CO129-362 - Public Offices - 1909 — Page 784

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[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]

AFFAIRS OF CHINA,

CONFIDENTIAL.

[37825]

No. 1.

REGP 3 NOV 09,

752

[October 7.]

SECTION 3.

Question asked in the House of Commons, October 7, 1909.

Mr. Bellairs, To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the support which the Foreign Office has given in important negotiations to the Hong Kong and Shanghae Bank and the recent action of the bank in connection with a proposed railway loan, of which the terms are at variance with the preferential rights assured to this country in regard to the Hankow-Canton and the Hankow-Szechuan railways, as well as with the agreement of 1898 between the bank itself and the Deutsch-Asiatische Bank, the Government will make it a condition of future British support that the members of the committee in London, the directorate in Hong Kong, and all holding positions of trust in the bank should be British subjects.

Answered by Mr. McKinnon Wood (for Sir Edward Grey).

The rule in such cases is that support is given, when it otherwise appears desirable, to companies in which the preponderance of shares is held by British or naturalised British subjects. I am, therefore unable to make the condition desired.

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