The currency situation remains unchanged. Nothing is more striking than the contrast between existing conditions in Peking and Tientsin. In the former place where there are no Concessions the Japanese are abk enforce the penal regulations agains. using National currency, witt the result that Federal Reserve Bank "blockade" of the Concessions. They have been put to heavy extra expense by the order to vacate their comfortable homes and shops in the British and French Concessions and find new quarters elsewhere; and during the blockade they were submitted to just as rigorous a search—only by Japanese gendarmes—as any Chinese, whenever they wanted to enter the for Concessions on business Indian Cotton Wanted jes-are at-a premium: - while in Tientin they are at a discount of about the same amount. the serian: shortage of National currency of the large denominations which existed here during the months of November and December has now been. overcome. In the Concessions one see few F.R.B. notes. And in view oí the complaints of the Japanese against British and American banks for refusing to recognize the Federal Reserve issue as legal tender, it is of interest to note that in Tientsin the warman and Italian hi the bank Another strange example of the way Japanese business interests are hampered by the actions of their own bout military has been the talk of Tientsin recently. At one time one heard much talk of how the raw cotton crop pt North China was to take the place of Indian and American cotton. This was to be one of the great prizes for the victors. Well, this is how it has worked so far: the greater part of the cotton crop has been "bought up" in the interior by the Japanese Army at a price fixed by themselves, needless to' say much below the ordinary market rates, ànd is being shipped to Japan and sold there on behalf of the Army to "cover the expenses of the war." Whatever actually is being done with this cotton by the military, one thing is certain: the Japanese cotton mills in Tientsin, the leading port of North China, are unable to get hold of any supplies of North China cotton. As a result, the mills are not only having to work half time, but, as it may sound, have of Japan's allies, have adopted ex: actly the same procedure as the British and American banks As a result of all the different monopolies and embargoes, the export trade in Tientsin is practically at standstill. There has been a small movement in strawbraid which, owing
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.