Page:The Truth about China and Japan - Weale - 1919.djvu/136

 and with its notes at 50 per cent. discount; whilst its branches at the commercial ports manage to maintain their issues at parity because their balances are daily replenished by trade operations, and are not periodically raided by the army-leaders.

From the international point of view this matter of the currency, and the whole loan policy of the Powers, is indeed in as pretty a diplomatic tangle as a Talleyrand could desire. Eight years ago, on American initiative, a currency loan of 50 million gold dollars was signed; but the Revolution of 1911 prevented either the loan being floated or any true reorganization being attempted. Four Powers participated in this loan, England, America, France, and Germany, this official group being later expanded by the admission of Russia and Japan, who had protested that they were being discriminated against by being excluded. Meanwhile in 1913 America dropped out of participation in Chinese finance because of President Wilson's well-known declaration that the conditions of the foreign loans seemed to touch very nearly the administrative independence of China; transactions of this character being obnoxious to the principles upon which the American Government rested. This reduced