4.
payment for the reason that the ereditors never intended to
engage on loan transactions, and, generally speaking,
supplied, or intended to supply, goods in the ordinary way
of business. There is a further and perhaps more in-
portant reason for making special efforts to assist this
category of creditors in that British firms established in
China are essential links in the future maintenance of
British trade with this country » If bondholders are not
paid, individuals suffer and so does China's credit, but
British trade with China is only indirectly prejudiced
by the consequent reluctance of foreign investors to
supply the means of developing the country's resources and
means of communication.
But if onoe powerful British
firms are so crippled as to be actually put out of business
by the failure of the Chinese Government departments to pay
their debts, the loss to British interests is not merely
the actual sum involved, but may include the collapse of a
British trading organisation, which, in economically back-
ward countries like China, can only be built up by long
years of effort and enterprise.
*.. 6.
Many
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