Commercial Rivalries and War Preparations
Recent despatches say that an agreement has been entered into between the Chinese foreign minister and the German minister at Peking for extensive railway construction in China. German engineers are to be employed, who will utilize purely German materials and German capital. Present plans embrace the expenditure of about twenty millions. Commercialism is one of the strongest passions of this age; and while this deal between China and Germany is on the face of it a very commendable and proper thing, yet it is just such innocent and perfectly proper transactions that lay the foundation for misunderstandings in commercial lines, and create jealousies on the part of other nations, and furnish the excuses with this commercially mad age to urge on the unprecedented preparations for war.