THE CHINESE GO A-BORROWING
The time was come for China to put money in her purse. She was sure she could do it, and sure that the United States, her great, rich sponsor and friend, would help her to the means commensurate with her needs of development for war. A suggestion to this effect had been made to the Chinese minister at Washington by the Department of State. It was undreamt of that no assistance whatever could be given to China.
During the fall of 1917 all my powers were devoted to securing for our Far Eastern associate in the war the best form of American assistance. I wished to avoid, if possible, a loss of the chance for giving Chinese financial affairs a sound basis. Above all, it was essential to aid in steering China beyond earshot of the financial sirens that were luring her upon the Japanese rocks. China invited American leadership, relied upon it. No other nation in the circumstances could justly take exception to it. It involved no vast enterprise of immediately raising a huge army in China, but of preparing the way for such mobilization, if need should arise. This could be done by facilitating works which would endure and which would contribute to the welfare of China and the world, war or no war. It meant building means of communication and improving the food supply. It meant reconstruction after the war. It meant an expenditure of money that would be infinitesimal compared with the sums spent in Europe. America had lent billions to the Entente Allies; the hundred millions that would have served to make China fit were a mere trifle. Nor was it necessary to insist upon independent American action in this matter. America's leadership in behalf of the common interest and in coöperation with her associates could produce the results desired of putting the situation in the Far East on a sound basis. I had always desired American independent enterprise in individual cases, free from all entanglements and semi-political arrangements with other nations, whose favour, fortunately, we did not require. But in the great task of the World War joint action with others was natural, and action in China, given only positive American leadership, could have produced fine results. The war powers did get together for some action. They suspended the Boxer indemnity payments for China, and she got the benefit of the twentieth of ad valorem duty which the treaties provided; on the basis of reckonings two decades back, the 5 per cent. had really shrunk to 3. To restore the rate fixed by the treaties was hardly a beginning of justice.
Here was China, ready, willing to take her part in the war. What should she do? In America the slogan: "Food Will Win the War" was in vogue, and China could furnish food. She could supply coolies, millions if necessary, as workmen and as soldiers. The war had proved that the training of men as soldiers could be a matter, not of years, but of months. Plans were drawn up, at first for hundreds of thousands of Chinese soldiers, then for half a million.
I urged my proposals on the State Department. The Canton-Hankow Railway needed finishing. The Chinese arsenals and shipyards could be refitted. I asked the consular officers and attachés for a rapid survey of China's food resources; their returns showed that a large surplus could be produced, if steps were taken at once to assure a market. The Chinese have a genius for growing food; among them they have the world's most skilful gardeners. But they needed added credit if they were to put in more seed and harvest bigger crops. In these estimates Professor Tuck of Cornell, who was up in Manchuria, and Professor Bailey, in Nanking, gave their expert aid.
England and her European allies, it was determined, had "gone broke"; if there was to be a Consortium of lenders to China, would America lead the way? Liang Chi-chao, Minister of Finance, proposed it. There was China's public credit, with such vast human and material resources as to stagger belief, waiting to be organized. There was the supreme opportunity to send scattering all of the promoters of the unseemly scramble to get special advantages through Chinese financial deals. I spared no pains—for four years, indeed, I had laboured for this very thing—to impress upon America the new vision of a developed China. Two things halted action. Outside influences working in America itself were aimed to stop the free play of financial enterprise in China; next, there was the provincialism of the New York financiers. They would only follow where other nations led.
Then there was the alternative—coöperation between the war powers. By hoops and barrages of steel we were bound to our brothers of Britain, France, and Italy; Japan was an allied and associated power; at every point our gold and war bonds were mingled with theirs. We were powerful enough to hold our associates to a policy of developing China for the benefit of all participants; an end might be put there to "special interests." I suggested a new consortium on this basis.
I went to the Chinese President. "I know," he declared, "that America will spare no means whereby China may carry out her purpose to stand by the side of the Allies on the battlefields of Europe."