30 BRITONS V. GERMANS IN CHINA
man merchant in Hongkong. A certain quantity of goods have been sold by Man- chester to Hongkong. The Manchester merchant draws a six months' bill. A Lon- don banker accepts this bill in exchange for the Bill of Lading and other documents relating to the goods. The Manchester merchant discounts the bill and so gets pay- ment for his goods. Meanwhile the I on- don banker sends the Bill of Lading abroad, and in exchange receives from the German merchant in Hongkong a letter of lien promising to hold any proceeds realised from the sale of the goods in trust, but in any case before maturity of the bill to send a remittance so that the London banker can meet his liability. So far so good, but the Germans, after signing such letters of lien, and agreeing to their conditions, did not hold the proceeds in trust. Without excep- tion they used them in order to finance fur- ther business, thus committing a breach of
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BRITONS V. GERMANS IN CHINA 31
It
trust in no way different in essentials from those cases which are from time to time brought against certain lawyers at home, and are most severely punished by penal servitude. The trust reposed in them by the I ondon bankers was still further vio- lated, because they used these financial facilities in order to give long and dan- gerous credit to their native customers. will be seen that by continually playing off one London banker against another, they were able to acquire continuous control of a large amount of British capital. To take full advantage of this dishonest way of dealing it was necessary for them to have a regular stream of shipments coming for- ward, and this may account for their reck- less anxiety to secure orders on unfavour- able and unprofitable terms.
It would be unfair to say that all their other methods were equally objectionable and