[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government, and should be returned to the Foreign Office if not required for official use.]
From CHINA.
Decypher.
Sir M. Lampson, (Peking)
4th July 1928.
R. 9.00 a.m.
6th July 1928.
No. 713.
35
Your telegram No. 157.
Li Chai-sum is very friendly and I am personally
greatly inclined to do all that is properly possible
to support him and consolidate his position.
But just at this moment Nationalist Finance
Minister is busy repudiating in as abrupt a manner as he can well devise (see Shanghai telegram No. 149) the
Reorganisation Loan Agreement of 1913.
This proves
the valuelessness of China's word in financial matters
and I conceive it would be most undesirable as well as
excessively unwise for any respectable British financ- ial house to choose this precise moment to make any
further loan. Be it always remembered that Li Chai-sum himself was perfectly ready to play the game by Salt Inspectorato and to reopen it there on a basis of a
million dollars a year contributions to service of salt loans, but Nanking government stopped him. through him certain pressure may be perhaps exercised
now on Nanking.
Thus
This question of China honouring her bond strikes
me as dominating the whole question and on that ground I would most strongly discourage present proposal.
Apart from that I gathered in Hongkong, Sir Robert
Ho Tung's reputation is unsavoury; Governor of Hongkong now home on leave can say how much there is in this:
again