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lectually, and this could easily be arranged, by allotting a small sum at the beginning for educational purposes and gradually increasing the grant as the loans for conservancy undertakings are returned. for with the greater prosperity pevailing there would be a greater call for educational facilities.
The China International Famine Relief Commission has found the method for advancing funds for conservancy werks, which they supervise en the loan basis, repayable by the districts concerned, a practical problem, and there is, therefore, no reason to apprehend that the Central or Local Authorities would reject proposals of this nature as a means of applying the Boxer Indemnity funds should they be intelligently approached.
1 remain, Sir.
Tientsin. 18th December, 1924.
(Signed) M. T. LANG,
DR. S. LAVINGTON HART'S LETTER.
REMISSION OF THE BOXER INDEMNITY.
To the Editor of "The Times.”
Sir,
It is probable that not a few of the readers of your valuable coinmmns are anxious to be informed concerning the opinions held out here in China. with regard to the remission of the Boxer Indemnities. I venture, there- fore, to send to you a brief statement expressing not merely my own views, but also those current among my own countrymen out here, and among representative Chinese who reflect the opinions of many others. And as my colleagues and I have been engaged in the training of young Chinese for many years, in one of the few British educational institutions in China, it seems to me that we are in a position to convey those impressions to those at home who wish to do the right thing by both countries.
It is perhaps needless to state that the people of China are not pre- pared to view with any favour the suggestions recently made at home to use the funds solely on railway undertakings or other engineering schemes, the main result of which would be to benefit home industries and relieve the stress of unemployment in Great Britain: such suggestions may be wise if the question to be settled is how to invest available funds, but they cannot
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be regarded as being a happy solution of the matter in hand, namely the Re- mission of the Boxer Indemnity. Our country would certainly lose any claim that it may at present possess to the goodwill of China if it were to decide to use these moneys for its own advantage in the first instance, leav- ing the gain to China to be of secondary importance.
There is another, and a far more reasonable, version of these engineer- ing proposals which will have to be considered inasmuch as the preponder- ance of British opinion out here is in favour of some such scheme. I refer to the plan taken up last June by the Editor of the influential "Peking and Tientsin Times”. According to this scheme, the Customs Revenues hypothecated for the British portion of the Indemnity would, for the major part, constitute the interest and amortization changes on a loan of $45,000,- 000 raised for the construction of the remaining part of the Canton-Hankow Railway, (or other railway as might be agreed upon). By 1945 the loan would be repaid, and the Railway would become a free gift to China, thus releasing the British taxpayer from the support of Chinese education and making to China a valuable present. British engineers and accountants would be employed, together with British-trained Chinese. The profits would go to further railway construction, and British goods would naturally be used. Meanwhile, some $500,000 a year would be employed for educational purposes. The appeal which such a proposal as this is calculated to make to commercial and national interests is evident.
The reasoning which lead to this suggestion is equally important. The sum available, namely $4,131,637 increasing to $5,965,335 per annum, is deemed to be far too great to spend on British education in China and the education of Chinese in Great Britain. It is considerably more than is spent by the Ministry of Education for the whole of China at the present time. On the other hand, if the moneys be used to promote education in China apart altogether from the promotion of British education, it is quite clear that a unified system of education under Chinese control is not a practical project at this moment, nor can it well be so until much has hap- pened in China of which even its best friends can see now but insignificant signs. The conclusion, therefore, seemed irresistible that the chief part of the sum remitted should be used for other beneficial purposes than that of education solely.