Hongkong, Jan. 18.
Robbers boarded a slow rain on the anton-Kowloon Railway last week and held about thirty persons for ransom. The outrage happened is hopefulness in the minds of both mers and Chinese and indi hat local trade. will con to improve. The commercial outlook ta far better than last yea though mot as good as was expecta in Nankong Star Chinese territory, where the robbers boarded th Ne] What brings relief to them chants and the general public train as passengers.
They went up to the locomotive after the train that thei ture trade with Canton will be easier to negotiate now that hag started, and covering most of the unions there have been engineers, ordered them to stop the dissolved by the administration on train, Then the band the charge of having pro-Communist search the passengers nad their tendencies, Without these trouble-baggage. Most of the passengers some unions, whose chief aim is to were country pei and belonged to the poorer eli hence the loot start agitation rather than to promote the interest of the mem was not great, and therefore the bers, trade connections, between Bandits took away about thirty Hongkong and Canton will not be passengers for ransom. hampered by strikes, lock-outs, The locality in wh boycotts, ete. was robbed is thickly bandits.
Te is about twenty miles A Big Fritid Alleged from Canton.
Immediately atter 'A dating scheme to defraud the the, roe British section in Kow. Hongkong Government of the sum robbery, the Chinese" section sanita hereafter the Government °f $177,000 has been discovered, resulting in the detention of two woul) order more troops to guard clerks employed in the Treasury. the trains.
At the same time, The whole affair circles round three soldiers were to patrol the sta cheques which were stolen from a ton: large book of Government cheques.
Bank Note Depreciation The cheques were drawn on various Chinese bankers and_ merchants banks, and the fraud was not disin Hongkong in many cases have covered until they had been return-had to postpone a settlement of ed to the Treasury for purposes of accounts with dealers and others in Canton.
The notes of the Cen-'The cheques were payable in tral Bank have continued to fall favour of certain firms for several and a dollar note is valued only at contracts with the Government, sixty cents in silver.
Many people executed about twelve months ago. thought that, on his return, General In consequence of the discovery, the Li Ghi-hsin would devise a method police made a raid on certain offices to stabilize the depreciated notes, on the fifth floor of the China Build-bot, though he is again in Canton, ing. These offices had verwlittle the' notes have dropped another ten furniture, which led the police to be-points. Mr. Feng Cho-man, Fight hand man, now has assumed 's|Tieve that they existed just for the purpose of carrying out the fraud on the post of Commissioner of the Government. There were no Finance, and the people look to him persons on the premises. The police for a solution of this finan still are conducting inquiries and The truth is that the Cen-have detained for examination two no silver reserve, the Chinese clerks employed in the it, The Bank has been closed Canton Extradition Case Despite denials, rumours again fare persistent that the Canton Government has been obliged to secure a loan from a foreign bank in Hongkong. The government now is very friendly with Hongkong, and such a loan may be successful.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.