868.51 Public Works/34: Telegram
The Ambassador in Great Britain ( Houghton ) to the Secretary of State
[Received March 13—8:30 a.m.]
53. Department’s 44, March 8, 6 p.m. Yesterday afternoon I discussed with Sir Ronald C. Lindsay10 of the Foreign Office the question of having the Seligman loan serviced by the International Financial Commission in Greece.
According to Lindsay, the Commission since its inception has assumed service on only three loans which were not contemplated by the original agreement: namely, the 1914 loan (presumably at the termination of the Balkan war) and two recent loans which the [Page 92] League of Nations sponsored. These were exceptional cases, in the view of the British Government, while neither the Hambro nor the Seligman loan is considered exceptional.
He is inclined to believe that placing so many loans under the Commission would tend to build up a situation in Greece resembling the Ottoman debt in Turkey and the Egyptian debt. This, he thinks, would be bad for Greek finance, and the loans, as in Turkey and Egypt, would go bad.
However, no decision in the matter has been taken yet by the British Government.
- British Permanent Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.↩