The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-05-28
On the
World Front
Bank of China Reports
Economic Pathology
Urgent Remedies
By HARRY CANNES


China we have just received
a very interesting economic
and financial report of this
outstanding institution of the
Shanghai bankers.
The report is in pamphlet form,
addressed to the 1884 annual meet
ing Of the shareholders Of this bank,
the largest Of its kind belonging to
the Chinese capitalists.
"a study of econom;c conditions
in China during the year under
review reveals the fact that
the pathological symptoms OBJ
served in last years annual report
have become more noticeable" be-
gins this document.
What is the cause of these "patho-
logical symptoms" Expressed more
accurately in millions upon millions
of starving peasants and workers.?
We are told quite frankly: There
were good harvests, but the price Of
agricultural products declined, and
the value Of land deprecated, with
the result that the poverty Of the
| farmers became more acute"
The Chinese farmers misfortune
is that he produced so much that he
could not eat The gentlemen of
the Bank Of China were on his neck.
TT-"-' took his crops away to pay
| for their loans. and their interest.
They collected for the landlords.
No matter whether the Chinese
farmer produces little or lot, the
swarm of imperialist, banker, land
lord and gentry locusts settle on
his crop, and the story is always
the same-'the poverty of the
farmers becomes more acute"
THE Bank of China has 80 differ
ent agricultural warehouses. It
loans the farmers money on their
crops, way below market price level.
Then it takes the money back for
interest on this loan and past loans.
1t collects for the landlords, for the
usurers. and for all the parasitic
tribe that live on the colonial
masses. The prices of the commodi-
ties are then MANIPULATED, and the
farmer loses all title to whatever
he produced. He is penniless and
starving. The Bank of China. in
fact, is quite proud of the extensive
/ ness of its operations.
| For example it SAYS: cat the esd
Of 1888 the stock of cotton in the
market and held by the cotton mills
was about 100000 piculs, valued at
S50,000,000O00. 50 that the amount
held by the bank by these mort
cages was about one-f1fth of the
total" Which is quite slice of
one of the chief products of China
for one bank to control.
The Chinese bankers, of course,
act as agents and compradores for
the big imperiaIist banks who domi-
nate in China. The very same re-
| port informs us that one of the
chief corresponding banks of this
Shanghai bankers institution in
New York is J. P Morgan 81 Co.
and the Chase National Bank.
The millions in profits squeezed
out of the starving workers and
peasants of China is canalized
throughout the world by the intri-
cate chain of impesialist banks.
Our frank Mr.. Chang Kia-ngau,
however, does not tell the whole
story.
He gives us only a glimpse Of part
of the robbery of the Chinese toll
ing masses by the native and i'm
perialist bankers. He does not be-
gin to tell of the plague of the
Marking regime that is driving the
peasants to starvation by it's endless
taxation, by its destruction not only
Of the peasants but of the cultivable
land itself.
An American agricultural econo-
mist has estimated that there are
now in China 4O0000000 acres of
fallow land, formerly cultivated. as
against 2A0ooO,O00 acres of culti-
waited land.
What the banker doesn't get
through juggling of prices and mort
eaging of the crops, the usurer and
the war lords grab In 1888, usurers
in China set new record. In
Tuhsien, Anwhei they charged 200
Der cent interest. In the silk dis
tricts of Kianesu 900 per cent, and
in Nantung, Kiangsu province, 1,400
per cent.
NOT content with collecting taxes
~ for SO years in advance, the Chi
nese war lords, daily invent new
taxes. From New China" Chi
nese magazine, issue of December
10, 1893, page 3, we learn the fol-
lowing about the multiplicity of
taxes slapped against the starving
peasants:
added to the chief forms of
taxation in Kiangsi are 20 others
which bear the names: house tax,
taxes used to hire workers for
the troops, airplane surveying tax,
telephone tax, military reauisition
tax, granary tax, tax for chamber
| of commerce, aviation tax. fort tax,
Pao-kia local military tax, anti
Communist volunteer tax, rice
tax, stamp tax, police tax, cpiuua
tax, dam tax, etc"
Many peasants. instead of stay
ing to harvest the crop under these
conditions. paste their title deed on
their huts, and take their families
rowing over the country side in
search Of few grains of rice. In
Chekiang the peasants we're forced
to bring their wives and children to
the market for sale in order to pay
the taxes. Shanghai Shun Pao,
May !, 1889
Under these circumstances, Mr..
Chang quite correctly, though quite
generally, from his class viewpoint
declares: THE more desperate the
l L.