Surprise In London.

New York Times 100 years ago today, March 20, 1913:
Opponents of British Participation Foresee Collapse of Loan Plan.
    LONDON, March 19.— The announcement of President Woodrow Wilson that his Administration had declined to request the American bankers of the six-power group to continue their negotiations in connection with the $125,000,000 loan to China came as a complete surprise to the British Government. Only yesterday Sir Edward Grey, the British Foreign Secretary, in a written reply to a question in tje House of Commons as to the position of affairs, said that the terms of the loan had the unanimous approval of the six powers interested. This reply was hardly in print when the news came of the decision of the American Government.
    There has been a good deal of dissatisfaction in London with the loan negotiations for exactly the same reasons that President Wilson gives for the withdrawal of the support of the united States. Those publicists and papers which have been opposing Great Britain's support of the group take considerable satisfaction over the American action, and predict that with the withdrawal of the American bankers the whole scheme will fall through. They point out that Japan and Russia have no money to lend and that Germany has nothing to spare for China.