To the Editor of the 'Nowru-Cutwa Dairy News'
Sit—Whilst_ your correspondent seems to show some sympathy for conditioned weight, as enforced at present by a Government regulation, it is a fact that the greatest majority of silk dealers, merchants and exporters, consider the whole scheme as absolutely unnecessary to our trade, amounting only to an indirect taxation of China's chief export.
ide, apart from all the nuisance and bother attached to it, The Testing Bureau's autocratic attitude by issuing notice after notice and compelling shippers to send their cargo for either con-clitioned or nett weighing can only. to called a flagrant interference with frve trade, With such a small place at their disposal and a new incompetent staff, the Bureau will never be able to'handle the whole trade, once the export season is in full swing. The consequences be disastrous and the whole trade will suffer. If certain merchants believe that they will get better Neights through the medium of the Testing Bureau, they wi mistaken, as prices will simply ad-Just themselves to the new conditions, and the buyers will know how to protect themselves against bad weights, Theoretically "conditioned weight" of Yaw silk ix the ideal and fairest way of satisfying both buyer and seller, provided a thorough and reliable service can be offered to the trade. Under prevailing conditions in Shanghai compulsory weighing may be considered as unpracticable, only involving serious hardship to all those trading in raw silk, There is room and need for a lot of improvement of Chinese sericulture, to which the Government mia} devote its energy, but the least Recessary was the promulgation of these compulsory measures by forcing something on a market, where it was not wanted.
'The Government may still realize their' mistake by rescinding or altering the regulations, and buyers and sellers will be relieved of a rear anxiety under which they are suffering now, Tam, ete, Raw Sux, Shang i, Apr. 14, 1930,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.