File No. 893.51/799.
The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador of Great Britain.
Washington, March 16, 1912.
My Dear Mr. Ambassador: After careful consideration of the question presented in your letter of the 12th instant as raised by the French Government, relating to an engagement by the Chinese Government regarding future loans, I am inclined to think that any engagement should be made by the de facto Chinese authorities directly with the bankers and communicated officially to their respective Governments. The object, of course, should be to secure to the groups fair treatment without giving them a monopoly to the exclusion of other legitimate lenders with whom they might be unwilling to combine. The proposed formula might be somewhat as follows:
An undertaking not to negotiate “any subsequent loan that might conflict with the legitimate interests or weaken the security of the large loan, if consummated, which is at present being negotiated by the combined groups with the approval of their Governments, or of loans hitherto negotiated.”
Some such formula would seem to me to be much preferable to that proposed by the French Government.
I remain, etc.,