Loan

In Manhattan, in the library of his 36th street home (just east of Madison avenue), John P. Morgan removed a pipe from between his teeth. He placed the pipe in a receptacle, took up a pen. After he had signed his name to a contract calling for a loan of $150,000,000 to the Imperial Japanese Government, Mr. Morgan resumed his pipe.

Others who signed the contract were: Kengo Mori, H. Tsushima, R. Ichimomiya, Mortimer Schiff (of Kuhn, Loeb & Co.), Charles E. Mitchell (President of the National City Company), George F. Baker, Jr. (Chairman of the Executive Committee of the First National Bank).

The loan will be in the form ot $150,000,000 of Japanese Government 30-year 6 1/2% bonds. Simultaneously in the English market will appear an offering of -L-25,000,000 of 35-year 6% bonds. Part of the U. S. issue will be placed in Holland, part in Switzerland.

The loan is not the largest that has ever been floated. It is surpassed by the internal loans of the U. S., Great Britain and France during the War; it is surpassed by the Anglo-French loan of $500,000,000 by the U. S. in 1915.

American bankers who were present in Mr. Morgan's library as a "gallery" were: Thomas Cochran, Thomas W. Lament, Russell C. Leffingwell, Dwight W. Morrow. All are members of J. P. Morgan & Co.

Said one negotiator:

"For 2,584 years the Japanese Empire has paid all its obligations, and we don't need to entertain the slightest worry about her ability to continue paying her bills over the next ten, twenty, fifty or a hundred years."

Said another:

"Japan has made provision for the work of rebuilding with the same care and thought that a thrifty housewife might give to the coming week's expenditures for her table."