File No. 893.51/1339.
The Russian Ambassador to the Secretary of State.
[Memorandum handed to the Secretary of State by the Russian Ambassador, February 19, 1913.]
The Imperial Russian Government considers that it would be to the benefit of China and to the interest of her creditors, among whom Russia occupies a prominent place, to have a control established over the Chinese finances.
It seems of first necessity, however, that this control, to be efficient and not a mere formality, should be confided into the hands of foreign advisers chosen by the powers and not by the Chinese Government, who would easily deprive those advisers of all real influence as has been proved by past experience.
Furthermore the Russo-Chinese declaration, signed in St. Petersburg in 1895, stipulates that China should not invest any country with rights of supervision of any branch of her revenue without extending the same rights to Russia.
Therefore the Imperial Government insists that Russian subjects should be included in the number of foreigners who will have to serve the Chinese Republic and has already given its support to the scheme suggested by the representatives of the six interested powers in Peking, who proposed the nomination of four foreign advisers. The [Page 163] Imperial Government believe that this scheme, if endorsed by all the interested powers, would certainly be accepted by China. At the same time, in order to prevent the Chinese Government from contracting a new loan not subject to the above-mentioned conditions of control, the Imperial Government recommends that the powers should claim that the effective sums raised by such new loan should be employed in the first line to cover the remainder of the Boxer indemnity.