File No. 793.94/399.
Minister Reinsch to the Secretary of State.
Peking, May 25, 1915.
Sir: I have the honor to report that, in accordance with the Department’s telegraphic instruction of May 11, 5 p.m., I presented to the Minister of Foreign Affairs on Thursday, the 13th instant, a note textually in the terms of your instruction.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, in receiving your note, stated that throughout the negotiations with Japan it had been his endeavor to safeguard the treaty rights of other nations with which he conceived China’s rights themselves were bound up. He asked me specifically what provisions of the proposed agreement on the additional demands seemed so objectionable to my Government that a protest on such provisions would have to be anticipated; to which I replied that my Government had not instructed me to protest against any particular proposal but that it trusted in the respect of the contracting Governments for treaty rights and insisted that the rights referred to in the note should be given complete protection in the framing of the definite provisions of the treaty. There was then some discussion of the feasibility of adding to the treaty to be made a general saving clause to the effect that the “provisions of this treaty shall be given an interpretation not inconsistent with the treaty rights of other nations, etc.”
During the conversation, the Minister of Foreign Affairs admitted that there was some thought of making a secret arrangement respecting the sanction of police and tax regulations affecting Japanese resident in Manchuria. I pointed out to his excellency at the time that any rights of residence granted to the Japanese in Manchuria would, by operation of the most-favored-nation clause, accrue in like terms to all other nations having treaties with China and that they would therefore be entitled to be informed of all the terms of the arrangement affecting such rights.
Upon receiving your telegraphic instruction of May 15, 6 p.m., I wrote to the Minister of Foreign Affairs as follows:
In view of my conversation with your excellency on Thursday last, in which we touched upon the clause in the explanatory note accompanying the Japanese memorandum of May 7 which refers to the approval of tax and police regulations in South Manchuria, I have the honor to state that I take it for granted [Page 158] that the Government of the United States will be notified of any provision in the treaty and subsidiary agreements now being negotiated by which the status of foreigners in China or in any part thereof would be affected. Such notification is necessary to enable the Government of the United States to share in privileges which may accrue under the most-favored-nation treatment guaranteed by the treaties.
When this matter was discussed in the diplomatic conference, the Japanese representative stated that the application of the most-favored-nation treatment to the matter of residence in Manchuria would have to be worked out by China with the individual nations concerned.
In one of the conversations with a member of the Foreign Office, I was asked whether the presentation of the note implied a resolution on the part of the American Government to call for a revision of the treaty if it were concluded in terms considered unacceptable by it under the existing treaties. I stated that the Government had not expressed itself on that point, but that through the action of giving this formal notice it had kept its hands perfectly free to take whatever measures it might later deem necessary for the full protection of the rights and policies referred to in the note.
I have [etc.]