§ Mr. BELLAIRSasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the support which the Foreign Office has given in important negotiations to the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank and the recent action of the bank in connection with a proposed railway loan, of which the terms are at variance with the preferential rights assured to this country in regard to the Hankow-Canton and the Hankow-Szechuan railways, as well as with the agreement of 1898 between the bank itself and the Deutsch-Asiatische Bank, the Government will make it a condition of future British support that the members of the committee in London, the directorate in Hong Kong, and all holding positions of trust in the bank should be British subjects?
§ The UNDER-SECRETARY for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. T. McKinnon Wood)The rule in such cases is that support is given, when it otherwise appears desirable, to companies in which the preponderance of shares is held by British or naturalised British subjects. I am, therefore, unable to make the condition desired.