Nov. 3, Tue International Famine Relief Committee, representing important Chinese and foreign interests in the north, has addressed the President and Premier suggesting the raising of a foreign loan of $50,000,000 on the security of an additional half per cent. fon the Customs duty. This would make the ad valorem Customs, tariff 5} per cent., and by means of this additional half per cent. the Committee suggests that a sumo roughly $7,000,000 would be available yearly for the purposes of the loan. Of this total one half would be devoted to the payment of interest and the other half would go to a sinking fund which would be sufficient to repay the total in eighteen years.
We have every reason to believe that the Treaty Powers are prepared to agree to the extra half per cent. on the Customs tariff, given the necessary guarantees that the money will be properly spent. Both Chinese and foreigners are unanimous that official interference must be absent, an exceedingly healthy sign indeed. There are, of course, questions of business contracts still to mature which would be) adversely influenced by the increase, but this is a small difficulty. Once the principle is settled the increase can be delayed in its operation wherever! necessary without—_ essentially affecting the security offered to Presumably, likewise, the financial and diplomatic that the additional _percentage will be ample to meet interest and sinking fund, and, if the loan can be floated at seven per' cent., the figures put forward bear this out. But here we are bound to ask whether too optimism tic a view has not been taken of the suggested flotation. Is it possible to-day to float a loan successfully at seven per cent.? In the first place we can be absolutely certain that unless the Chinese Government puts itself! unreservedly in the hands of the Consortium it might as well give up all hope of a foreign loan, even for famine purposes. Then the chances of the Consortium securing a sum of $50,000,000 at seven per cent. are by no means sure. The average rate of interest on Chinese securities today, taken on their market price,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.