JAPAN
BLOCKED
KOREAPARTY
Oriental Development Company's $20,000,000 Bond
Project Faiis3 According to
Message Received Here
"Oriental Development company
bonds failed. Loan cancelled. City
company threatens sue us for blocking.    No  fear."
The quotation is a telegram received Friday by Y. K. Kim, president of the Korean National association, Honolulu, from the Korean
commission to the United States and
Europe, the head of which is Dr.
Syngman Bhee, formerly of Honolulu. The Oriental**" Development
company is a large Japanese organization that has been planting Japanese colonies on the mainland of
Asia. The "City company" referred to in the cablegram is the
National City company, which is
affiliated with the National City
bank, America's largest financial
institution. The Oriental Development company had attempted to obtain a loan of $20,000,000 for the
ostensible purpose of colonization
work in Korea, but ^n reality, according to the Korean view, of colonization in Mongolia and Manchuria. According to this version,
the United States government had
opposed a loan for any work in
either of the northern Chinese dependencies, whereupon the Oriental
Development company put forward
%ha Korean project as a blind.
Vigorous Campaign
A vigorous campaign was carried
<oii by the Korean commission in
Washington and by local Korean
organizations in cities of the mainland and Hawaii.
"The very fact that a discount
of 8 per cent is offered on a 6 per
cent bond to retire existing bonds
which only draw a little' over 5 per
cent should put the investor on inquiry," says a circular of the Koreans.
"Why is it necessary for the Imperial Japanese government to guarantee the payment of the bonds and
interest of a private corporation?
. . . . No one ever heard of the
National City bank guaranteeing
anybody's paper. If the paper is
good they take it themselves. .
But coming back to fundamentals
—the investor in the Oriental Development company is i buying a
law suit,' so to speak. He is precipitating himself into a controversy,  and  oh the  wrong  side.
Usurped Country, Charge
"The properties of the Oriental
Development company in Korea
were obtained through an usurping
government and through a fong detailed list of oppressive and illegal
methods. . . . Japan went into
Korea under a treaty of alliance
. . . but . . . remained to
usurp the country. It confiscated
the crown and the government prop-
ties and turned them over to the
Oriental Development company, a
private corporation. . . . The
investor must expect that somewhere and some place and in some
manner these obvious wrongs are to
be righted.    .    .   . "
Apparently, it was this campaign
that led the National City company
to threaten to sue the Korean commission.
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