WESTERN GATE, PEKIN, CHINA.
If England were to grant China the enormous loan that she needs to pay the war indemnity to Japan, she would secure "a controlling voice in all future financial transactions which the Chinese Government might wish or be forced to undertake."
If China agreed to the second proposition, England could manage the customs in such a way as to "attract the vast bulk of the internal trade of China to herself."
He writes further:
"The third and fourth demands hang together, but have to be treated separately. The concession to Great Britain of the unrestricted right to construct railways from Burmah into the southwestern provinces of China would have the effect of turning them into commercial tributaries of Great Britain.
"A railway connecting Rangoon in Burmah by way of Bhamo with Ichang at the head of navigation on the Yang-tse-kiang would act as a suction pipe to draw away to the port of Rangoon the trade of the most prosperous and flourishing parts of China, and give products taking that route the advantage of many days in point of time and of distance in the race for the European markets. By just so much trade as might take the British route through Burmah, would the potential trade of other Powers, with no other but all sea routes from the coast at their command, be diminished.
"The advantage British manufactures would have for entry and distribution into the vast and populous regions which the British Government proposes to penetrate by means of railways constructed by British capital, and affording employment to British labor and shipping, are too obvious to need enlarging upon.
"A glance at the map will show that the better half of China proper, territorially and commercially, would, by the concession of the third and fourth of England's demands, be placed under her practical control."
The writer believes that the fourth demand is aimed at stopping the advance of the French in China beyond Tonquin.
Now comes the point of his article most interesting to us as Americans.