ore be said that America is
_always_ honourable or humanitarian or liberal. The evidence is that
America adopts these virtues when they suit national or rather financial
interests, but fails to perceive their applicability in other cases.

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 th