e 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):--

Mr. Lennox Simpson [Putnam Weale] is quoted as saying: "The
international bankers have a scheme for the international control
of China. Mr. Lamont, representing the consortium, offered a
sixteen-million-dollar loan to China, which the Chinese
Government refused to accept because Mr. Lamont insisted that the
Hukuang bonds, German issue, which had been acquired by the
Morgan Company, should be paid out of it." Mr. Lamont, on hearing
this charge, made an emphatic denial, saying: "Simpson's
statement is unqualifiedly false. When this man Simpson talks
about resisting the control of the international banks he is
fantastic. We don't want control. We are anxious that the
Conference result in such a solution as will furnish full
opportunity to China to fulfil her own destiny."

Sagacious people will be inclined to conclude that so much anger must be
due to being touched on the raw, and that Mr. Lamont, if he had had
nothing to conceal, would not have spoken of a distinguished writer and
one of China's best friends as "this man Simpson."

I do not pretend that the evidence against the consortium is conclusive,
and I have not space here to set it all forth. But to any European
radical Mr. Lamont's statement that the consortium does not want