No. 13. 
Foreign Office to Eastern Bank. 
Sir, Foreign Office, March 27, 1912. 
I AM directed by Secretary Sir E. Grey to acknowledge the receipt of your letter 
of the 22nd instant, requesting that he may reconsider his decision, conveyed to you on 
the 19th instant, as to instructing His Majesty’s Minister at Peking to receive the 
notification of your loan from the Chinese Government. 
Sir E. Grey assumes that your letter crossed the letter from this Office of the 
22nd, whieh was sent in reply to your communication of the 15th, and which amplified 
the reasons previously transmitted to you for the attitude taken up by His Majesty’s 
Government towards financial groups making loans to China. 
The matter has now been fully considered in all its aspects by Sir E. Grey, and 
he regrets that he is not in a position to do otherwise than adhere to his original 
decision. 
I am, &c. 
W. LANGLEY. 
No. 14. 
Eastern Bank to Foreign Office.—(Recewed March 29.) 
Sir, 4, Crosby Square, London, March 28, 1912, 
I HAVE the honour to acknowledge receipt of your letter of the 22nd instant, 
which has been submitted to my board and to the syndicate, and I am directed to say 
that, after what passed in the earlier steps of the correspondence, they are unable to 
understand the position now taken up by His Majesty’s Government. : 
My board and those interested in the syndicate have again carefully studied 
the contents of your letter of the 3rd February to which you refer them. It is no 
doubt the case that you mentioned therein the probability of the Chinese Government 
applying in the first instance to the four international banking groups, but there 
was no suggestion in the letter that Sir E. Grey was already pledged to support 
them to the exclusion of all others. On the contrary, the Foreign Office wrote as 
follows :— 
“I am instructed by Secretary Sir E. Grey to inform you that a copy of your 
letter will be forwarded to His Majesty’s Minister at Peking, who will be instructed to 
furnish your local representative with such assistance as he properly can. In issuing 
these instructions to Sir J. Jordan, Sir E. Grey would be glad to be in a position to 
give the names of the foreign firms with whom your bank is associated, and I am to 
request that this information may be supplied. 
On the 8th February we furnished you with the particulars asked for, and on the 
15th instant gave details of the 1,000,0001. loan arranged by our representatives for one 
year on the security of the Peking—Kalgan Railway, and payments have already been 
made to China in respect thereof. 
It is the case, as stated in our letter of the 8th February, that German banks are 
not yet officially interested in our syndicate. French bankers, however, are interested, 
and so also is the Russo-Asiatic Bank with the full knowledge of the Russian 
Government. We have had many applications from English, German, American, and 
French bankers to join us, but at the present moment we have no desire to enlarge 
our syndicate. 
The loan which we have arranged was not made until after we had informed 
the Foreign Office of our intention, and in view of the fact that during the negotiations 
there was nothing to indicate that His Majesty’s Minister at Peking would not be 
authorised to receive the customary notification of the Chinese Government, we 
proceeded in fact on the promise of support contained in your letter of the 3rd February, 
and it is difficult for us to understand why His Majesty’s Government should now shut 
the door against us. 
As regards the larger loans to follow, we are willing and ready to submit to the 
Foreign Office all details, and to co-operate with other groups, but as the Hong Kong 
and Shanghai Bank Syndicate are aware that His Majesty's Government is pledged