(No. 2.)-Sir Edward Grey to the Italian Ambassador.

YOUR EXCELENCY,

Foreign Office, Janvary 4, 1909.

I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your note of this day's date, informing me that the Italian Government are prepared to renew, for a period of five years from the date of its expiration, the Arbitration Agreement concluded between the Governments of Great Britain and Italy on the 1st February 1904, on the understanding that His Majesty's Government are equally prepared to agree to such renewal.

I have the honour to accept, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the proposal of the Italian Government that the Agreement in question shall be renewed for a further period of five years from the 1st proximo, and the present exchange of notes between your Excellency and myself is accordingly regarded by them as placing upon record the understanding arrived at between our respective Governments in the matter. I have, &c.

E. GREY.

AGREEMENT between the Post Office of Great Britain and the Department of Communications of Japan for the Service of Money Orders.-Signed at London, November 4, 1908, and Tokió, December 7, 1908.

FOR the purpose of amending the present system of exchange of money orders between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the Empire of Japan, the undersigned, duly empowered thereto, have agreed upon the following Articles :-

ART. I. Between the Post Office of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the Department of Communications of Japan there shall be a regular exchange of money orders.

II. The exchange service of money orders between the contracting countries shall be performed exclusively by the agency of offices of exchange to be designated by the postal administration of each country.

Each administration shall communicate to the other the offices of exchange which it shall have designated.

III. All payments for money orders, whether by or to the public, shall be made in gold or in other legal money of the same current value.

IV. The amount of each money order advised by either office of exchange to the other shall be expressed in the money of the country where payment is to be made.

V. Each of the contracting administrations shall have power to fix, from time to time, the rate of conversion applicable to the money orders issued by it, on condition of notifying that rate to the other administration.

VI. The maximum amount of a single money order is fixed at 400 yeh in Japanese money when issued in the United Kingdom, and at 401. sterling when issued in Japan.

The amount of each money order shall not contain a fraction of a penny or of a sen.

VH. The British Post Office and the Department of Communications of Japan shall each have the power to fix, from time to time, the rates of commission to be charged on the money orders which they may respectively issue; but each administration shall communicate to the other its tariff of charges or rates of commission established under the present Agreement. The commission shall belong to the issuing administration; but the British Post Office shall allow to the Department of Communications of Japan per cent. on the amount of money orders issued in the United Kingdom and payable in Japan; and the Department of Communications of Japan shall make a similar allowance to the British Post Office for money orders issued in Japan and payable in the United Kingdom.

This rate of allowance shall, however, be subject to alteration by agreement between the two administrations.

Money orders intended for or sent by prisoners of war shall be exempt from commission and also from the allowance made to the country of payment.

VIII. The applicant for every money order shall be required to furnish the full surname and Christian name (or at least the initial of one Christian name) both of the remitter and of the payee or the corresponding names in the case of natives of Japan, China, or Korea, or the name of the firm, company, or other corporation who are the remitters or payees, and the address of the remitter and payee. The names of Japanese shall not be described by an abbreviation, except in cases where the name of a quality, title, or profession, clearly showing the personality of the person entitled, is included. And whenever both the remitter and the payee of a money order drawn in the United Kingdom on Japan are Japanese, Chinese, or Koreans, the remitter shall be required to furnish a slip giving his own name and address and those of the payee in full in Japanese or Chinese characters, as the case may be, such slip being sent from the British office of exchange to that of Japan, attached to the relative advice list of money orders. If, however, a Christian name, or name corresponding thereto, or the initial of this name cannot be given, or the above-mentioned slip cannot be furnished, an order may nevertheless be issued at the remitter's risk.

IX. Each office of exchange shall communicate to the other by every mail the sums received in its country for payment in the other, and for this purpose shall use forms of the pattern shown in Appendices (A) and (B).

The note "A. P." shall be made in a special column in the list, against the entry relative to each order for which an "advice of payment" is required (see Article XVI).

The particulars of money orders intended for or sent by

prisoners of war shall be entered on separate lists headed "Money orders exempt from charges."

In order to prevent inconvenience in case an original list should be lost, each office shall forward by every mail a duplicate of the list sent by the preceding mail.

X. Every money order entered upon the lists shall bear a number (to be known as the international number) commencing every year with No. 1.

Similarly each list shall bear a serial number commencing every year with No. 1.

XI. The receipt of each list shall be acknowledged on either side by means of the first subsequent list forwarded in the opposite direction; and any missing list shall be immediately applied for by the office of exchange to which it shall have been sent. The despatching office of exchange shall, in such case, . transmit without delay to the receiving office of exchange a duplicate list duly certified as such.

XII. The lists shall be carefully verified by the office of exchange to which they are sent, and corrected when they contain manifest errors. The corrections shall be communicated to the despatching office of exchange in the acknowledgment of the receipt of the list in which the corrections are made.

When these lists show other irregularities, the office of exchange receiving them shall require an explanation from the despatching office of exchange, which shall give such explanation with as little delay as possible. In the meantime the issue of internal money orders relating to the entries on the list which are found to be irregular shall be suspended.

XIII. As soon as the list shall have reached the receiving office of exchange, that office shall prepare internal money orders in favour of the payees of the amounts, in the money of the country of payment, specified in the list, and shall then forward such internal money orders to the payees or to the paying offices in conformity with the arrangements existing in each country for the payment of money orders.

XIV. When it is desired that an error in the name of a payee shall be corrected or that the amount of a money order shall be repaid to the remitter, application must be made by the remitter to the administration of the country in which the order was issued.

XV. Repayment of an order shall not, in any case, be made until it has been ascertained, through the administration of the country where such order is payable, that the order has not been paid and that the said administration authorizes the repayment.

XVI. The remitter of a money order may obtain an advice of payment of the order by paying in advance, either at the time of or after the issue of the order, to the exclusive profit of the administration of the country of issue, a fixed charge equal to the charge made in that country for advices of delivery of registered correspondence.

Applications for advices of payment of money orders will only be accepted within the period of one year from the date when the ordinary period of validity of such orders expires.

The advice of payment shall be in a form in accordance with or analogous to the specimen (H) in the Appendix.

The advice of payment shall be prepared either by the paying office or by the exchange office of the country of payment, when it is applied for at the time of issue of an order, and by the exchange office of the country of issue when the application is made subsequent to the issue of an order; and shall be transmitted direct to the office of issue or to the exchange office of the country of issue either by the office of payment or by the exchange office of the country of payment, provided that in the case of advice of payment applied for after the issue of the order, the particulars of payment must be entered thereon before it is returned.

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Nevertheless advices of payment relating to through" money orders shall be sent through the exchange offices of the two countries.

XVII. Orders shall remain payable in each country for twelve months after the expiration of the month of issue; and the amounts of all money orders not paid within that period shall revert to, and be at the disposal of, the administration of the country of issue.

XVIII. In the event of a money order being lost or destroyed, a duplicate shall be granted on a written application (containing the necessary particulars) from the payee to the administration of the country in which the original order was payable; and, unless there is reason to believe that the original order was lost in transmission through the post, the administration issuing the duplicate shall be entitled to charge the same fee as would be chargeable for a duplicate order under its own internal regulations.

On receipt of an application, containing the necessary particulars, from the remitter, instructions shall be given to stop payment of a money order.

XIX. Money orders sent from one country to another shall be subject, as regards issue, to the rules in force in the country of origin, and as regards payment, to the rules in force in the country of destination.

XX. Should the Department of Communications of Japan desire to send money order remittances through the medium of the British post office to any of the foreign countries, British Colonies, etc., with which the British Post Office transacts money order business, it shall be at liberty to do so. provided that the following conditions are fulfilled :

:

(a.) The Japanese exchange office shall advise the amounts of such "through" orders to the British exchange office, which will re-advise them to the exchange offices of the countries of payment.

(b.) No such order shall exceed the maximum amount fixed

by the country of destination for money orders issued in the United Kingdom.

(c.) The particulars of "through," orders shall be entered either in red ink at the end of the ordinary advice lists despatched to the British exchange office or on separate sheets, the total amounts of the "through" orders being included in the totals of such lists.

(d.) The names and addresses of the payees, including the names of the town and country of payment, shall be given as fully as possible.

(e.) The Department of Communications of Japan shall allow to the British Post Office the same percentage (see Article VII) on "through" orders as on orders payable in the United Kingdom, the British Post Office crediting the office of the country of payment with the same percentage for the "through" orders as for the orders issued in the United Kingdom, and, for its intermediary services, deducting from the amount of each re-advised order a special commission to be fixed by the British Post Office.

(f.) When the amount of a "through" order is repaid to the remitter, the commission charged for the intermediary service is not refunded.

If the British Post Office should desire to send money orders through the medium of the Department of Communications of Japan to any countries with which the Department of Communications of Japan transacts money order business, it shall be at liberty to do so under similar conditions to those stated in the preceding paragraph.

Each administration shall also be at liberty to send, through its medium, money orders originating in any countries with which it transacts money order business to the other administration or to any other countries with which the other administration has money order relations, under the same conditions as those mentioned in the first paragraph of the present Article.

Each administration shall communicate to the other the names of the countries with which it transacts money order business, the limit of amount adopted for each, and the rates of commission deducted for intermediary services.

XXI. At the end of every month each office of exchange shall prepare and forward to the other a list in accordance with the form marked (C) in the Appendix, showing the particulars of all orders issued in the other country which have not been paid within twelve months after the end of the month of issue and have therefore become void.

XXII. At the end of every month the Department of Communications of Japan shall furnish to the British post office a money order account (in duplicate) which shall include the following items:

(a.) On the debit side (to the credit of the United Kingdom) the total amount of the orders advised on the lists despatched from the Japanese exchange office during the month to which