The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-09-14
BILLION DOLLAR
 LOAN IS SOUGHT
 FOR THE ALLIES
Straight Credit On French and English. Notes Is PrOpOSi-
 ton of Agents.
PAPER UNSECURED
 BY ANY COLLATERAL
Foreign Bankers Discuss Ways and Means of Continuing
 Trade With U. $. .1

New York, Sept, 14.-The problem of fighting the foreign exchange market, now so far out of line to threaten the continuance of the export trade of the United States, was undertaken in earnest yesterday, when the mem berS of the Anglo-French Financial Com mission began a series of conferences with leading banking and business in terests of this country. Yesterdays meetings were informal in nature and wer designed to be informative both sides. The visiting delegates received their callers in parlor- in their suite on the eighteenth floor of the Hotel Biltmore, and it was not until the din ner hour that four of the six Com n1issioners found time to leave their rooms.
 While yesterdays meetings were said to have cleared away some of the preliminary work, it was learned in the AfinanciaI district that the Comrnis- sioners have come here with a clean cut program for settling the various points at issue.
 This program calls for straight $1,- 900. 00O, ,O0O loan. It is proposed to float it by means of British and French notes. unsecured by any collateral. Bankers who suggested collateral in the form of American bonds were told that a loan-issued direct by the two Governments of France and Great Bri- tain needed no other security.
 What form the notes should take their maturity, and the rate of interest were not 'dwelt upon, the discussions turning on the. ability of this country to absorb such a huge issue. One pro- position calls for the funding of these notes by the most powerful syndicate of American bankers and institutions ever gotten together and the issuance of domestic notes by the syndicate with the foreign Government notes as a basis. g/
 Neutrality Idne Drawn
 It was. learned further that the question of a loan of this nature had already been broached to the govern mental authorities at Washington, and that assurances had been received thatzif it were arranged as a straight credit negotiation. interpretation would on the score of a possible violation of neutrality.
 Itsis understood that efforts will be made, if this plan is decided upon. to make the syndicate notes available for purchase by the Federal Reserve banks. The amount of money fnvolv- ed is so great that the success of the loan. in the opinion of bankers to whom the plan was disclosed, will de- pend on the enlistment of the entire financial resources of the country back of it.
 What the attitude of the leading dnanciers in the United States toward this proRoeaI will be was not clearly tndicatedNa& yesterdays meetings The head Of one of the country's largest banktng institutions, who was not among the visitors seen yesterday, had this to say about it:
 stI have favored from the first the suggestion that the whole problem be settled decfsiVely through one trans action, and that a loan of about $1,- 900, 900. 900. be arranged. I think that the United States can handle that amount Furthermore, think that it should handle it, even though we might prefer an easier way out. My personal conviction is thatatf1e Allies are in no small measure fighting our fight. If we do not cooperate with them our commercial relations with i Europe at the close of the struggle are not going to be of the pleasant est-''