It is quite a good thing that the Harbin notes of smaller denonimations 5, 10, 20 and 50 cents are now being replaced by. new notes on better paper and better printed, as the old notes were a disgrace and filthy to handle, The amount. of the new issue is limited to 1,700,000 to be issued by the four principal banks here, but is sufficient ly. the local demands, the old notes will be gradually withdrawn and by the end of the year, will no longer be considered legal ender, The Harbin dollar con-Uinues to be over 20 per cent. lower than the Mukden dollar "notes, though the Manchurian authorities are trying their best to bring it to the same value. Recently an order was received from Mukden that all the local Chinese Banks shall conduct their transactions in Yuan presumably menning Mukden dollar notes. We do not see, however, that this will improve the Harbin notes which are/not used south of Changchun, where they are exchanged by local exchange-shops at 'a discount, whilst in Harbin itself the exchange-shops continue to give a premium on the Mukden notes.
As long a8 Government, Institutions here as for instance the Telegraphs, the Post Office, ete. continue to accept Harbin notes only at a discount, it does not seem likely that their value will rise, until such time as the local Banks have in their strong-rooms silver to the value of at least 50 per cent. of the value of amount of Harbin notes which have been issued, but which now are strictly under control of the local authorities, 'A Check on Bigamy Thanks to the representations by the Harbin Metropolitan of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Police Administration which issues Passports or more correctly "right of residence" papers to all Russians living here, will in future indicate on the document issued to Russian emigres whether the holder of the Socument is married or not and the name of the spouse. As things are now, that both husband and wife have to take out separately passports, as do the children after they have reached the age of cighteen, but there is nothing to indicate whether the party is married or not. This is not required by Chinese law, though it is indicated in the document whether the holder is a Soviet commission of bigamy is rendered easy and people can be married a second time in the Russian Church, without the priests being a wit the wiser.
During the past fortnight there have been a series of organized church robberies which have been befiling the police. In each iffstance the thieves who are thought to be. Soviet youths, have during the night, carefully removed panes of glass from one of the windows and gained an entrance into the edifices, where they have broken open the alms-boxes and extracted what. money there was in them, besides.
ing a few sacred relies and ing the church in disorder. In tances the male fa left finger-prints on the windows and the C.LD. are following these up. It is to be hoped that eventually the thieves will be caught and get their deserts.
The Exodus from Russia Though Harbin can boast of quite a number of Russian Churches, a new one is to be started almost immediately, the money being furniss ed by the Russian Orthodox Mission of Peking, who own a large plot of ground in the Pristan, on which is already a small church but which now found to be too small. This edifice which lies somewhat back of the plot will not be touched, but a larger one will be built in front. Police returns show that the number of Russians in Harbin has considerably increased during the past year, and this specially applies to Russian dmigrés, as a great number of Rus-who have hitherto been Russia have manage across the frontier. They get into Chinese territory and immediately destroy their Soviet papers and become Russian emigres.
The Opium Harvest 'The writer some time ago had coceasion to refer to the large number of Chinese coolies. who proceeded by steamer down the Sungari to points on the Ussuri river, for the opium harvest. It should' first be remarked that Chinese-owned steamers have this season been freely allowed by the Soviet authorities, though they have their gunboats on the "Amur, to proceed from the mouth of the Sungari along the Chinese side of the river both to Saghalian, Tahetho which lies opposite to Blagovestchensk as well fas on the Chinese side of the Ussuri River as far as Iman. If one takes a glance at the map of Manchuria one finds that there is a big stretch of Chinese territory bounded on the East by the Ussuri River and th west by the Sungari and it is in this north-east corner of Heilunkiang Province that opium growing is taking place on a large scale. It is more a less wild territory, sparsely; inhabited and unhampered by Chinese officials, 'These Chinese opium farmers, who take what land they want, are always short of labour when' the crop has to be gathered and as this has to be done during a short period, they hold out dig inducements' to coolies who are paid as
and who %tome to this district in much as sa day for their works big numbers, staying but a couple of months.
"The season being just|* over the coolies are now returning and the Customs officials are on the alert to make some big hauls of the drug, which all finds its way eventually to Harbin. The steamers coming from the Ussuri are carefully searched, but the smugglers being prepared for this, usually employ other means of conveying the contraband, It is as often as not brought overland to Fugdin and other points fon. the Sungari and shipped on from there by Junk or som loaded and stored away in steamer which is proceeding Harbin from Tahetho. Recently on! tone of these latter vessels a big! haul was made by wary Customs-men who succeeded in unearthing about $70,000 worth of this drug! which had been carefully concealed by some of the crew,"
Gangs of Russian Bandits All is not quiet on the Western section of the C.ER. Recently there have been two attempts at train-wrecking which were averted in the nick of time. In one ease some sleepers were. placed on the rails, but luckily a Chinese track-watehman spotted them.in time to stop a local train which runs between Tsitsihar and Harbin from running into them.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.