SERVICE LOANS

Southland Times, Issue 20648, 21 November 1928, Page 5

SERVICE LOANS

CHINA’S OBLIGATIONS. STATEMENT BY FOREIGN OFFICE. Rugby, November 19. The Foreign Office has issued the following statement, which has also been given to the Press in China:— The Chinese, French, and British Ministers and the Japanese Charge d’Affaires have taken note of the statement of November 16 issued by the Minister of Finance of the National Government of China dealing with the question of service loans secured on the salt revenue. From this statement it appears that the Minister of Finance has made a fundamental alteration in the functions of the chief inspectors of the salt gabelle as laid down in the reorganization loan agreement of 1913, and the French and British Ministers and the Japanese Charge d'Affaires are instructed by their Governments to make it clear that it must not be implied that those Governments accept the Minister of Finance’s scheme as a satisfactory alternative to the arrangement prescribed in the loan agreement. If the National Government of China should vary by unilateral action the terms of the international agreement the responsibility for any consequences which may follow from such action must rest on its shoulders, and in particular it must take full responsibility for liquidating all loans secured thereunder, whether the scheme which it thus proposes to bring into use proves successful in producing the requisite amount of revenue or not. —British Official Wireless.