To the writer's mind, however, Mr. Padoux's memorandum appeals as a particularly important document because it is the first detailed presentation of the funding loam scheme, so long discussed in Consortium circles, to appear in print. The publication of such a document now, written by a Chinese Government employee and_ submitted to a Chinese financial commission, indicates that during the past year the Chinese official attitude towards the funding of the unsecured debt has undergone a material change. It indicates that the financial authorities in the Government consider the funding of all of China's unsecured debts, however and by whomever contracted, without discrimination, as inevitable and that they are therefore resigned to it. The mere spiritual discomfort which comes of being daily branded as defaulters, the annoyance of being dunned by foreign creditors and by their Legations with increasing persistency, combined with some vague fear of financial intervention, may have worn down whatever resistance existed in Chinese circles to a funding scheme. Whatever the reason for Chinese concurrence in a plan for a debt consolidation, there have been many hints in the Chinese press of
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.