File No. 493.11/528.
The Acting Secretary of State to Minister Reinsch.
Washington, October 31, 1914.
Sir: Receipt is acknowledged of the Legation’s No. 352 of September 3, 1914, on the subject of anticipated deficiencies in the payment of installments of the Boxer indemnity.
With respect to the inquiry of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, whether the United States would retain out of any deficient installment the whole of the amount scheduled to be retained under the agreement of 1908, or whether it would retain only an amount thereof proportionate to the total sum offered by the Chinese Government in payment of the installment due, you are instructed that this question [Page 79] was raised by the Legation in its telegram of July 19, 1912, and was referred by the Department to the Treasury Department, which replied, under date of July 27, 1912, saying: “Under the provision of the joint resolution of May 25, 1908, the amount and payment of the Chinese indemnity appears to be provided for, and it would seem this Department is not empowered to authorize the remission or postponement of the payment made thereunder.” This decision was communicated to the Legation in the telegraphic instruction of August 1, 1912. You are informed, however, that while the American Government can not under the law retain less than the portion stipulated in the schedules attached to the Executive order of December 28, 1908, the Department holds to the credit of the Chinese Government a balance of $1,175,835.64, remaining of the $2,000,000 retained temporarily, as provided in the joint resolution cited above, for the settlement of claims of American citizens against the Boxer indemnity fund. The Government of the Republic of China having been notified of the existence of this balance which, under the terms of the joint resolution, is also to be returned to China, has informed the Department that this sum also will be used in support of the Tsing Hua College and the Chinese Government students in the United States.
This would seem to remove all cause for anxiety as to the support of this, educational movement in the immediate future.
I am [etc.]