§ MR. YERBURGHI beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can state the conditions of the Russian loan to Persia; and whether the customs of the port of Bender Abbas are pledged to Russia under any agreement.
§ * MR. BRODRICKThe conditions of the loan, as announced in the Messenger Officiel on January 30th, and published in the Journal de St. Pétersbourg of January 31st, are:—The payment of the interest and sinking fund for the term of seventy-five years is to be guaranteed by all the customs revenues of Persia, exclusive of those of Fars and the Persian Gulf ports. In case of delay in the payments of the service of the loan the Banque des Prêts is to have the right of establishing a control over the custom houses, the revenues of which form the security for the loan. The Persian Government engages to extinguish all its previous external obligations with part of the proceeds of the loan, and not to conclude 717 without the consent of the Banque des Prêts any fresh foreign loan until the loan of 1900 has been extinguished. The Persian Government grants the Banque des Prêts the right, if it thinks necessary, of placing on the money market bonds of the Persian Loan for the amount to which it is indebted, and bearing the full guarantee of the Russian Government. We have no ground for believing in the existence of any agreement to the effect mentioned in the second paragraph.