According to the Chinese newspapers the Shanghai Chinese Tea Merchants Association have submitted a petition to the Greater Shanghai Bureau of Social Affairs, saying that, owing to the rupture of, diplomatic Yelations between China and Russia, the manager of the Russian Merchants. Mutual Assistance Society (2), the only Russian merchant organization in the tea Dasiness in Shanghai, has refused to purchase tea from Chinese merchants on the ground that the local British and American banks have refused to grant loans to them because they (British and American bankers) fear that it will be im= possible to ship ten to Russia at the present time and that this will afoot the repayment of any loans made.
The petition further says that, at present, about Tis, 2,100,000 is clu Chinese merchants Rus in Merchants Mutual Assist ance Society and that the Society is expected to purchase another Tis, 3,000,000 worth of tea from the Chinese merchants this year. If, the petition says, anything serious happens between China and Russia, {it will not only greatly affect the tea business in Shanghai, Hankow, Foochow, and other places, but it, will also effect the hundreds of thousands of people who are de+ pendent on the ten trade, The petition requests the Social Affairs Bareaw to devise means to Protect the Russian tea merchants that they can carry on business as before and to prevent the Chinese tea merchants from getting into Upon receipt of this petition (reports the ''Shunpao") the Commissioner of Social Affairs sent two subordinates to investigate whether for not there is any other way of shipping tea to Russia and whether or not remittentes can be received in China from Russia as usual 50 as to devise means to relieve the merchants" sufferings,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.