Evening star., 1922-01-21

sumed-would give an important
guarantee, so far as the acquisition
of the information was concerned.
because it would always be the gov
ernment of China. or a political sub
division of China. that would be con-
cerned in the contracts in question.
Involves Public Utilities.
With respect to the point that this
might involve transactions that were
relatively small, 1t would be observed
that they were transactions of the
class enumerated in the resolution
and that their character was such
! as to make it important that the
transactions should be known. They
concerned !, what were commonly
. called public services or public utili-
, ties. 1t might be that. under this
; resolution as drafted. the last clause:
"Or which involve either hen
upon any OF the public revenues or
eminent or of the several provinces.
, or financial obligation on the part
or that government or of the prov
=; inces exceeding one million dollars
silver" would bring into the purview
of the article other contracts than
those of the nature of public services
or public utilities. 1t might. he added.
perhaps be sufficient in such cases
that the nature of the contract should
| be Indicated and the text be supplied
matter was submitted for discussion.
His own thought was that whatever
was governmental transaction Of
the sort described on the part OF
China or its subdivisions should be
known, and in some way provision
should be made to that effect.
The point with regard to China's
obligation might be met in this way:
the suggestion had been made to him,
. which he was glad to present for the
nf he ho
! a third paragraph be added to cover
the point in these words:
iii. The Chinese government un-
dertakes to notify promptly, in the
every treaty. agreement or contract
; Of the character indicated herein
\ which has been. or may hereafter be.
concluded by that government, or by
any local authority in China. with any
foreign power, or the nationals of any
foreign power. whether a party to
this agreement or not, so far as the
information is in it's posse ession.''
suxEests Slight Change.
He supposed the first and second
paragraphs should have after the
, words the several powers" the ad-.
dition OF the words "other than
China" SO that they would read:
Il. The several powers. other than
China China will a. their earliest conven-
III. The several powers. other than
China. will file with the secresariat-
And then the third paragraph as
recommended-the assumption OF the
duty by China. He added that it was
quite in accord with the intention Of
the American delegation that the ad-
herence OF other powers should be
asked.
Baron de Cartier asked whether it
was intended to set a time limit dur
ing which the agreement would re-
main in force.
The chairman answered that until
it was changed by consent Of all the
signatory powers 1t would continue
indefinitely.
sman point. but he thought it was
Of some importance. He asked the
words ION which their respective gov
ernments propose to rely" Those
words were repeated from the first
paragraph. In the first paragraph
that was clearly appropriate, because
the first paragraph related to con-
tracts between governments and.
therefore. it was right to use those
words.
He was not quite sure that he saw
their significance in the second para
graph. This paragraph dealt with
viduals and the Chinese government.
Now. it was rather hard to ask the
government Of which contractors
were the nationals to decide before
hand that they always meant to
support the contractor.
In fact, he was not quite sure that
. he knew exactly what the meaning Of