793.94/264½
President Wilson to the Secretary of State
My Dear Mr. Secretary: It seems to me that it is very clear that the difficulties with regard to Fukien can now be easily cleared away; and I think the suggestions made by Mr. Williams, which as I read them are practically the same as these outlined in your letter, show the way. I am happy to think that we can easily come to an understanding on this point, and remove an impression which ought not to have been [permitted?] so long to exist; I mean the impression created by Mr. Hay’s suggestion as to a coaling station in Fukien.
The other matters give me more trouble. Frankly, I do not think that the explanations of the other “requests” which are offered in Ambassador Chinda’s note11 are convincing, and I hope that a candid discussion of them by the two governments may result in putting them in a more satisfactory light. I quite understand the motives disclosed. I do not feel like criticising the Japanese Government in regard to them. But I think that the remedies and safeguards proposed in the “requests” go too far. Whatever the intention, they do, in effect constitute a serious limitation upon China’s independence of action, and a very definite preference of Japan before other nations, to whom the door was to be kept open.
I shall look forward with pleasure to discussing these points with you when we get Japan’s direct and official reply to our note of inquiry.
Perhaps we need not wait for that reply before supplying Guthrie with the answer and the representations he may make in the matter of Fukien.
Faithfully Yours,
- Apparently referring to the memorandum of an oral statement by the Japanese Ambassador forwarded to President Wilson by Secretary Bryan on March 22. See footnote 8, ante, p. 409, and the telegram of Mar. 26, 1915, 3 p. m., to the Ambassador in Japan, Foreign Relations, 1915, p. 116.↩