§ 1. Mr. NORMAN CRAIGasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether under the agreement of 1910 between the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, and German, French, and American groups, the signatory groups all received identical treatment?
§ The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir Edward Grey)The answer is in the affirmative.
§ 2. Mr. NORMAN CRAIGasked whether any agreement or working arrangement exists between the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank and any other bank or financial house or group which in any way affects the British share of the proposed Chinese reorganisation loan or the advances already made?
§ Sir E. GREYI have repeatedly stated that the business in connection with the loan will be equally divided between the six groups who compose the six-Power consortium. I am unaware of any subsidiary agreement or arrangement between the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank and any other financial house.
§ 3. Mr. NORMAN CRAIGasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that, according to the statement made by the American bankers of the six-Power group on the 24th September, the loans comprising the reorganisation loan to China were to be spread over a period of five years; whether, in view of the fact that the monopoly of Government support accorded to the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank will extend to the period of negotiation and issue of the reorganisation loan, he will state over what period it is now proposed that the loan should extend; and whether the settlement of this question was left to the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank and the other bankers of the group?
§ Sir E. GREYI have seen the statement referred to, which rests on the assumption that the amount of the loan now being negotiated between China and 2057 the six groups will amount to £60,000,000, which was the amount originally suggested by the Chinese Government. The amount of the loan will, as I have often stated, depend on the requirements of the Chinese Government, and the period over which the issue is spread—which must necessarily be dependent on the amount of the loan—is entirely a matter for arrangement between the Chinese Government and the groups.
§ 4. Mr. NORMAN CRAIGasked whether the Hong Kong Government, by an agreement dated 6th October, 1905, advanced £1,100,000 at 4½ per cent., under the authorisation of His Majesty's Government, to the Viceroy of the Middle Yangtsze for the repurchase of the Hankow-Canton Railway concession from an American company, and what was the object of His Majesty's Government in authorising such an advance; whether, by a note of 9th September, 1905, to the British Consul-General at Hankow, the Viceroy gave His Majesty's Government an undertaking that British capital and materials should have the preference whenever China decided to construct the Hankow-Canton Railway; whether, in March, 1909, the contract was obtained for German capital and German materials by the Deutsch-Asiatische Bank, without any warning to His Majesty's Government, from the Chinese Imperial Government, in spite of the undertaking above referred to and in spite of the agreement between the Deutsch-Asiatische Bank itself and the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation of 2nd September, 1898, by which British preferential rights in the matter of railway concessions in the Yangtsze Valley and the provinces to the south of it were recognised?
§ Sir E. GREYThe answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The object of His Majesty's Government in authorising the advance was to secure the connection with the Canton-Kowloon Railway. The answer to the second and third parts of the question is also in the affirmative. A compromise was, however, ultimately effected between the British and German groups by which the latter agreed to share the contract in return for concessions elsewhere. It is, however, a mistake to refer to an agreement in 1898 between the groups. A resolution in favour of an arrangement of the nature indicated was indeed passed at a conference of the groups on the date mentioned, but it was never ratified.