MONEY FOR GERMANY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVIV, Issue 36, 18 January 1916, Page 8

MONEY FOR GERMANY.

TRADE INTRIGUE IN CHINA. The Pekin correspondent of "The Times" cabled on November 17:— "Messages from Europe, declaring that German trade with China has been extinguished, are seriously misleading. Trade has been affected by the disappearance of German shipping, but there are still considerable exports of German-owned and Ger-man-financed commodities, which are shipped through Chinese firms in Chinese, Japanese, Norwegian, and Danish bottoms to America. All the machinery of business is maintained for a resumption of full trade imme-

diately the war ends. j "Meanwhile it is necessary to bear in mind that at present the largest 'buyers of gold in China are the DeutI sch-Asiatische Bank, who ship large quantities by every mail to America by registered parcel post in bamboo tubes, each containing 40oz. Obviously the Germans here have abundant money available for unscrupulous propaganda among the Chinese, especially the Mohemmedan Chinese. This money is provided by the DeutschAsiatische Bank from the proceeds of the service of the German share in the Boxer indemnity, amounting to £2OOO daily, the German share of the iAnglo-German loans of 1896. 1898, 1908, and 1910, and the quintuple loan of 1913, amounting to a further £4OOO daily. The total annual amount is £2,i80,000, and is paid into the German bank by the Chinese Government, who are faithfully fulfilling their engagements under the loan contracts.

"In addition large sums are due to Krupp's agents and other German arms dealers, amounting in the aggregate to several millions sterling, and bearing interest at 6 per cent, and upwards. Money is so abundant that the Germans boast that it has ■ never been so plentiful as at present. Commenting, on the recent failure of the Government's proposal to obtain advances of 10.000,000 taels (£1,500,000) from the quintuple banks. th% 'Peking Gazette' hinted that the entire amount would be obtained from the Deutsch-Asiatisehe Bank. "Surely the time has come when, under British Government direction, the two chief British banks in China, the Chartered and the Hongkong and Shanghai Banks, should make a combined effort wholly to supplant the German bank, whose co-operation with the British banks in the past was constantly gravely prejudicial to British interests, and whose mischievous activities now threaten seriously to affect the position of the Allies in China."