Hongkong, June 4.
Hongkong rice merchants are bene-fred by the ruling of the Central Authorities to permit the import of foreign rice into Swatow, Chungshan and Taishan area' duty free, and already about 100,000 quintals im. Ported have been shipped to those laces under special exempt permits granted by the Customs. The quotas for these points are not yet enough for the famine-stricken people. Prices of rice in the interior have gone owing to big demand and. scanty supply. The shortage is due entirely to the war in South China, Japanese occupation of Canton has cut off railway shipments via the Canton-Hankow Railway from Hunan, Kiangsi and points north.
Another cause arising from the war that Japanese planes often. machine-gun and bomb farmers in the field. "At first, Japanese propaganda claimed that their bombers strafed and bombed only soldiers and military establishments, but many farmers were killed in the rice field while at work. For these reason peasants have to run for their lines when, Japanese bombers are overhead. this way the cultivation of the soit affected by frequent. alr-raids in many villages and countries in Kuangtung.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.