Office of the Historian

893.51/6124: Telegram

The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Bingham) to the Secretary of State

London, April 7, 1936—6 p.m.
[Received April 7—2:15 p.m.]

186. Atherton discussed Department’s 115, April 5, 8 p.m., this afternoon with Sir Victor Wellesley88 and Orde.89 The contents of section 1 were admitted to be substantially correct, and it was added [Page 587] with reference to paragraph 2 of section 1 that Leith-Ross90 had, after an unofficial survey on the spot, recommended to the bondholders the acceptance of the proposed adjustment for the Tientsin–Pukow loan. Foreign Office informally claimed that the security and provisions behind the Hukuang loan agreement were no better than those behind the Tientsin–Pukow agreement …

Part 2 did not arise.

As for part 3, both Wellesley and Orde were reluctant to hazard an opinion as to whether the Foreign Office would agree to undertake to make suggestions to the Bondholders Committee in their direct and purely unofficial negotiations with the Chinese Government over obligations which had been a long time in default. However, they would endeavor to give the Embassy a reply as soon as possible after the forthcoming holidays.

Bingham
  1. Sir Victor A. A. H. Wellesley, Deputy Under Secretary of State, British Foreign Office.↩
  2. Charles William Orde, Counselor and Head of the Far Eastern Department, British Foreign Office.↩
  3. Sir Frederick Leith-Ross, Chief Economic Adviser to the British Government and temporary financial adviser to the British Ambassador in China since 1935; see Foreign Relations, 1935, vol. iii, p. 591.↩