File No. 893.51/969.
The American Ambassador to Great Britain to the Secretary of State.
London, June 27, 1912—7 p.m.
Department’s June 26, 1 p.m. In view of the arrangement of their internal questions now reached by our respective groups of bankers, Sir Edward believes it important for their Government to come to an early understanding as to when and how far they could assume responsibility for large loans to China to be advanced under present circumstances. He thinks it essential that such loans should only be for purposes distinctly tending to secure order rather than for other [Page 143] schemes, however desirable—internal improvements, currency reforms, etc.—and hopes the Governments concerned will soon agree to this among themselves. Chinese talk about immediate loan for sixty millions seems to him merely an academical proposition, and Government had no right, by encouraging bankers to make such loan, to incur any responsibility for helping to collect it.