File No. 893.51/1306.
The Secretary of State to the Italian Ambassador.
The Department of State notes the suggestion of the Italian Government communicated in the memorandum of February 16th,1 that the Federal Government cooperate to support the nomination of Mr. Luigi Rossi as one of the foreigners to be employed by China in connection with the reorganization loan, which nomination the Italian Embassy remarks the Russian Government would be disposed to support and adds at the same time an expression of the opinion that the nomination of a delegate from a country not interested in the six-power loan would appear to afford a substantial guaranty of impartiality in the work of ameliorating the financial condition of China.
The Department of State would be very happy to give the most sympathetic consideration to this suggestion if the present circumstances were such as to make possible its favorable consideration. At the beginning of the discussion of the foreign personnel to be employed in connection with the reorganization loan the Government of the United States expressed itself as satisfied with the original Chinese proposal, namely, the nomination of a Dane, a German, and an Italian. It was found with regret, however, that this plan encountered difficulties due to the conflicting claims of different Governments, thus unfortunately injecting into the situation semipolitical considerations fruitful of delay. Lately the discussion has proceeded rather rapidly and a number of counter proposals have been made. While reserving in the premises all rights and notably those in relation to the appointment of its own nationals, the Government of the United States has expressed willingness to accede to whatever decision should be agreeable to the Chinese Government and acceptable to the other powers interested in the loan within certain limits due to reluctance to overburden the Chinese Government with the employment of unnecessarily numerous persons and certain other considerations.
Having assumed this position and refraining up to the present from insistence upon the employment of one of its own nationals, the Italian Government will readily perceive that the Government of the United States could not at this juncture well make a point of the employment of a national of any other country and thus run the risk of itself participating in the prolongation of a discussion which it has been sorry to see injected into a situation where the paramount desideratum is the consummation of the loan which is expected will redound alike to the advantage of China and to that of all other powers commercially interested in that country.
Washington , February 18, 1913.
- Not printed.↩