Peking, March 20.
_One feature of the funding loan scheme which appeals to the Chinese banks, because most of the bankers are domestic bond holders, is that when the national unsecured debt is consolidated with the Customs increases as security the consolidated domestic bonds and the " 96-million " bonds will enjoy the position of a prior lien upon the Customs surplus and will then he perfectly secured.
The native banks here have been trying to ascertain for weeks when ther the foreign financiers and the Legations would endorse the prior claim of the domestic bonds upon the Customs surplus if the surtax were granted and the national debt consolidated and from some quarter they now have assurances that the domestic bonds will be given the prior lien.
The word has gone out to Shanghai and other trading centres with the result that the native banks as a body are already prepared to give the fanding loan scheme strong endorsement.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.