893.51/2103: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Minister in China ( Reinsch )
For your information.
Your January 22, 5 p.m., was referred to Secretary Lansing who replied that he had no recollection of any such conversation as reported by the Japanese Minister in Peking and Embassy in Washington. The Secretary thinks the Department records will show that our instruction to you last spring was in quite a different sense. The reference is probably to the Department’s instruction of October 13, 2 p.m., 1917, which stated that “the Department is basing a claim to participation in any currency loan upon the whole history of the project.”66 The question of the appointment of financial adviser was not specifically mentioned and so far as our records show there appears to have been no definite instruction either way on that question since it arose in October, 1917.
Viscount Ishii is now absent from Washington and the Department desires to consult him before proceeding further. The Japanese Embassy here has been so informed and you will be guided accordingly.