The Company appears to have; practice!ly forced into its action by economic reasons. Every one of its fleet of 31 ships has @ither been Inid up or in charge of the military factions for more than two months, and so far back a the end of November it was) decided to suspend all services that} were then in operation, owing to the fact that if the ships were kept running they would inevitably fall Auto the hands of the military. For about six months the China Merchants' has boon incurring great Yoeses, especially as regards the; 'Yangtze trade, all its river vessels that were on' the Yangtze having een commandeered by Sin Chuanfang when the Cantonese threat to Hankow first became dangerous; while on the southern run ships have been seized by both the Cantonese and the Seamen's Union.
Chinese staffs (with the exception fof the skeleton crews previously mentioned) of about sixteen ves-[sels have been dispensed with as from February 1, the number of. foreigners affected being between 60 Jand 70, and the Chinese about 700. In addition to these, there is the shore staff of Chinese, whose ployment automatically "ceases with]
non-operation of the ships. Their number is uncertain, but it is believed to run into several hundreds, The foreign officers whose services have been dispensed with are practically all British, Scandinavian fand Russian, with British largely predominating. Many of those thus thrown out of employment at short notice, with little prospect of anything turning up in the immediate future, are married men with families either in Shanghai or] Europe; and with the prevailing [depression in the shipping industry, which ig accentuated in China the chaotic local conditions, their] outlook is a serious one.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.