NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE story of the Russian guarantee for a Chinese loan is fully confirmed. Five Paris houses have agreed to furnish -a loan to China of sixteen millions sterling, secured upon the Chinese customs, and unconditionally guaranteed by Russia. The loan is to be issued at 98, and to bear interest at 4 per cent., irreducible for fifteen years. It will, of course, be snapped up at par or 101, and great irritation is expressed in Germany because none of the profit goes to the financiers of Berlin. Germany, it is said, helped Russia at Tokio, and is then left out in the cold. That sounds to English ears a little childish, but the eagerness of the Continental markets for small profits earned without labour, has greatly increased of late. It is probable that heavy terms have been exacted from China with regard to the Trans-Siberian railway, and a terminus below the ice-line, and it is obvious that Russia acquires a new foothold in the Far East. Her favour will be indispensable for the next instalment of the indemnity, and she will have the right of objecting to any Japanese invasion of China because it may endanger her guarantee. The project of the loan was, it is said, arranged in St. Petersburg with such profound secrecy that no Russian newspaper had an idea of it until the final telegrams came in from Paris.
