Tr is not surprising that the evidence in the Mixed Court on Wednesday afternoon, in connexion with the case of J. A. Wattle cereus Pao Kong and others, should have caused something of a sensation among the business community. With the merits of the case at large this is not the time for us to deal, while the matter remains sub judice.' Bat as regards the particular status and worth of native bank orders, we have a clear iso, in which it is necessary, without delay, to nail any possible misunderstanding to the counter. Briefly expressed it is as follows that according to the evidence of Mr. H.E. R. Hunter, supported by tional promise, by the bank which issues it, to pay. No cage of an order having any kind of con! attached to it has Mr. Hanter's notice, and in any case, to quote the witness's own words, " no foreigner would accept a bank order if he thought there was any possibility of that order's only being paid under certain conditions... unless the bank order were perfectly clean, no bank would touch it." 'That, of course, is no more than the principle on which business has always been conducted not only in Shanghai, but throughout all China ports. Now comes the representative of the Bankers' Gull who virtually denies the whole posit ion as set forth above. "On the face of it," he admits, "a bank ent and But he and are attached; that the freedom to treat an order as an unconditional promise to pay depends upon circumstances; and when pressed for direct answer of yes or no, the witness would appear to have become evasive to the point of refasing to reply. 3 Now setting aside all question of the operation of certain: bank re-gala which, as the Magistrate pointed out, have nothing to do with the present case, there was modicum of justice in the evidence given for the Bankers' (Guild, which, however, does not save it from being utterly misleading and inaccurate. Instances might arise, have indeed arisen, in which a purchaser, having cause real or imaginary to be dissatisfied with his purchase, would ask the bank to stop the order with which he had paid the seller. But the remedy would certainly not be, as was asserted in the Mixed Court, for the holder of the order " to return it to the person from whom he got it." Before the original cause of dissatisfaction was realized or made known, the order might have passed through several different hands. Even supposing that the person on whose behalf it was issued should not be induced to withdraw his application to the bank for its stoppage, the ty of the bank itself remains unaltered. What may be done, as between native banks, to attach conditions to any bank order we do not know, nor need we care in view of the fact that no conditional order would be looked at by foreign banks or merchants. So long as the order is clean, it is treated as being "as good hard silver: and the' guild's witness was convicted out: of his own mouth when he said that bank orders were known as "golden butterflies" because they could " fly all over China."
The conclusion that the evidence given on behalf of the guild was deliberately meant as a clever piece of evasion, which by means of raising a half trath should obscute the real issues of the case. We cannot believe that the guild seriously intends to abide by this attitude. To do so would simply mean the cessation of all business in native orders for the future, and for present the very serious possibility of the repudiation of all bank orders now outstanding. On the other hand there is a suspicion that it might be convenient, in the special circumstances of the case, to put forward a man of straw who would be willing to give evidence in amanoer that no responsible member of the gaild would dare to emulate. Against such conduct no doubt the Court will be able to protect itself. In the long ran we are convinced that the President of the Bankers'
Guild, whose failure to attend at the first summons was severely commented upon, will tell a different story from that of his subordinate. To do otherwise would be fatal not only to foreign, but to Chinese business.
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Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.