893.51/2427a: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Great Britain (Davis)61
5958. … the financial situation of the Chinese Government has become desperate. So imminent appears the danger that the Peking Government may in its extremity have recourse to measures which would in the future make more complicated if not in fact impossible a successful combination for the rehabilitation of Chinese finance that it is hoped the British Government may be induced to give its [Page 487] approval to the immediate formation of a new tripartite consortium which may proceed without delay to negotiate with the Chinese meanwhile reserving to the Japanese group the right to enter that consortium in the event that their Government should hereafter make it possible for them to do so upon terms involving no political reservations.
It is desired that you take up this matter informally and orally with the Foreign Office and endeavor to impress upon the responsible authorities an appreciation of the danger that further delay may prove fatal to the project of a satisfactory consortium. You should at the same time seek discreetly to ascertain what would be the attitude of the British Government towards the suggestion that the sole practicable alternative now in view is to hasten the establishment of a working combination of British, French and American banking interests for the purpose of carrying out as promptly and as completely as feasible the objects contemplated by the consortium.
- The same, mutatis mutandis, to the Ambassador in France (No. 9112).↩