ICE dropped one dollar a "zah" or picul yesterday in the Shanghai market, the price of $44 being quoted for the high grade ("kan mee") and $37 for "see mee,"
The failure of the rate to take a decided drop caused strikes to be called at two more factories while the strike at the three establishments of the Sincere Ca. was temporarily settled. Officials hope that the effect of the proclamation issued jointly by the International Settlement and the French Concession will soon be felt in materially reduced prices. Fifty thousand "zahs" of Saigon rice are expected to arrive by steamer today, to be placed in godowns, Meanwhile a serious shortage of rice is reported from Japan, The "North-China Daily News" learned yesterday that the six boatloads of rice held up by the Japanese authorities last week on the Soochow Creek near Chung Shan Road had been sold to Japanese interests and that another six junks filled with rice are now being kept waiting on the creek likewise in the vicinity of Jessfield.
Each of these shipments represents nearly 5,000 *zahs."
It is further reported that some 13,000 "zahs" are being held up at the Markham Road Junction in Chapei, where it arrived from up-country.
A spokesman for the Japanese army announced yesterday that large quantities of rice owned by the vapanest army were moving towards shanghai and that the army would offer i cheaply for the bennet of the Chinese popuiation—"to bring down the prices ut the staple aliegealy raisea io unnatural leves here by Chinese pio-uteers and hoarders."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.