Business conditions in the concessions were not so black as they had been painted, the "North-China Daily News" was informed. There was no question of the stoppage of food sub-plies by the Japanese, although the latter had attempted to force all general cargo traffic to use the new road which had been built by them from the ex-German Concession, around the British and French Concessions, to the Japanese Concession. This had meant a stoppage of general cargo traffic in the two areas but, so far, it had not proved serious and during recent weeks the Japanese restric seemed to have been "loosened-up" considerably.
There was no doubt, however, that foreign trade had suffered as a result of these restrictions imposed by the Japanese, especially the export of wool and, in general the whole of the export market. There had been, however, large exports of salt, coal y|and iron ore to Japan, some 300,000 tons of the first-named commodity and about 100,000 tons of iron ore being ipped to that country last year. About 70 per cent. of t beer carried in Japanese ships and the remainder in British and foreign vessels.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.