COPY.
C.O
47100
372
Letter Of November, 1912, to March (partner in Carlowitz &
Co.)
Krupp Agency.
Mention has frequently been made in our corres- -pondence of a renewal of the agency-agreement with Krupp, which will come up for consideration next year. I should again like to draw attention to the fact that the question only arises if Krupp gives us notice of the termination of the existing contract before lat. July, 1913. If that does not happen the contract runs for another year. The clause about extension is of such a form that the contract is automatically renewed year by year unless notice is given before 30th. June. So the agreement runs which we carried through in 1910 after long negotiations in Essen and Hamburg. We arrived at the conditions of payment which under normal circums- -tances should always be adhered to. These normal circumstances have been interrupted by the revolution for the time being and this fact must be taken into consideration at Essen. If Krupp now re- -duces our commission for business of an ungusual kind, as in Mukden, or for orders which are to be carried out only by raising a loan, then we must put up with it; but it only concerns business which could not be done in normal times and such exceptions could not be foreseen in any agreement, but must always be dealt with as the case demands. If China does not declare State bankruptcy and that is hardly to be expected, for that of course the Powers would not allow on account of the vested interests of the financial world (quite apart from the interests of the business world) then we may assume that by June of next year the relativis will again be normal, and then there would be no cause to enter into the normal arrangements for our agency-agreement with Krupp. From this assump -tion if a return to normal circumstances in the course of the next six months I mean that we should not venture on any change of the agency agreement. Naturally the firm must conduct itself properly and it was decidedly wrong simply to overlook on the 31st. October the day of payment of the 4th. instalment of the Peking agreement re field guns of the amount of M. 639,640. As the day grew near
and