882.51/1454
The Secretary of State to the Minister in Liberia (Hood)
Sir: The Department has received your Legation’s despatch No. 20, dated February 8, 1922, concerning £8500 sterling which the General [Page 615] Receiver of Customs remitted the latter part of January to The National City Bank of New York, Fiscal Agents of the Liberian refunding loan of 1912.
The fact that the General Receiver remitted £8500 within six days, £7000 on January 25th and £1500 on January 31st, would seem to confirm recent complaints made to the Department that the Receivership held the collections of assigned revenues for unduly long periods, apparently waiting until a large sum had accumulated before making remittances to the Fiscal Agents.
The Department desires you to bring this matter to the attention of the General Receiver and you may say that unless there are justifiable reasons for not doing so, remittances from the assigned revenues for the service of the 1912 loan should be made as nearly as possible in conformity with the terms of the refunding loan agreement which require that the Receivership forward to the Fiscal Agents on the first day of each month during the life of the loan an amount equal to twenty per cent of the gross receipts from the assigned revenues during the preceding month, but never less than eight thousand six hundred dollars United States gold.
As the interest on the 1912 loan is still considerably in arrears, the Receivership should, until these arrears are fully paid, increase the monthly remittances above the sum required by the loan agreement whenever and as much as the state of the assigned revenues will permit.
I am [etc.]