remove the restriction_s and exactions which at present prevent that
machinery from functioning or even trying to function. I asked a friend whose firm is, or was, engaged in the China trade (in their Shanghai office alone, which they are not allowed to close down, they have for the last five years ...paid the salaries of a staff of 360 without a book being opened) what he thought about the exchange of trade delegations. "They come," he said, "they are given a banquet and taken to the theatre, they order (say) a hundred motor cars and they go away again. Nothing happens after that, because there's nobody to do anything—to say what colour the cars are to be painted, to arrange about shipping them, to answer cables, to fix up about payment. Governments cannot trade without middlemen, and the Chinese won't let the middlemen operate."
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