We have been favoured with the following extracts from a letter from Berlin on the new German bank The members of the Syndicate are most warful, I do not know all of them, but 'éniglich Seehandlung, Deutsche Bank, Bieichrodér, Krupp, Stern, Warschauer, these last two always run coupled—are among them, and there are others equally strong, At first there were two distinct groups with the same object, but by Government persuasion they have been merged into ove. The movement is furthered by the German Minister at Peking who has given encouragements of a specific nature, ofthe exact nature only the initiated know, T daresay the Chinese authorities have held out a certain readiness to favour German national sin Government contracts, and. to push German interests still more, Herr Von Brandt takes a German bank in China to be a necessity. The idea in starting the bank is not exactly to make money by banking,—though of course an eye is cast in that direction also—but the chief object is to get Government contracts either for the Dank or for their proteges, such as Krupp, to make money out of these contracts aod to offer together with their tenders money to carry out the contracts, for which advances, Government loans are to be floated in Europe.
At first the bank was to be started with one million sterling capital it will hardly matter what amount they will start with since they have millions at their back. They want to have their capital in silver currency, this German law does not admit, hence they're trying to get the law changed. At will take some time and I hardly fancy that a movement will be made for several months, The bank is to start in Shanghai and is to spread gradually to other places in the East as requirements may demand, The Utopian idea in Berlin is that China ill all at once open out to European civiltion, Dreams of railways, of embanking the Yellow River, of an Imperial mint and such like gigantic works are indulged in.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.