893.51/2495a: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Great Britain (Davis)
6121. The following is Mr. Lansing’s memorandum of a conversation which he had with the British Ambassador on October 22:
“I called the attention of the Ambassador to a [telegraphic] dispatch from London, 3256, October 16, 6 p.m.,75 in which I was made to say by Lord Grey in a telegram to his Government’ that the Government of the United States was prepared to accede to the reservations concerning Southern Manchuria and inner Mongolia but not as regards Eastern Siberia,’ in connection with the Chinese Consortium.
I told the Ambassador that he had gained the wrong impression from my conversation; that my position was that so far as Southern Manchuria and inner Mongolia was concerned this Government felt that no other nation should seek special privileges or concessions in those regions but that the open door should be preserved and because of her proximity Japan would be in a position of advantage.
Lord Grey replied that he was afraid that he had conveyed the wrong impression to his Government through too brief a telegram and that he would immediately correct the inference which they had drawn as to the Chinese Consortium.”76
Advise Ambassador Wallace if in London and repeat to Embassy Paris for information and for Marshall.