Aug. 26.
ComPLaINT, dissatisfaction and indignant comment, the like of which has not been heard for years in the Far East, have been evoked by the crash of the Banque Industrielle de Chine, and in the circumstances these express sions are certainly anything but surprising. Through no want of sympathy with those who are sufferers by this crisis we have retrained from comment on the situation up to the present, but in our columns full vent has been given to the discontent rife throughout the whole of the Far East with the course events have followed, not only since the bank closed its doors, but from the beginning of the present year when ugly rumours were first abroad. These expressions are certain to find their way to the proper quarter in France, and before endeavouring to explain something of the present state of affairs, we may allude to one or two points deserving special emphasis. The first of these is, of course, that damning telegram sent out in January by the Leygues Ministry—that Ministry being already in the throes of the crisis which wrought its downfall—proclaiming the solidarity of the State with the great financial establishments of the country, including the Banque Industrielle. Since the crash the telegrams have been obscure and sometimes almost unintelligible, but their general tone has been optimistic. In Hongkong, moreover, a statement has been made in the liquidation proceedings which might also be characterized as hopeful. Yet the latter from our Paris correspondent published last week and written in Paris on July 8—the time when the first of the cheerful telegrams were coming—contained no such hopeful outlook, but showed that the other banks in Paris were not prepared to help. French financial papers now to hand contain articles of the same tenour. The liabilities, so far as could be gathered at that time, were five hundred million francs, and one paper published an acensation on the part of an ex-army officer of disseminating a false balance sheet. The position was undoubtedly desperate, so little wonder that the Far East has now ground for the most profound indignation.
Fortunately it is not our busi-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.