Chungking, on the' other Hand, is suffering from a shortage of rice and coal. 'The former was brought about by the limited stock available owing to a prolonged drought. At the xear of the Ho' Sheng Mino temple In Chengtu, a number of individual rice speculators have' been meeting and doing a dally business of an average of 20,000 piculs of rice, valued at about $500,000. 'Their' quotations vitally affect the market price of the grain, Thirty brokers receive a com~ mission of 4 per cent. The activities of these speculators, however, have Giminished slightly, owing to their being suppressed by the government.
Chungking's coal shortage is due to a strike. The coal dealers declared a strike as a protest against the Central Government Revenue Collectorate's imposition of an increased tax on their cargo. "Because of these two factors, sellers of both rice and coal are trying to profiteer by raising prices abnormally,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.