The railways have, needless to say, been all taken over.'by the Japanese and railway staffs from Manchoukuo have been brought in to work them. But us most of the nes are fully. engaged in supplying the armies at the front with stores, munitions and men, the restoration of the rail services has so far been of little benefit to the ordinary trader. The only beneficial result that the war has brought to North China hitherto has boon a notable reduction of many of the exorbitant local taxes; though trade is not moving, this can be little benefit except to the me In spite of the great falling-off of trade and business in Peiping, the cost of living for the common people not gone up as badly as the pre~ @ictions "of experts and the scare-lines of the newspapers had led one to expect, The reason for this probably, that despite all the external trappings of foreign trade, the com ron people of China, when hard put to It, are not so very dependent on. foreign imports after all. They can. get along, if necessary, on their own immediate produce, and it happens that the harvest in the environs of the city has been very good this year.
The countryside, however, is anything Dut peaceful, and conditions there are very much less secure than Hin the city these days. The country. specially to the northwest adjoining the hills, is infested with bands of Irregulars: "patriotic volunteers" as they call themselves, tufei as the JJapanese and villagers call them. It ig true that they do occasionally waylay isolated Japanese patrols or single motor lorries, but their chiot activities are confined to looting and plundering the neighbouring villages the plain, Tragl-Comle Eplsode The presence of bandits in the sur rounding country was responsible for:
minor tragi-comic episode. The racing members of the Peking Club, with a certain lack of imagination of regard for other peoples' (Chinese) feeling, decided to hold their autumn meeting as usual at the Paomachang Race Course about three miles outside the city. 'The Japanese military authorities had already indicated their disapproval by refusing to open the Hsiplenmen, the gate. nearest. the course, which has been kept permanfenily closed since the trouble' started, fon the somewhat tropical grounds that they would have to waste the services of ten soldiers as guard for the gate, if it was opened. Notwithstanding this fairly broad hint, members insisted on holding the Jmeeting, and on Saturday morning parties of enthusiasts went out by the ther west gate to the course.
Proceedings had hardly begun, when one of the Chinese police chiefs arrived on the ground and informed
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.