A NEW WORLD WAR COMING?
The old World War ended with the Armistice. Was a new one looming?
If one came it would break in China—of that we were convinced. Unless it settled China's problems the Peace Conference would fall disastrously short of safeguarding the world against a renewal of its titanic conflict. In China the powers were rivals, each with its jealously guarded sphere of influence. In the extravagant language of fancy, Ku Hung-ming thus pictured to me the situation: "China's political ship, built in the eclipse and rigged with curses black, has been boarded by the pirates of the world. In their dark rivalries they may scuttle it and all sink together, but not until they have first plundered and burned civilization as we know it."
Should any action be taken which might be interpreted as a recognition of a special position for Japan in China, whether in the form of a so-called Monroe Doctrine or a "regional understanding" or in any other way, forces would be set in motion that in a generation would be beyond controlling. In comparison with this tremendous issue, even the complex re-alignments of Central Europe fell into relative unimportance. The same fatal result was sure to follow any further accentuation of spheres of influence.
We in China realized this, and in deadly earnest we worked out a plan of joint preventive action by the powers, which would unite them instead of leaving them in fatal rivalry. The root of all evil is in the love of money. It was local financing by single exploiting powers in spheres protected by political influence that was the evil. If, instead, the finance of the world could be made to back a united China, there would be a great constructive development, from which all would benefit far in excess of selfish profits garnered in a corner. We planned a system of joint international finance. That, despite its drawbacks, would destroy the localization of foreign political influence. The plan in its relations to the Chinese Government was worked out with everyone that we could reach competent to give advice. There were the official and business representatives of Great Britain and France; the Chinese cabinet ministers and other officials, and all of the American representatives, including the commercial attachés Julean Arnold and P.P. Whitham, and the American advisers, Dr. W.W. Willoughby, Dr. W.C. Dennis, and Mr. J.E. Baker of the Department of Railways. Day and night the conferences went on informally; by day and night these matters were threshed out. Japanese experts, too, were consulted.
The time seemed propitious. The Armistice brought the hope that the powers would coöperate. The separatist political aims in China might be overcome, together with the sinister intrigue for dismembering or dominating that mighty nation of freemen. Could foreign financial action and influence in China be gathered up into a unit? Could it be made to build for the whole of China, not tear it down in its several parts? At all events, we hammered out a plan to make this possible.
Foreigners had gone deeply into railway loans, making their chief investments there. Hence we made the plan of unified financial support apply, first of all, to the railway service. The operating of the different Chinese lines according to the respective national loans was a curse; it was evil politics, and it broke down the railway service. Foreign experts, acting as servants of the Chinese Government, might unify the Chinese railroads, though of this Liang Shih-yi, Chow Tsu-chi, and Yeh Kung-cho—who knew most about Chinese railway affairs—had their doubts. It would pile up the overhead expenses, they thought. The railways could be managed thriftily only by the Chinese. The foreign banking interests, too, might try to be depositories for the railway funds, as they were already for the customs and salt revenues. Thus Chinese capital would pay tribute to foreign capital. If still other revenues were thus absorbed, as might be feared, national economy would be fettered too much.
Therefore they proposed a Chinese banking group. It would help in the financing and could be made the depository of funds.
These men sympathized, however, with the main purpose of the suggested arrangement for unification. Foreign expertship on the railways, also, was highly valued by Chinese railwaymen trained in the West. True, Mr. Sidney Mayers somewhat frightened them by his proposals. This British industrial representative of long experience in China proposed internationalizing each separate line by putting on it an international group of experts. The Chinese objected; it would mean giving all the important positions to a large staff of foreign officials. Of this they had had enough in the Customs.