Heiung Hei-ling on the Impairment of China's Sovereignty: No Objection to a Commission "China's Finance and the policy of the new Consortium" was the subject of a striking address recently given by the Hon. Hsiung Hsi-ling at the annual banquet of the Peking Chinese-American Club. The speaker began by saying that there is not the slight est hope of China being able to} improve her finances, so long as her political administration is imperfect, her troops are not decreased, and the South and North are not reunited. In these circumstances, no matter how one may be able to' devise some scheme to effect an increase in government receipts and a retrenchment in administrative expenditures, it will be thing more than "trying to satisfy one's hunger by painting the picture of a cake." It will all be The view of Chinese who oppose the new consortium is that joint finance and contro] will undoubtedly impair the Chinese Governments sovereignty, and that when Chinese railway receipts are placed under the control of the Consortium, commercial and economic development will be hindered. Furthermore, with a monopoly existing, it will be impossible to obtain loans on terms so advantagcous as those which competition would afford. The facts that the coupons of the Crisp loan and the French Pukou loan cannot be raised to a higher price, and that the American loan for the Grand Canal and Chuchin railways cannot be floated are attributed to the, new consortium, and quoted as showing that it is impracticable for a single financial organization to monopolize the loan-making business of China. Again, the rumour that the New Consortium has demanded the land tax as security for a loan has unsettled the public mind and created the impression that this is a step preliminary to the conversion of China into another Egypt. On the other hand, it has to be recognized that when all the railway loans come under the new consortium the existing evil of so-called spheres of influence" will be destroyed. Another advantage would be that foreign investment in Chinese loans would be encouraged, and careful control would prevent extravagance expenditure.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.