CO129-426 - Public Offices - 1915 — Page 471

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for the purpose of giving credit facilities to native

merchants to finance imports, upon terms at which

Britishers would not look at business, for booking actual

contracts at cost or if need be a trifle below cost, and

ensuring the German importing houses an indirect Government

return in the form of special allowances which would recoup

them in trade margine. The German Government's instruction:

in connection with this Finance Trust were with the end in

view of beating out British merchants at all costs, so as

to bring the German merchants prominently forward in the

eyes of the Chinese, and to prove to them that they were

better able to cater for trade then their British

competitors even in their own colony.

These facts have come to light in connection with the

liquidation of Jebsen and Company in which valuable papers

were discovered detailing the existence of this Trust.

This firm is the same as Diederichsen, Jebsen and Commany,

here; they are principally concerned with the sale of

arms and ammunition and "Chinese Government contract work"

but