14.
132
would refuse altogether to entertain the idea of a loan
rather than a free grant, but while I do not endorse any
suggestion of this kind it seems to me that this is the
only possible way in which the British Indemnity funds
could with any justification be used for the purposes
indicated. As I have said, the nationalists at any rate
might welcome such an opportunity of providing funds for
the settlement of the Nanking outrages, end it is difficult
to see any other means by which the larger olsims and debts
most of which were incurred on
good faith of Chinese
Government departments in the ordinary course of legiti-
mate business, are ever going to be paid.
18. As I have already said, I do not personally
fevour any of these suggestions for the diversion of the
Boxer Indemnity funds from the purposes contemplated by
the "illingdon Commission. In my view we have gone too
far now to draw book. Our Indemnity policy having been
publicly proclaimed, it is too late now to revise it with-
out incurring great politionl odium. If we were con-
sidering the matter now for the first time, matters would
be very different: but we are not.
I therefore put these
... suggestions
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