SIDELIGHTS ON THE FAR EAST
To any investor seeking light on the financial position in China I commend Mr. G. Miskin's balanced survey at the annual meeting of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Cor- poration. The bank itself, with its traditional skill in trim- ming its sails to the most variable winds, somehow succeeded last year in maintaining its profits and has paid the same rate of dividend, viz., £5 los. per share, as in 1936. Expanding business in the early months of 1937 gave the bank a good start before hostilities broke out, and even in face of the tremendous handicaps which subsequently arose, China's total import and export trade for 1937 rose by roughly 9 per cent. Reflecting the same trend, Chinese customs revenue rose by 18,000,000 dollars to 342,000,000 dollars, which affords ample cover for the service of the Maritime Customs Loans.
Mr. Miskin's forecast for the current year could scarcely be opt;:nistic, but it is not despondent. The political baro- (Continued on page 563.) FINANCE AND INVESTMENT
(Continued from page 56o.)
meter, he says, is still too low to warrant a prediction of fine weather for merchants in the near future, and in Central China the channels of foreign trade are affected as never before. Nevertheless, there are adjustments. Losses here are offset by gains there and he is confident that in the long run the recuperative polirers of both China and Japan will assert themselves. Meantime, my advice to holders of Hongkong and Shanghai Banking shares is to sit tight. At £94 the yield is over 5f per cent.
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