Meaning of Consortium's Recent Note on Foreign Loans and the Customs Surplus #rem Loduey Gilbert.
Furcign investors in China's consolidated domestic bonds have come to ted that me native bankers with their big holdings constitute the stoutest bulwark between their little investments and the various—irrespons.yie _administrations in Peking which look upon the Customs surplus, the security for the bonds, with covetous eyes. It is felt that no Government can rescind the mandate which put the Customs surplus at Sir Francis Aglen's disposition for the service of the bonds, without wrecking a great number of the native banks, destroying its own credit with the native bankers, and with scores of influential merchants and officials throughout the land, and precipitating a financial panic which. would spell its own complete ruin. Foreign investors and speculators have therefore come to rely upon the native bankers to play the watch dog, and te bark loudly whenever anyone makes a hostile gesture towards the security for their investments. For this reason such a letter og the Chinese Bankers' Assoviation and the Native Banks' Associition addressed to the Inspector General of Customs on Wednesday is always welcome as evidence of watchfulness even though, as in this instance, the sccitrity of the bonds is threatened by the Diplomatic Body and not by the. Peking administration.
The interest which the bankers take in the bonds and the check (Which, they put upon the Government are wholesome evidences of a growing tendency to keep an eye upon official high-jinks in Peking which will have to extend to fields other than that of finance if China is to bring forth a respectetle government, and such evidences are therefore welcome not only to the small bond fide investor in bonds but to every foreign friend of China who still believes that her redemption is possible.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.