'A number of owners of small river craft have obtained permission from the local Japanese naval authorities to operate their vessels outside Kiang. st waters. patrolled by local naval units, it was learned yesterday. Although the waters concerned do not extend beyond Hangchow Bay a number of smaller craft recently navigate ed the waters and safely landed car-nees and passengers in Wenchow after negotiating the numerous is-ands adjacent to this port, which fs still in the hands of the Chinese forces, Wenchow rose to prominence afler "the Sino-Japanese hostilities and the introduction of shipping restrictions affecting larger ports, and the heyday of the coastal ping boom was one of the best ports of all.
According {0 well informed shipping circles a tentative arrangement hasbeen reached between the shipowners and the Japanese naval authorities concerned for vessels to navigate outside Kiangsu waters upon payment of certain charges, without any stipulation regarding actual ports of call, Anchored Till Dusk Following the conclusion of a ver-val accord with the authorities several vessels recently mode the journey to the islands outside Wenchow where they weighed anchor and waited {ill dusk before discharging their cargo passengers into flat-bottomed oats which safely landed in Wenchow. The difficulties of enforcing a strict blockade on Wenchow became apparent as a result of its inaecessibility to deep sea craft and the numerous Chinese forts in the various islands outside the city, not to mention the diMleulty of navigating the perilous waters between the islands.
Shippers recently were reported to have paid freight rates as high os '$000 per ton of space on the vessels bound for Wenchow owing to the conditions prevailing. Despite the attraction to shipping only owners of smaller craft have undertaken the risks Involved in the journey, it was earned, as the owners of the larger boats have decided that discretion is the belter of valour, and kept their boats idle in port, being apprehensive of their seizure or other consequences owing to the rigours of the Japanese coastal shipping ban.
The ban in the opinion of the better informed, has become part of, Japaiese naval policy in China waters instead of being a local affair. Shipping speculators are reported to have aid as much as $30,000 to $40,000 to owners of small crafts for each trip charter to Wenchow. associates, in addition to extending respective felicitations, led in the general merriment, ' Several _im-Dromptu performances were greatly appreciated, as were the formal pre-artistes, a sentations by professional Japanese
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.