among the shopkeeper and small trader class that the Japanese is making his competition felt most of all.
In fields that were hitherto the special preserve of the Chinese, that is, smuggling, bribery, and tax ey sion, he now easily out-distances the former and so can undersell him.
Take one instance: the octroi. is a legitimate advantage, but none the less galling for the Chinese. The Manchoukuo government has kept on the octroi that war in force under the Chinese regime. As a result the Chinese shopkeeper has to pay this fax, whereas his Japanese competitor living in the "railway zone" of cities Vike Mukden, Heinking, and so forth [does not; and the prices in shops in the railway zone are correspondingly cheaper.
Japanese of the lower middle" class continue to pour into the country: and swarms of Japanese and Korean, Jbawkers are spreading into the interior with their cheaper (smuggled) goods, so that the Chinese small traders are really becoming alarmed for their livelihood.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.