The poor will sigh with relief today because at last they can obtain their daily quota of rice at about only $25 per picul from the philanthropic organization, although it must be admitted that the "broken" rice is not liked by the ordinary Chinese at all. For $1, one can obtain six and a half catties of the grain and as there are about 160 catties in a picul the price is about $25. The first grade native rice is still sold at the high price of $40, which the average Chinese resident cannot afford to buy.
1f it keeps snowing for a few days there is a great possibility that prices of rice will again register a rise here just before and during the Lunar New Year period when commodities are usually highly priced, states a committeeman of the Shanghai Foodstuffs' Readjustment Committee. This committee is leading another movement urging big firms and factories here to buy Saigon rice.|collectively in order to relieve the local shortage by offsetting prices of the native grain. Six thousand bags ordered by big firms and factories already registered have arrived here from Saigon ready for distribution. They are cheaper, being fixed at about $96 per picul including the bag, which is said to be worth The committteeman points out that the collective purchase movement is the only solution to the problem of the vast maj y of rice-eating The price of the native rice b ighted people in the city should uy Saigon rice by placing orders with his committee, which does not aim at making money. Each buyer must buy at least 50 bags for each of which $20 must be paid to the committee in advance. Rice control is still effective in the occupied interior and apart from this control the Japanese are said to have placed an order for 500,000 tons or 8,000,000 piculs of rice from Saigon. It will take more than 100 boats to carry the cargo to Japan, it is said.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.