I could of course have given many other instances, but I content myself with one, because it especially concerns China.  I quote from an American weekly, The Freeman (November 23, 1921, p. 244):—­

On November 1st, the Chinese Government failed to meet an obligation of $5,600,000, due and payable to a large banking-house in Chicago.  The State Department had facilitated the negotiation of this loan in the first instance; and now, in fulfilment of the promise of Governmental support in an emergency, an official cablegram was launched upon Peking, with intimations that continued defalcation might have a most serious effect upon the financial and political rating of the Chinese Republic.  In the meantime, the American bankers of the new international consortium had offered to advance to the Chinese Government an amount which would cover the loan in default, together with other obligations already in arrears, and still others which will fall due on December 1st; and this proposal had also received the full and energetic support of the Department of State.  That is to say, American financiers and politicians were at one and the same time the heroes and villains of the piece; having co-operated in the creation of a dangerous situation, they came forward handsomely in the hour of trial with an offer to save China from themselves as it were, if the Chinese Government would only enter into relations with the consortium, and thus prepare the way for the eventual establishment of an American financial protectorate.

It should be added that the Peking Government, after repeated negotiations, had decided not to accept loans from the consortium on the terms on which they were offered.  In my opinion, there were very adequate grounds for this decision.  As the same article in the Freeman concludes:—­

If this plan is put through, it will make the bankers of the consortium the virtual owners of China; and among these bankers, those of the United States are the only ones who are prepared to take full advantage of the situation.

There is some reason to think that, at the beginning of the Washington Conference, an attempt was made by the consortium banks, with the connivance of the British but not of the American Government, to establish, by means of the Conference, some measure of international control over China.  In the Japan Weekly Chronicle for November 17, 1921 (p. 725), in a telegram headed “International Control of China,” I find it reported that America is thought to be seeking to establish international control, and that Mr. Wellington Koo told the Philadelphia Public Ledger:  “We suspect the motives which led to the suggestion and we thoroughly doubt its feasibility.  China will bitterly oppose any Conference plan to offer China international aid.”  He adds:  “International control will not do.  China must be given time and opportunity to find herself.  The world should not misinterpret or exaggerate the meaning of the convulsion which China is now passing through.”  These are wise words, with which every true friend of China must agree.  In the same issue of the Japan Weekly Chronicle—­which, by the way, I consider the best weekly paper in the world—­I find the following (p. 728):—­