A "SQUEEZE" IN CHINA.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1276, 3 November 1911, Page 5

A "SQUEEZE" IN CHINA.

AMERICAN FAMILY GETS .870,000. Ry Telegraph—Press Association—CoDyri|;hl Washington, November 1. A committeo of the United States House of Representatives has opened an inquiry regarding the connection of an ex-Secretary of State, Mr. J. W. Foster, and Mr. E. 11. Conger, late United States Minister to China, with the payment of .£70,000 sterling to the heirs of General Ward, who was killed during the Chinese Rebellion in ISS2. Tho money is alleged to have como out of tho Boxer Indemnity Fund. It is stated that great influence wa.s brought to bear on Prince Ching to allow a forty-yoar-old claim to be paid from tho recently-created fund.

The total indemnity which China has to pay the Powers on account of tho Boxer rising of 1900 was fixed at .£65,000,000, payable in 39 years. In 1903 tho United States Government undertook to restore to China nearly .£2,400,000, being tlio unexpended balance of America's sharo of tho indemnity. China thereupon decided to apply tho main portion of the amount available to the education in American schools and universities of selected Chinese students. It was estimated that at the beginning of 1909 the proportion of tho general annuity assignable to tho bonds restored to China would be <£91,000 increasing to .£99,500 in 1911, to .£122,500 in 1910, and to ,£176,750 in 1932, at which figure it would remain till 1910, when the debt will bo extinguished. With tho main portion of these sums China proposed to send 100 students annually to America to receive ah education for four to eight years until the number reached 400, which number at least would bo maintained throughout the currency of the indemnity.