§ 16. Sir ALAN McLEANasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will direct His Majesty's Ambassador in Rio de Janeiro to be present during further negotiations regarding the holdings of British investors in the defaulted obligations of the Brazilian provincial and municipal authorities for the purpose of representing the British investors who are out of personal touch with the negotiating financiers who sold on the London market the above-mentioned defaulted loans?
§ Mr. BALDWINThe action proposed by my hon. and gallant Friend would be contrary to the practice which prevails in negotiations of this kind, and I am not prepared to sanction it. As regards the position of individual investors, it is, of course, customary to obtain the assent of individual bondholders to any arrangements proposed.
§ 17. Rear-Admiral SUETERasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will, in view of the hardship now being suffered by British investors in Argentine railways, direct His Majesty's Minister at Buenos Aires to ascertain whether the Argentine national and provincial authorities have yet paid their overdue debts to those railways; and, if such payment has not yet been made, will he inquire the reason for the delay?
§ Mr. BALDWINThe action proposed by my hon. and gallant Friend would amount to intervention by His Majesty's Government, which, for the reasons stated in the reply to a question put by my hon. and gallant Friend on this sub- 1595 ject on the 6th March, has not been requested by the railway companies concerned, and would therefore be inappropriate.