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James Burness & Sons
London and 3, Bute Crescent, Cardiff
138, Leadenhall Street

London, 1st August, 1914
Messrs Worms & C° Paris

Dear Sirs,
We are in receipt of your favor of yesterday enclosing copy of the letter you have addressed to the London County & Westminster Bank authorizing us in case of need to draw on your account with them and advise them the amounts which your Cardiff, Newcastle & Grimsby Branches may from time to time be drawing from the account.
We sincerely hope that the emergency under which you would wish us to make use of this authority may not arise but if it does we may once again say that our services are entirely at your disposal in this matter or indeed in any other.
We saw the L. C. & W. Bank when they told us your authority had reached them this morning & was quite in order and in reply to our enquiry as to what they wished from us in the matter they told us that specimens of the signatures of the various members of our firm were all that were necessary; we will therefore furnish them with these.
When speaking on the telephone this morning you told us that you had too much of your resources here in London and not sufficient in Paris so you requested us to ask the L. C. & W. Bank to transmit to you through their office in Paris the sum of 580.000 francs. We at once saw them when they said they would do their utmost to carry out the transaction for you and their Country Manager took us on to see their Foreign Branch Manager who told us they had ceased at 4 o'clock yesterday issuing cheques on their Paris Branch having exhausted for the time being all their resources there and hearing only sufficient funds in hand to meet their liabilities but they would leave no stone unturned to place the money at your disposal and promised later in the day if it were possible to do so to arrange the matter. We informed you of this on the telephone and at 12.30 we again saw the Foreign Branch Manager who said he was prepared to pay you the money on Monday subject to no moratorium having been declared in Paris in the meantime. In view of this contingency we said we felt sure you would appreciate it very highly if the money could be transferred today and we have now arranged to remain at the office this afternoon in order that if the position changes we may be able to advise you promptly that the amount is at your disposal.
As mentioned on the telephone we told the L. C. & W. Bank that if they could not arrange for the whole amount at present perhaps they might be able to remit part of it.
We are, dear Sirs, Yours truly,

James Burness & Sons

The L. C. & W. Bank inform us that they much regret being unable to arrange for the payment of the 500.000 francs to you today but that it will be quite in order on Monday, the rate of exchange being 24.35 fcs at which they have many large orders waiting fulfilment; their Manager expressed the opinion that even if a moratorium were declared he did not think it would be effective until Tuesday or Wednesday. We sincerely hope that the matter may be in order. We endeavoured to advise you of this by telephone but were informed that there was no communication so we wired you and we trust the telegram may reach you; the Post Office tells us there is communication by telegraph but some delay.