Tientsin, June 11.
Tense "calm before a storm" prevailed here today as the city anxiously awaited the enforcement by Japanese authorities of measures to "isolate" the British Concession.
It was not known whether diplomatic negotiations would be resumed in an effort to settle the differences between Japanese and British authorities, It was generally anticipated that the Japanese authorities would start their announced policy of "independent action" regarding the British Concession in a few days.
The greater part of the Japanese who had been residing in the British and French Concessions have moved to the Japanese Concession or the Chinese quarter. The recent strained relations between Japanese and British authorities accelerated an evacuation of Japanese from the Concessions which was started last September, Sensing the stiffening of the Japanese attitude toward the British, numerous Chinese residents and several merchants have moved out of the British Concession. On the Other hand movements of various kinds of commodities into the Concessions have increased in the past few days.
All the officials of the Special Municipality were said to have evacuated the British Concession. It was reported that the Special Municipality authorities would issue an appeal to the Chinese inhabitants of the city in a few days, urging them to adopt a "frm attitude" toward the Concession in line with the Japanese authorities stand.
Japanese residents were said to be strongly in favour of holding mass meeting in order to impress upon the British authorities the seriousness of the situation.—Domei.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.