File No. 893.51/1220.
The Secretary of State to the American Chargé d’Affaires at London.
Washington , January 9, 1913 .
Chinese loans; your telegram January 7. The Belgian railway concession was taken up last October with the French Embassy here, with the intimation that this was business which, under the inter-group agreement, should be offered for participation by the six groups because of the identity of the French interests concerned. The French representative appeared to take this as a matter of course. The Legation at Peking at the same time advised the Department that the local representative of the Russian group, with which it is understood the Belgian concessionaires are affiliated, had given out that the Belgian contract would result in no conflict with the six groups, but on the contrary all interests would be taken into the new venture. The Department is not aware that any independent American capital is interested in this loan and considers it extremely unlikely that any will be. It therefore prefers to reserve its opinion as to the understanding proposed by the British Government until the two powers still more directly interested have expressed themselves.