erence. A detailed settled
policy, no matter how "constructive" it may appear to be, can hardly
help involving us in the domestic policies of China, an affair of
factions and a game which the Chinese understand and play much better
than any foreigners. Such an involvement would at once lessen a
present large asset in China, aloofness from internal intrigues and
struggles.

The specific protests of Chinese in this country--mainly
Cantonese--against the Consortium seem to me mainly based on
misapprehension. But their _general_ attitude of opposition
nevertheless conveys an important lesson. It is based on a belief that
the effect of the Consortium will be to give the Peking government a
factitious advantage in the internal conflict which is waging in
China, so that to all intents and purposes it will mark a taking of
sides on our part. It is well remembered that the effect of the
"reorganization" loan of the prior Consortium--in which the United
States was _not_ a partner--was to give Yuan Shi Kai the funds which
seated him and the militarist faction after him, firmly in the
governmental saddle. Viewing the matter from a larger point of view
than that of Canton vs. Peking, the most fundamental objection I heard
brought by Chinese against the Consortium was in effect as follows:
The republican revolution in China has still to be wrought out; the
beginning of ten years ago has been arrested. It remains to fight it
out. The inevitable effect of increased foreign financial and economic
interest in China, even admitting that its industrial effect was
advantageous to China, would be to create an interest in _stabilizing_
China politically, which in effect would mean to sanctify the status
quo, and prevent the development of a revolution which cannot be
accomplished without internal disorders that would affect foreign
investments unfavorably. These considerations are not mentioned for
the sake of throwing light on the Consortium: they are cited as an
illustration of the probability that a too positive and constructive
development of our tradition of goodwill to China would involve us in
an interference with Chinese domestic affairs injurious to China's
welfare, to that free and independent development in which we profess
such interest.

But how, it will be asked, are we to protect China from foreign
depredations, particularly those of Japan, how are we to change our
nominal goodwill into a reality, if we do not enter much mor