have been no difficulty in securing more advantageous conditions than those of the contract. The terms were preposterous. Subsidiary proposals, as to which no conclusion was then reached, further demanded the lease of the Pyöngyang coal-mines, the control of forty-four additional mines, the purchase of French mining plant, the engagement of Fench mining experts, and involved minor stipulations, which were in themselves objectionable to the Court, while giving to French interests in Korea an unwarranted and undesirable preponderance. The uses to which it was alleged that the loan would be put were precisely those which are actually most necessary. Unanimous support for the loan would have been won if there had been the slightest reason to hope for the faithful observance by the Court of its pledges. Unhappily, there is no prospect that any very appreciable proportion of the loan will be expended upon the objects on which such stress was laid, objects which are potent and vital factors in the economic development of the kingdom. The loan was handed over in bullion; in the ratio of one-third silver and two-thirds gold, ostensibly that a National bank may be inaugurated and the present nickel coinage replaced by gold and silver tokens. This is eminently laudable. If the small dimensions of the loan rendered such a thing feasible, the conversion of the national money would be of incalculable benefit to the financial credit of the Government and the country in general. But it must be remembered that one of the reasons for contracting the last Japanese loan was to provide a nickel coinage exchangeable at par with the Japanese and Mexican silver tokens. Unhappily, this same coinage is now at a discount of 120 per cent. for one bundled Japanese cents gold. Examination has proved
