NEARLY BANKRUPT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 164, 10 January 1914, Page 5

NEARLY BANKRUPT.

CHINA'S P.AI) POSITION. | lIEAYY NATIONAL DEBT. Times—Sydney Sun Special Cables. Peking, January 8. China ended the year owing seventy-, two million.-, and eeonomic-.'Hy weakened by tlie revolution and the heavv peineuieill. illtlTe-l on tiie National Dele,. Confidence in '.lie I iovei anient is slender. Yuan-Shih-Kai. addressing the consultative bodv whom be clio-e to supplant (lie Republican Parliament, said that during two veals tlie exi.-:enci of the tit-public the laws had been dragged in the dust, and morality, self-re-straint and righteousness swept fnto oblivion. Men talked glibly of pitriut-i-.in. but if they entrusted the Go 1 , rumen! to a man simplv on the scm. of I his patriotic zeal, wiihoiil inqiiirin'' into his capacity, the almost iucviuhi,' con-.equeir-e would In. national rain. Tt v.as hopeles.s to anticipate the success of any enterprise nnlrss nionev was availahh' I'wr tlieir needs, and for thi> rea--i,n he regarded the pn-spilt *Hir.it>on with profound pe-iiui.-in. Only a very brief iu'.erval divided them fr.rn bin!'l'tiptc', and when their linuices wei'tuniter a Ten siipei-vi-ion their ten-it nrica would lie apportioned as spher' s of influence. ihe I'afe of mi;.in nnd Korea would he upon then and il would he too laie for repent ewe.