893.51/3400a
The Secretary of State to the Secretary of Commerce (Hoover)
My Dear Mr. Secretary: It gave me much pleasure to receive, last Monday, Mr. Herbert White and Mr. Louis Wehle, for whom you had arranged an appointment to discuss with me the affairs of the Pacific Development Corporation. These gentlemen, accompanied by Mr. Foster Dulles, also called on Friday to see me; but as I found myself at the last moment unable to keep the appointment, they saw the Assistant Secretary instead.
Mr. Dearing tells me that Mr. White and Mr. Wehle advised him of their hope that with your assistance an arrangement may be worked out by which the Pacific Development Corporation would be enabled to obtain from the War Finance Corporation funds for the financing of certain of their orders for machinery and other goods to be exported to China, as security for which they would deposit with the War Finance Corporation the Treasury notes of the Chinese Government held by the Pacific Development Corporation as evidence of that Government’s indebtedness to the Corporation [Page 390] upon a loan of $5,500,000 advanced under a contract concluded at Peking on November 26, 1919. They further indicated to Mr. Dearing that, as their Corporation had in the past received the support of the Department of State in reference to this contract, and might in future have occasion to seek its intervention with the Chinese Government for the protection of their interests thereunder, they felt that you would desire an intimation that I would have no objection to the working out of such a plan as they had suggested for financial assistance to be given to their Corporation by the War Finance Corporation.
In response to this suggestion I am happy to inform you that I not only perceive no objection, but would, on the contrary, be much gratified if it should through your good offices prove possible for the Pacific Development Corporation to make such financial arrangements as would assist it in maintaining the considerable part which I understand it has taken in the development of American trade with China.
Very sincerely yours,