According to current accounts, the Chinese Charge in London went to the British Forsign Office and to Sir Francis Aglien with the suggestion that the support of Chinese Legations! should be made a prior claim upon the Customs surplus. Si Francis Aglen of course replied that the Domestic Bonds already constituted a prior lien, and, in the course of debate with the Charge, remarked that if the Chinese people really wanted to forfeit domestic credit and support their face'? abroad by such juggling of securities, he would resign his position and throw up his hands if such a heinous fraud were supported by a Presidential mandate cancelling that which had originally authorized him to accept the position of curator of these loans. This attitude made the Charge uncomfortable, but he turned the discussion into such a channel that Sir Francis Aglen finally agreed that if the bankers and the chambers of commerce were willing to- let, the internal obligations go to pot, he was no longer concerned.
On the strength of this suggestion the Charge wired back to Peking asking for the views of the bankers and the commercial bodies. Naturally he got what he wanted. The Waichiaopu hastened to inform him that the banks and the Chinese chambers of commerce were perfectly willing that the existing Customs Surplus should be used in the first instance as security for the support of Chinese Legations abroad. Sir Francis Aglen was duly—disconcerted by this reply but, in the interest of the bond holders, took pains to wire back to China directly for information.
As anyone might surmise, the bankers and the chambers of commerce fell over one another in their haste to repudiate the Waichiaopu interpretation of their attitude, since when bad feeling has been inevitable and the Chinese Legations abroad have had scant sympathy in financial circles.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.