Page:James Hudson Maurer - The Far East (1912).pdf/62

 concessions were secured, presto, change! Not only did the founder, Barnes, but most of those who had started the game with him, find themselves outside the breastworks (kicked out.} The Chinese Government seeing its blunder could not be expected to get along well with the American-Chinese Development Company, nor was it intended that she should; a cleaning up and gathering in of the sheckels was now in order, not only to rob China but bunco the original Barnes' company as well.

During the summer of 1905 the company agreed to give back to China the concessions, providing China paid $6,750,000. This sum was paid, and poor old China was once more buncoed, and Thurlow Weed Barnes and his friends are still wondering who got all the money. Yet there are those who say there is honor among thieves.

Since 1902 the banking interests of England, France, Germany, Japan, and the United States have been active in establishing their institutions in China. The first American institution in the Orient is the branch of the International Banking Corporation and known as the Harriman Bank, capitalized at $3,250,000 and located at Peking. Other branches of this bank have been established at Hongkang, Shanghai and Canton.

Capitalists the world aver have, for the past decade, been busy preparing China for her next great step. Having started the Chinese to school, abolished to a great extent chattel slavery, modernized the Chinese dress and removed the traditional pig tail, abolished the opium evil, etc., etc., yet there remained a very serious obstacle, and that was nothing less than the Manchu dynasty, represented by the child Emperor.

There is no strong central government; currency is debased; each province had its own system of coinage, which fluctuates with market conditions. The central government is without sufficient financial resources to undertake most anything of a very serious nature.

The entire system of taxation is so involved that financial regeneration of all political improvements is well nigh impossible.

The real Government of China is in the hands of the Governors of the provinces, each of which is practically an independent state, and manages its affairs with little consideration for the orders from Peking.