Peking, Dec. 8.
The very severe criticism which Mr. Chou Tze-chi's note to the bankers representing the Consortium has elicited from the foreign press and from the Legations is perhaps no less than the noce called for, and certainly no less than Mr. Chou expected. The fact that foreigners generally leaped so eagerly upon Mr. Chou and bit so readily at the bait which he offered, is in itself a woeful acknowledgement of ignorance of the Chinese mind in the first place and of the Chinese press in the second. Without having consulted Mr. Chou at all in the matter, the writer can assure the public that the storm which his note has raised is precisely what he desired and that nothing could be more satisfactory to him than the adverse advertising which has been given it in the foreign press. A few words should suffice to explain why.
Mutitarist Ipeats or Finance.
Mr. Chou Tze-chi is expected by his Government to-raise money for this Government by hook or crook. In the eyes of the military men, who stand sponsor for the Government, that is the primary function of a Minister of Finance. For many weeks the Chinese press has been reflecting the opinion of the Chinese public to the effect that this Government shotd have. no loans. In its campaign against foreign loans the Chinese press has insisted over and over again, in spite of foreign advices, that the Consortium would constitute a financial monopoly and that sooner or later China would be called upon to pledge the Land Tax as security for a foreign loan. Mr. Chou Tze-chi presumably reads the Chinese papers and senses Chinese public opinion, as the foreign financial agents presumably do not. To put Mr. Chou in the least chavitable light, he is a politician, he observes the trend of the times, public statement to this effect, or he would have called together the correspondents and opened his mind to them. China, unfortunately, has not gone so far.
So Chou Tze-chi wrote a letter to the Chinese people and the Chinese press, addressing it, in true Chinese round-about style, to the bankers. What the bankers, who are with some justice incensed, should appreciate is that Chou Tze-chi, when he wrote to them, did not have them in mind at all. He knew that he was doing them an injustice, but indirectly he was doing himself and the Chinese people justice.
The bankers never asked for a lien on China with the Land Tax as security, but the Chinese people were convinced that they had, and that Mr. Chou was secretly arranging the bargain, If Mr. Chou had published a denial in the Chinese press he would not have been believed. By embodying his denial in a letter to the Consortium representatives he convinces his fellow-countrymen.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.