The affair brought him into business relations with another Belgian named Emile Francqui, of keen mind and great personal force, who, with de Wouters, were, strangely enough, later to be chief and first assistant executives, respectively, of the Great Belgian Comite National during the long hard days of the German Occupation. It was with these men among all the Belgians that Hoover was to have most to do in connection with his work as initiator and director of the Commission for Relief in Belgium. But we are now, in the story of Herbert Hoover, only in the year 1900, and the Belgian Relief did not begin until 1914. And Hoover was still to have many experiences as engineer and man of affairs, before he was to meet his Belgian acquaintances again under the dramatic conditions produced by the World War. He had now his opportunity really to do something in China in line with his own ideas of doing things in connection with mines, and not with those of Chinese mining tradition. As consulting engineer, and later general manager of the "Chinese Engineering and Mining Company" he attacked the job of making Chang's great Tongshan coal properties a going concern. This job involved building railways, handling a fleet of ocean-going steamers, developing large cement works, and superintending altogether the work of about 20,000 employees. A special one among the undertakings of the twelve months or more given to this enterprise was the building of Ching Wang Tow harbor to give his coal a proper sea outlet. Altogether it was a "mining" job of all the variety and hugeness of extent that the twenty-seven-year-old miner and organizer found most to his liking. And despite obstacles and complications due both to his Chinese and Caucasian company associates he did it successfully, enjoyed it immensely, and got from it much education and experience. But he was ready after about a year of it to turn his attention to the rest of the world. CHAPTER VI LONDON AND THE REST OF THE WORLD