Except for the bare cost of maintaining governmental departments, no appropriations are to be made at present the Provincial Governmhent has announced. Reconstruction pr jects of all kinds, unless they are military utility, are to be abandoned. Money on.hand for such purposes is to be put aside, to be returned to the Provincial Treasury upon demand.
It is a certainty that salaries of all civil servants are about to be cut very materially. Rumour has it that they will be reduced by 20 per cent.
Trains of the Saichuen-Whampoa spur-line were to have passed over the right-of-way of the Canton-Kowloon line on a bridge, but it has been decided to have a level crossing. From a very reliable source it is learnt that within a month not only will the rails of the one road be laid across those of the other, but that switches will be in so that trains from Saichuen can be run on to the tracks of the Canton-Kowloon Railway. Most probably this will result in a through service from Hongkong to Hankow eventually, but for the nonce the connecting of the two lines will only be for the convenience of the army in getting supplies from the Colony, and so that troops may be transported more readily from and northern points to places south of Canton. All day and all night, track gangs are working on the spur-line trying to get it finished by August 15,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.