independently: what then would be the wise
American course? In short, it would be to view our existing European
interests and issues (due to the war) and our Far Eastern interests
and issues as parts of one and the same problem. If we are actuated by
the motive hypothetically imputed to our government and we fail in its
realization, the chief reason will be that we regard the European
question and the Asiatic problem as two different questions, or
because we identify them from the wrong end.

Our present financial interest in Europe is enormous. It involves not
merely foreign governmental loans but a multitude of private advances
and commitments. These financial entanglements affect not merely our
industry and commerce but our politics. They involve much more
immediately pressing concerns than to our Asiatic relations, and they
involve billions where the latter involve millions. The danger under
such conditions that our Asiatic relations will be sacrificed to our
European is hardly fanciful.

To make this abstract statement concrete, the firm of bankers, J. P.
Morgan & Co., which is most heavily involved in European indebtedness
to the United States, is the firm which is the leading spirit in the
Consortium for China. It seems almost inevitable that the Asiatic
problem should look like small potatoes in comparison with the
European one, especially as our own industrial recuperation is so
closely connected with European relations, while the Far East cuts a
negligible figure. To my mind the real danger to set out upon selfish
exploitation of China: intelligent self-interest, tradition and the
fact that our chief asset in China is our past freedom from a
predatory course, dictate a course of cooperation with China. The
danger is that China will be subordinated and sacrificed because of
primary preoccupation with the high finance and politics of Europe,
that she will be lost in the shuffle.

The European aspect of the problem can be made more concrete by
reference to Great Britain in particular. That country suffers from
the embarrassment of the Japanese alliance. She has already made it
sufficiently clear that she would like to draw America into the
alliance, making it tripartite, since that would be the easiest way of
maintaining good relations with both Japan and the United States.
There is no likelihood that any such step will be consummated. But
British diplomacy is experienced and astute. And by force of
circumsta