With a view to alleviating the difü- cult situation which has forced. the Landowners' Bank in Harbin to suspend operations, credit to the amount of 100,000 gobi has been extended that bank by the Manchou-kuan Ministry of Economics. The value of the bank's property has in the course of the previous year far exceeded 100,000 gobi and now stands at 450,000 gobi. The present interest in land, it is pointed out, gives the bank's debtors a chance to sell their property and repay their debts, so that the bank's programme of acquitting their own debts is likely to proceed at an appreciable rate. Debtors were greatly relieved by this turn of affairs, for they feared that under different conditions they would be given an extremely short term in which to repay their debts, which would result in a fall in the value of land.
Depositors were troubled with the question of what to do with the bank's ares now that the bank has ceased to be active.
To this it was answered that should favourable circumstances warrant a resumption of operations these shares will naturally acquire cash value and may then be bought and sold. Should, on the other hand, the bank remain ju its present state of inactivity, these shares will take on the same legal status as loans of the second order.
In that case as soon as the bank has repaid all loans, the remaining capital and property will belong to the shareholders; and as debts are collected and property- realized the latters money would: be gradually refunded. A shareholder, for instance, has 1,000 gobi in shares. As soon as the bank's Total number of shares is lessened by 20 per cent. he is given 200 gobi in cash and retains 800 gobi in shares. On a further 20 per tent. decrease he given 160 gobi in cash and retains 640 gobi in shares, and so on. Further-mare, depositors are told, they lose nothing by having part of their deposits transferred into shares, while the -bank profits greatly; for the increase of the subscribed capital to 700,000 gobi is attended by a decrease pt- its indebtedness by 600,000 gobi. The balance is thus at once made more or less healthier and the chances Oikawa, the company's Managing Director, "several international complications may make it dificult for us to attract foreign capital. Nevertheless, we shall proceed with our plans,"
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.