The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-05-15

lively cheap land and next year be- gin planting sugar cane seed. They say that it will be necessary for some years to secure in Cuba experienced labor. Much skill Is required in the cutting of sugar cane and there are no more skillful manipulators of the cutting hatchet than are these Cuban workmen. Recently, however, inven- tion has succeeded in perfecting sugar cane cutting apparatus. It has been tried with success in Cuba and has been found to lessen the cost of sugar cane cutting by about 40 per cent. If these Cuban interests ven- ture into Florida and undertake sugar raising upon large scale they will rely upon this new cane cutting in- vention and therefore be under no ne- cessity of importing labor from Cuba. Then chances are deemed good that Florida will develop in a few years great sugar industry.
 READY TO AID CHINA
 When Thomas W. Lamon. sailed
 early in February for China and Ja- pan for the purpose of perfecting ar engagements whereby loans could be made to China he was well fortified in one respect for he knew that some thirty-one American banks would act in cooperation with respect to an in-
 
 a powerful argument for MT. Lamont to lay before the authorities both of Japan and China. It was necessary, however, to make use of some diplo- n,atic strategy and. that is quality which MT. Lamont possesses both by
 his native gift and also by his long experience in Paris, as the financial
 advisor of the American representa- tives at the Paris peace conference. There were two fields for the exercise
 oi diplomatic strategy which were to be entered and mastered by Mir. La mont if the arrangements were to be perfected. One involved persuading the Chinese government that it could I.rot obtain credit if it continued to , repudiate or ignore certain obligations which it had formerly issued. This MT. Lamont seems to have been able to accomplish. In Japan he met sew eral of the very able, far-seeing and astute Japanese leaders having in
 mind the persuading of them to with draw certain objections they had of- fered to the plan and to accept the open door principle. It was the open door in China and the guarantee of Chinese sovereignty which the Ameri- can representatives at Paris insisted upon at the time the six nation con- sortium agreement was entered into to make a loan to China, in the ag- gregate of hundred and fifty million. | Apparently MT. Lamont has succeeded in persuading Japan that 1t is vital to both Japan and to China that the open door | principle be accepted. For had not Japan 1 yielded it would not have been possible ! for the state department at Washington | to announce that the consortium for the aid of China of which the members are l the United States, Great Britain, France and Japan has now been successfully negotiated.
 l How much of the first loan or credit of fifty millions the American bank will be required to participate in is not known nor is it an important matter. The probabilities are that much the greater part of the advance will come at first from the United States
 l This agreement is regarded as the most important of all the agreements made | since the European war was ended cer- l tainly important to the United States which by reason of it will secure an ad- ditonal trade with China, constantly increasing. It must have been the pos sibility of the organization of this inter.
 national agreement to aid China so that she can build railroads, improve navi. gation, exploit mines and develop public utilities which in the mind of one of our ablest financiers when he said in Febru. ary that great history would probably l be written in the spring and to the ad vantage of the United Statas