I would remind you that several of our branches such as Hankow, Canton, Foochow and Swatow are in treaty ports which are virtually closed to trade. From Hamburg we at of course, have no information, but the British members of the staff got home safely. Other branches are in places where trade is greatly handicapped by political difficulties, currency experiments and trade controls. Yet we have weathered the Far Eastern war for two and a half years without suffering any severe effects. In spite of dislocation at some ports and the closure of certain channels, new outlets have developed and the general rise in the prices of commodities produced in the countries where we operate has caused a welcome improvement in recent months. Stock markets in the important centres out East have also; this too has been decidedly helpful, although we are anxious that such rises should not be overdone.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.