New-York tribune., 1921-04-24

which sold at 246 yen on Januarv o.
rose to 261.60 yen on the 28th. IT,
turnover in the last week of the rnon,s
amounted to 100000 shares. althnnns
there were only four and half davs -
actual trading. But this slight awater
ing on the Stock Exchange did not sv.
cite the people Of Japan much. Com.
modify markets were still in the denth
Oh stupor. There was good deal of
polltlcal agitation to secure govern.
mental assistance in boosting the prie. !
OF rice, but the price refused to rise
therefore the farmers were unhann,,
cotton yarn and cotton cloth trades
were as dead as ever. The raw s;It
market showed no signs Of life an ss
small buying, which had come in ~
middle of January for American ar
counts: And, after all, it is silk which
Tells the real story as far as Japan j.
concerned. Np'" IS
Therefore what business japan ssv
IN the first half of March looked ~
her like real promise of cbsrrv
flower season. In the first mart a.
March American buying of silk becams
steady; it increased in volume On
one day, March II. 10000 kin Of rsw
silk was sold for American export and
on the following day, although bslf
hollday, $4,000 kin were sold for Amer.
can accounts. In addition to this steady
buying for American export, there was
another thing which helped the silk
market considerably. That was the re-
port of the failure of the resolution in
the House of Peers to impeaeh tho
Minister of Education. The Minister
of Education has little to do with the
silk market, to be sure. But there was
bill pending in the Diet at the time
the bill to maintain the price of silk
through governmental financial assist
ance. Now, the failure of the resolu-
tion to lmpeach the Minister of Educa-
ton meant that the Observation-Disclosures
forces held the upper hand in the
House OF Peers. That in turn spelled
good prospect of the safe passage
of the silk bill through the Diet, which
would authorize a governmental ad-
vance of thirty million yen to the silk
pool for the purpose of maintaining
the price of raw silk. These two in
f1uences worked to stop the weak and
wabbly holders of silk from dumping
their holdings on the market in haste.
u. S. Buying aids
remained steady, due almost altogether
to the steady purchases for export to
America and the expected govern
mental assistance to the silk pool.
And the expected happened in the
case of the silk bill; the Diet passed
it in the closing days of March. The
avowed aim of the silk pool to which
the governmental assistance of 10000
600 yen of cheap money is to be ex-
tended is to hold the price of Shinshu
No. l above the minimum price of 1900
yen hundred kin. If the American
demand would hold out, however, there
is no actual need for the activity OF
the pool buying. 81
Of course, silk alone cannot beckon
the sun of our business prosperity
back to the zenith. Our Chinese trade
is exceedingly bad and shows not the
slightest sign of going back to normal.
Our exports to China in February.
1921, according to the official returns,
were valued at 20,499,000 yen. For the
same month last year the figure stood
at 32,424, 900 yen. And last year the
Chinese market was supposed to be
about as bad as it could possibly be.
All the Japanese efforts to bring about
the harmony between the northern fec
ton based at Peking and the southern
rebels, led by lot of professional rev.
olulloHlsCS. Win the notorious sun lst-
sen at the head of them, have been
frutless. And the effect of famine in
northern provinces is likely to tell dis
astrously for Japan's China trade. At
the same time it can be said without
much risk that our financial and indus
trial circles have gone through the
major portion of the postwar readjust-
~ments and the worst is far behind
them. h.