In European and American culture, especially in Anglo-Saxon culture, it is believed that 'everything has a price'. Stated in more elegant terms, it is 'business is business'.

For the upper class and academics, the Chinese Exclusion Act indeed hindered Sino-US trade. With China's current international status, China can no longer be placed in a position of damage and discrimination. But this does not mean that the upper class will directly support the abolition of the Chinese Exclusion Act. From the perspective of transaction, China also has to pay an equivalent price.

The representative of the Morgan family asked frankly, "What price is the Chinese government willing to pay?"

Many consortium representatives felt that the Morgan family representative was crazy to ask the Chinese government for a price. Even the more profound ones waited silently for the Morgan consortium representative to continue explaining his views. At this time, a scholar from the University of Chicago answered, "The Chinese government seems to have chosen to join the Versailles system instead of choosing to establish a friendlier relationship with the United States."

Hearing this scholar from the Chicago School answer like this, the Morgan consortium representative continued to ask, "Why does the Chinese government think the old order is more beneficial to them?"

Under the somewhat surprised gaze of a group of consortiums, the scholar from the University of Chicago answered, "Because in reality, the US government did not take the initiative to contact He Rui on the issue of the Chinese Exclusion Act, but hoped to muddle through this matter. Britain and France resolved previous conflicts with China because of the war. So for a considerable period of time at present, Sino-US relations must be repaired."

The representative of the Morgan consortium nodded and spoke no more, let alone explained. The Morgan family was mainly engaged in the financial industry. If Sino-US relations could not be friendly, the risk of investing in China would be too great. But this understanding was a fairly high-level one in the view of the Morgan family, and the Morgan consortium didn't want to say too much. Asking this question could be considered expressing goodwill to the participants.

Rockefeller then asked, "Is China's economic order sufficient for us to believe in the safety of investing in China?"

The scholar from the University of Chicago answered after a slight hesitation, "We are currently analyzing China's economic policies. At this stage, the Chinese government is making every effort to develop industry, so we think they will not boycott foreign investment. But regarding investment fields, we haven't been able to make a judgment yet."

"Professor, when you say the government develops industry, do you mean China promotes industry by building state-owned enterprises?" Rockefeller continued to ask. Having reached a commercial agreement with the Soviet Union, the Rockefeller Consortium had its own understanding of Soviet state-owned enterprises. If China also had that kind of enterprise model like the Soviet Union, Rockefeller could only limit his investment field in China to the oil industry. Unless permitted by the Chinese government, Rockefeller believed he had no possibility of investing in other industries.

"Mr. Rockefeller, according to our understanding, China and the Soviet Union have adopted different economic models. Generally speaking, China restricts foreign investment in minerals, but there are no obvious restrictions in other fields. As for the degree of permission China will have in fields other than minerals, we don't have many research results with definite conclusions at this stage. If you are interested in this, we can send our research results to you."

Rockefeller liked such ambitious scholars very much. In order to get support in their professional fields, they never hesitated to recommend themselves. Nodding to this scholar, Rockefeller asked no more questions.

The meeting lasted for a day. As the initiator of the meeting, the US Textile Association was responsible for drafting the basic consensus of the meeting, while others communicated with selected people according to their preferences. Of course, there were also guys like Textile Association Chairman Michael, who mingled with the beauties in the luxurious (Old) Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

In another timeline, the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel was demolished in 1929, and the Empire State Building in New York was built on the original site. The new Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, considered the 'originator of luxury hotels', was built as the world's earliest skyscraper luxury hotel. Whether it was the old hotel or the new hotel, there was never a lack of various enchanting beauties of dubious origins but very reliable within the hotel.

As the initiator of the meeting, Michael at least knew he had to complete his mission and didn't stay on top of the beauties. When he appeared in the dining room with a haggard face, he happened to run into Rockefeller who had just finished eating. Rockefeller wanted to ask how the strike arrangement was going, so he went back to the table and watched Michael gobble down his food.

While eating, Michael's mouth was not idle. He swallowed a piece of steak and said, "I don't know what's wrong now; even the prostitutes ask me which stocks to invest in."

Rockefeller noticed the plural suffix 's' for prostitutes and couldn't help smiling. Michael thought Rockefeller was noticing the current trend of everyone speculating in stocks. After drinking a mouthful of soup, he continued, "The Wall Street Journal said that now even shoeshine boys boast about how much they can earn from allotted stocks every day. I rather hope these people go to see the warehouses of the Textile Association in various places, which are piled with cloth and cotton yarn bought with borrowed money."

"Oh? Do you think the current goods can't be sold anymore?" Rockefeller didn't expect Michael to say such words. When a lecher seriously narrated his worries about the future economy, it indeed had an inexplicable sense of comedy.

Hearing the sarcastic tone in Rockefeller's words, Michael looked up at Rockefeller, "You don't think I participated in this matter because I'm interested in politics, do you?"

Rockefeller shook his head. He didn't think Michael was interested in politics, nor did he think Michael harbored any good intentions.

Michael continued, "Can you imagine? People are crazy now! They wish they could pay in installments even for a handkerchief. The textiles stored in warehouses are sold on credit of 80%. If someone dared to do this 10 years ago, they would be hanged as liars! Can the wages earned by those textile workers really allow them to live the life of the propertied class in the past? If there were no installment payments, they would have been dragged away by creditors to sign indentured servitude contracts long ago! I really hope these people can wake up; installment payments have made them sell their souls to the devil!"

Rockefeller nodded but said nothing more. It could be seen that this guy Michael was trying hard to maintain the style of an old-school figure. Of course, the large income earned now indeed allowed Michael to indulge his lust, but the virtue of living within one's means of old-school businessmen had not finally disappeared from Michael.

There were many people like Michael, but these people were insignificant in this already frenzied country of the United States. Since the early 1920s, the American attitude towards using installment payments had changed from cautious to taking it for granted. As if with 12, 24, or 36 installments, debt was no longer debt.

Seeing consumption so hot, merchants believed that the crowds coming to buy goods every day would remain unchanged forever, so they also let down their guard and recklessly borrowed money to hoard goods. Even if Rockefeller himself didn't agree with the current situation, he often had some doubts about his own judgment. Even if his judgment was not wrong, was his view not quite correct at least in the short term? So Rockefeller issued orders to the companies he could still control, forbidding sales on credit. Since those who wanted credit boasted to oil companies that they could earn a lot of dollars just by transporting oil out of production areas, let them buy goods with a lot of dollars. The Rockefeller Consortium didn't lack money; earning a little less was not a problem at all.

"You think there's no problem, right?" Rockefeller asked.

"How could there be a problem!" Michael answered.

In the next few days, things developed just as Michael said, 'no problem'. The income of American textile workers was indeed a little bit higher than 30 years ago, but they were still poor. 30 years ago, American textile business owners dared to say 'No matter how healthy a young man is, I can guarantee his hair turns white (from exhaustion) within 3 years'. But although the people were poor at that time, the price level was very low. Now, although income was higher, prices pushed up by installment payments offset the wage increase.

As long as they were unemployed, installment payments could drive those workers to death. It didn't even need unemployment; as long as there was no wage for one month, or a pay cut, workers were directly forced by installment payments to borrow money to repay debts.

Now the money on the market had been borrowed to invest in the stock market and various speculative businesses. Banks couldn't lend to workers without property, so the interest on usury in the market had reached a heinous level. Workers would rather go to jail for owing money than borrow such usury. Moreover, even if they really dared to borrow, no one had money to lend them. All money was sucked into the stock market through leverage.

As long as one paid a minimum of 5% of the stock price, one could borrow stocks and sell high, at least eating dividends. In such a mode, who would give up easy money to lend to the poor?

Therefore, the petition of textile enterprises requesting government relief due to the impact of the Sino-US trade war was naturally rejected. Textile enterprises naturally had to lay off workers and cut wages. Workers and their families, who were about to be crushed by debt immediately, couldn't bear the pressure and marched on the streets time and again, petitioning and demonstrating in front of the government. They went to the offices of the congressmen they voted for, demanding the congressmen help them solve their livelihood problems.

Although textile workers were poor, they had the right to vote. Congressmen in areas where textile workers lived began to feel pressure and had to consider how to solve the problem. The media kept by the consortiums reported this news recklessly, fiercely criticizing the US government for incompetence, inaction, and ignoring the suffering of the people.

On June 15, facing reporters' questions about 'the British government's view on the intensifying trade war between China and the US' at a press conference, the British government expressed its official view.

"The Sino-US trade war has attracted the attention of the British government. The British government holds no position on the trade conflict between China and the US. However, the British government expresses concern about the deteriorating relationship between China and the US due to the trade war. We hope the trade war will not escalate into a conflict between the two countries."

The British government spokesman's wording at the press conference had the elegance of the diplomatic department, but the meaning represented by the elegant words was cold enough. Translated into ordinary people's language, the general idea was 'The Sino-US trade war can be fought, but the United States should not think that Britain will sit idly by if it sends a fleet to threaten Chinese shipping lanes.'

Foreign ministries of various countries understood these words; the British government began to express its attitude.

On June 16, Paris. Although the International Human Rights Organization was not an organization officially recognized by countries other than China at this stage, the International Human Rights Organization was a non-governmental organization emerging from the basis of the Asian International Tribunal. So a lecturer at the Law School of the University of Paris, as a member of the French branch of the International Human Rights Organization, after collecting a petition with enough signatures, submitted a petition to the French Parliament, hoping to legislate to prohibit cotton and textiles related to slavery from entering the French market.

Although there was no response after the petition was submitted, the matter itself had an impact in France. Moreover, this member of the French branch of the International Human Rights Organization did not express his views in a 'white lotus' (naive/hypocritical) way. As a Frenchman, he visited many parliament members who were concerned about people's livelihood and asked members of the French branch of the International Human Rights Organization to publish articles in newspapers.

Whether it was visits or articles, they raised a question quite directly or implicitly: 'No matter how low the wages of French textile workers are, can they be lower than slaves with no wages?'

After the Great War in Europe, the French economy seemed booming, but that was the boom for capitalists. The actual income of French workers in 1927 was lower than the actual income in 1913. Under the pain caused by low wages, anything could become a fuse for the French public to vent their anger. Not to mention that 'prohibiting textiles produced by slaves from entering France' was a high-sounding view whose justice no one could deny.

In a very short time, the French public opinion circles had to start reporting news of French people marching and demonstrating on the streets.

The changes in France immediately crossed the narrow English Channel and reached Britain. So much so that Prime Minister Baldwin specially invited the Foreign Secretary to ask what was going on. After a not-so-long discussion, when the Foreign Secretary left the Prime Minister's office, his steps were light. Returning to his office, the Foreign Secretary immediately picked up a pen and wrote, "Based on the merciful God..."