CO129-360 - Public Offices - 1909 — Page 324

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joint signature of the Agreement.

No.2 was the stone of stumbling. Not that the French

Group of financiers themselves appeared to have serious

objection to German participation in principle. It was

the French Government who refused their consent.

it is

true that within an hour of my departure for Berlin, the

French Minister of Finance intimated that if the scope of

the British proposal were extended to embrace an Anglo-

French-German "Entente générale" for the whole of China

(and possibly elsewhere) ne might reconsider his decision.

The reply was that the wider question was not witain the

competence of the present negotiator to discuss.

It must be considered then that the Frenca Government

definitely refused its consent to the British proposal

for German participation ad hoc.

It was

The action of the French, of course, rendered nuga-

tory in advance any negotiations with Germany.

considered right, however, as an act of courtesy and evi-

Gonce of good will that I should explain to our German

friends in person the efforts we had made on their behalf

and our regret that they had been rendered fruitless, not

through any lack of zeal on our part, but solely by the

action