793.94/953
Memorandum of the Third Assistant Secretary of State (Long)
(Note: After my conversation with Mr. Debuchi on last Thursday, July 24, in which he said that his Government did not feel that they could make an announcement of their intentions in Shantung at that time, I had a conversation with Mr. Lansing in which I reported the substance of Debuchi’s statement. Mr. Lansing then said that the President had authorized him to say to Debuchi the following day that unless Japan made some definite and satisfactory statement that he, the President, would do so.)
Mr. Debuchi came in this afternoon shortly after my return to town and reviewed the happenings in the Shantung matter since our last interview. He related the fact that the Secretary had talked to him on Friday, and [he] deplored that news in regard to the subject matter of their conversation had been printed in the papers, and stated that it was particularly regrettable that the statement had been made that unless Japan answered in less than forty-eight hours that the President himself would make an announcement. He said that he feared very much the effect that that statement would have in Japan; that he had immediately cabled Japan the substance of his conversation with the Secretary; that he had received a wire on Sunday which he had communicated to Mr. Lansing on Monday at the same time that he communicated a despatch also received from Baron Makino at Paris which stated that he was cabling the Japanese Government advising that they make a statement.
. . . . . . .
He asked whether in view of the fact that time had elapsed the statement would be immediately forthcoming. I told him that I did not know, but that I would say to the Secretary that in view of the distance which separates Paris and Tokyo, and the fact that cable [Page 717] communication had been necessary between Paris and Tokyo after receipt in Tokyo of advices from Mr. Debuchi, and the added fact that both he and Baron Makino had cabled urging his Government to make a statement, that I would suggest to the Secretary that the statement threatened by the President be withheld for several days.
Mr. Debuchi was apparently considerably alarmed at the situation. He expressed the hope that some decision would be arrived at as to the withholding of the statement by the President, and hoped that he might be informally advised …
He said that he had talked to Mr. Lansing about the Treaties of 191540 and 1918,41 and their application to the Treaty of Versailles; that Mr. Lansing had not confirmed the impression Debuchi had had from Mr. Polk that the Treaties of 1915 and 1918 were annulled, but had given him the impression that they did not enter into the calculations upon which the Treaty of Versailles was made, and that they were separate and distinct matters. I told him that my impression was that, whereas, we had never recognized the 1915 and 1918 Treaties, and did not now intend to, that we looked upon the Treaty of Versailles as superseding any former treaties on the subject, and as confirming to Japan the rights held by Germany as of August, 1914, without amendment of any kind, and without enlargement of any kind, and subject only to the statements made by the Japanese delegates in Paris as to their intentions in regard to the rights which they were to acquire.
- See Foreign Relations, 1915, pp. 171 and 197.↩
- Not printed.↩