MR. GIBSON BOWLESI beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether Her Majesty's Government have any knowledge of negotiations being in progress between the Government of France and the Government of Russia, with the object of attaching the political condition of a more complete alliance between those two countries to the proposed financial arrangement whereby the whole or a large portion of the loan of £16,000,000 to be made to China by Russia is to be provided by French financiers; and whether Her Majesty's Government are 874 aware of the existence of any convention or arrangement between Russia and China whereby Russia is to receive territorial or other advantages from China in return for the loan in question if so, whether he can say what those advantages are to be?
§ SIR E. GREYHer Majesty's Government cannot make a statement with respect to negotiations between other Powers to which they are not a party, but my answer must not be taken as implying that the suggestions made in the question are well-founded.