Foreigners residing in Manchoukuo are due to be affected in the matter of their passports, as the old "provisional papers" will be shortly replaced by new ones which will be held equally valid in all corners of the Empire, In a recent discussion in the Ministry of Public Peace and Safety several changes in the passport system were decided upon. First, separate passports will be required of all persons over fourteen years of age, while previously the age limit was eighteen years. Second, no passport charge will be exacted from persons offering a sufficient reason for being thus exempt, while previously free passports were only to the extremely aged. The ordinary charge for passports will remain at 2 gobi, The manufacture of wool from *kozein," a by-product of milk, is a plan ihat shows signs of being adopted in Manchoukuo. In an interview with the local press Mr. M. A. Genffer, businessman and specialist on economic problems, stated that some time ago the makers of condensed milk in Denmark had concluded a contract with Italian manufacturers whereby artificial wool was produced in Milan out of kozein. Italy, Mr. Genffer stated, had carried this process well past the laboratory stage, and the manufacture of artificial wool which does not suffer by comparison to the genuine article but which is much cheaper, is proceeding on quite a large seals in that country. This process is specially profitable as kozein is a by-product of ilk that is sold at rather low prices and that has—or had—no industrial value whatsoever, Milk into Buttons At present a number of enterprising spirits in Harbin, who are already manufacturing buttons cut of the same product are planning to introduce the methods of Italy into Manchoukuo. In their aspirations they are supported by the owners of dairy-farms, who believe that with some financial support the manufacture of kozein in Manchoukuo could be placed on a large-scale basis, This year was started well according to tradition in Harbin. There were the holiday issues of newspapers, bright with colour and prodigious in size; there were the celebrations on New Year's Eve, when some made merry with champagne and some—part of the Russian population, chiefly with vodka, and there was the usual New Year's hunting expedition which left Harbin on January 1 and is to last until the 5th, With the cold weather that has struck the country so suddenly and sharply (40* Celcius) is the record temperature for December that prevailed in Harbin recently) the sportsmen are expecting to return with a fair-sized bag of pheasants, the season for which is now at its height.
In this connection, specialists say that the wave of prosperity that came over the Manchoukuo pheasant-export business last winter will not be repeated this year, nor, it is likely. for many years to come. There was a definite reason for the record-setting export of pheasants to England last year—the coronation of King George VI. Pheasants were in great demand during the festivities accompanying this occasion, and prices on these birds rose accordingly. Now, however, the export of pheasants will be resumed along more normal dines.
'After four months' disruption, commercial relations have been restored between Harbin and Shanghai. Pheasants, ducks, geese, cereals, mil prodeuts, eggs salted cucumbers and cabbages and other foodstuffs are being sent in large quantities by local merchants, and i: is estimated that in December alone the Shanghai market took goods from Harbir and the surrounding cities te the cost of 200,000 to 250,000 gobi In order to weet the demands for larger credit an wg Harbin businessmen, a Civie Cre it Ca-operative wi be opened here i the latter half of this month. Under the direction of Mr. Ishii of the Manchoukuo Ministry of Finance, work is progressing towards an organization of this ce-operative which will. it is officially stated, 5 supported by the Central Bank an start with the capital of 2,000,000 gobi. Its aim will be to extend credit chiefly to minor merchants and to men of with insufficient capital, thus assisting them in developing their economic possibilities. Membership in this cooperative will require an entrance fee of 10 gobi, and the maximum loan given to a single member will be 1,000 gobi—unless the member owns Jand, in which case the loan maybe extended to 5,000 gobi.
The uniting of all firms founded ander Manchoukuo law into one group and the making of equal membership in that union open to all nationalities in Manchoukuo is the professed aim of a new law, the text of which has been recently received here by the local chamber of commerce. Membership will be likewise open to individual businessmen who pay an Industrial tax of over 20 gobi per year.
Old Harbin no More The Shanghailander who had lived in Harbin five years ago and who may now have occasion to revisit the city, will find a Harbin changed in many respects to the one he knew. A difference will be felt the minute he walks down any of the main streets; for whereas five years ago the representative crowd of Harbin could be classed as Russo-Chinese, to-day it is clearly Japanese-Chinese—the direct result of the influx of Japanese since the creation of Manchoukuo in 1932 and the dispersal of Russian emigrants in 1935-36: about 20000 to the U.S.S.R. and several thousand to Shanghai, Tientsin and Tsingtao.
At the same time he would find a city that has all the outward signs of living in an era of prosperity. A recent visitor from Tientsim remarked that compared with the gaiety of life as seen here, Tientsin seems a small provincial town; certainly. the crowds milling around the shop fronts and filling the cinemas, theatres and cafes at all hours of the day and the cabarets by night give an impression of a mode of life worthy of a metropolis, Mr. Arthur V. Just, a journalist who passed through on his way to North China last week, said, however, that in spite of the new cabarets and the popular music of Mr. Serge Ermoll Harbin has forfeited all claims to the somewhat questionable title of the Paris of the Orient, but has instead become more of a modern city. Mr, Just first visited the city about ten years ago, and remembers how one winter the late M, Karakhan, then a Plenipotentiary Soviet Ambassador to China, passed through Harbin resplendent in a costly fur coat as worn by the "boyars" of old Russia, complete with the traditional collar end hat of grey beaver.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.