Banker's View of How it May Help to Unite the Country Again: No Peace no Loan Hongkong, Feb. 26.
In the course of his speech at.the annual meeting of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, the chairman, in a reference to the silver market, said: "It is upon China that the burden will fall of absorbing an amount equal to the world production of silver. China's trade balance is at present the governing factor in the silver situation, and the prospect of her being able to increase, or even maintain, last year's import of 98,500,000 ounces is, to say the Dealing with the trade position in China, he stated: "Speaking generally, the stocks of imported goods lying in Hongkong and China ports are not excessive, and not more than what was normal in pre-war times. It is known that the markets of the interior are bare of supplies, so that it is to be hoped that trade will soon resume its normal course. There are already welcome indications of this. There is little doubt that the future prospects of the cotton industry in China are encouraging.
A Serious Srrvarion.-
"The immediate repudiation by the Southern authorities of the Presidential Mandate, announcing that the differences between North and South were practically composed, showed that there is still a wide gulf between the two parties. Meanwhile both parties are themselves in a state of dissension. In the South new Governments are formed and re-formed with bewildering rapidity. While this situation obtains it is to be feared that the first steps towards the establishment of a really—representative Government, sutliciently powerful to exercise authority over the Provinces—which, it becomes more and more evident, is so necessary to the well-being and prosperity of the country—must inevitably be postponed.
"Financially the situation is sufficiently serious. The Government, despite the large sums that have been released to their use by the Customs and Salt Revenue Administration, are still in dire straits for money to meet their many obligations and administrative expenses, whereof the heaviest item remains the pay of an army altogether beyond the legitimate requirements of the country." 7 Speaking on the aims and objects of the Consortium, the chairman said: While it provides the general machinery for future borrowings by China, it does not contemplate a-large immediate loan. Indeed, so long as the hold of the Central Government on the Provinces is in its present unsatis-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.