File No. 893.51/1049.
The French Chargé d’Affaires to the Secretary of State.
[Memorandum left at the Department of State September 4, 1912.]
According to information received from the Legation of the French Republic at Peking, the German firm Diedrichsen has just obtained a concession for the Peking tramways providing an advance of 8,000,000 marks to the Chinese Government. This business, first offered to the Russo-Chinese Bank, was refused by it owing to its financial character, as being contrary if not to the text at least to the spirit of the agreements between the financial groups of the consortium, sanctioned by the Governments.
On the other hand the German Government, undoubtedly foreseeing business of this kind, thought it proper in instructions given to its Minister in China to distinguish between financial loans and those bearing an industrial character, German subjects being free, at his discretion, to contract loans of the character last mentioned.
The matter being thus, the French Government instructed its Ambassador in Berlin to make it clear to the Imperial Government that the said instructions are not, in the opinion of the French Government, in accordance with the financial agreements which France made it a point for its nationals to respect in the most rigorous way, [Page 150] as has been proved in the Cottu loan, which is similar in every respect to the Diedrichsen loan.
The French Government has instructed the French Embassy to ask the United States Government whether, should the American Government share its views in this matter, they did not think it fit to give their Ambassador in Berlin the same instructions as those given to M. J. Cambon.