File No. 893.00/1029.
The Secretary of State to the German Ambassador.
Washington, February 3, 1912.
Your Excellency: In reply to your note of the 31st ultimo [etc. All but the last paragraph of this note refers to purely political matters (see article Revolution, etc.). The last paragraph is as follows.]
Moreover, this Government has felt it to be a corollary of the policy of strict neutrality hitherto pursued by common accord with respect to loans to China to look with disfavor upon loans by its nationals unless assured that such loans would be of neutral effect as between the contending factions, as it has also felt that the present was an occasion where there might be invoked with peculiar appropriateness the principle of the lending Governments deterring their nationals from making loans not approved as to their broad policy by their own Governments in consultation with the other interested powers.
Accept [etc.].