For purposes of illustration, the financing of the import of silk from China was chosen because the operation embodied perhaps more points of interest in connection with commercial credit business than any other one operation. Commercial credit operations, however, are of great variety and scope. They may involve, for instance, the import of matting shipped from Japan on slow sailing ships and where the drafts drawn run for six months or more, or they may involve the import of dress goods from France, in which case the drafts are often at sight. Furthermore, all credits are by no means issued on London. In the Far East, where tea or shellac or silk is being exported to the United States, London is known as the one great commercial and financial center, but in the case of dress goods shipped from Marseilles or Lyons, for instance, the credits would invariably stipulate that the drafts be drawn in francs on Paris. But whether the material imported be dress goods from France or tea from China, the principle of the commercial credits under which the goods are brought in remains identically the same. In every case there is a buyer on this end who wants to get possession of the goods without having to put up any money, and in every case there is a seller on the other end who wants to receive payment as soon as he lets the merchandise get out of his hands. The banker issuing the credit is merely the intermediary, and the naming of some foreign point on which the drafts are to be drawn is merely incidental to the conduct of the operation. One last point remains to be cleared up. The seller of the goods in the silk-importing operation described gets actual money for the goods as soon as he ships them--where does this actual money come from? In the last analysis, from the discount market in London, from the man in London who discounts the draft after it has been "accepted". The exporter in Canton gets the money direct from his banker in Canton, but the latter is willing to let him have the money in exchange for the draft only because he (the banker) knows that he can send the draft to London and that some one there will eagerly discount it. In that way the Canton banker gets his money back. The only party who is out of any money during the time the silk is being manufactured and sold in Paterson, N.J., is the party in London who has discounted the shipper's draft.