862i.01/46: Telegram
The Chargé in Japan ( Bell ) to the Secretary of State
[Received 10:54 p.m.]
80. Your 442, December 6, 6 p.m. Following note dated February 26th and marked confidential received today from Minister for Foreign Affairs:
“I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 10th December last on the status of the Island of Yap in reply to the memorandum of the Imperial Department of Foreign Affairs, dated the 12th [19th] November last,20 and to state candidly herewith the opinion of the Imperial Government on the views of the Government of the United States propounded in this said note.
In support of the argument advanced by the Government of the United States the following points are enumerated in your note: first, that in the course of the various discussions in the Supreme Council and the Council of Foreign Ministers at the Peace Conference (namely at the meeting of the Supreme Council on April 21st, 1919 and at the meeting of Foreign Ministers on April 30th and on May 1st, 191920a) the President and Mr. Lansing, the then Secretary of State of the United States, respectively, gave utmost despatch [utterance] to a view that the Island of Yap should be internationalized or that it should not pass into the hands of any one power; next, that at the meeting of the Supreme Council held on May 6th 1919, Mr. Lloyd George employed the words “certain islands” in giving expression to what he understood to be the territories to be [Page 273] committed to the charge of Japan; and lastly, that according to the minutes of the meeting of the Supreme Council of May 7th, 1919, no discussion took place on that day in respect to mandates and that although there exists a memorandum appended to the minutes of the meeting of May 7th which purports to be a codification of the agreement reached at the meeting of May 6th with reference to the North Pacific islands such memorandum does not expressly include all the islands in the North Pacific. Of the meetings referred to it must be noted that the Imperial delegates were not present at the meeting of the Supreme Council of April 21st, May 6th and May 7th and in consequence the Imperial Government have no means of ascertaining what views were expressed by the American delegates at those meetings. Assuming however that President Wilson did in fact give utterance at those meetings to such views as are ascribed to him this cannot warrant the United States Government as against the Imperial Government in going beyond asserting as a fact that President Wilson or Mr. Lansing gave it as his opinion before the Supreme Council and the Council of Foreign Ministers at some time previous to May 1st, 1919, that the Island of Yap should be internationalized or that it should not pass into the hands of any one power. In the opinion of the Imperial Government such a fact argues in no way in favor of the contention of the American Government that the Island of Yap stands outside the islands that it was decided should be held under the mandate by Japan unless they can establish at the same time the further fact that the representations of President Wilson and Mr. Lansing were accepted by the Council and the latter decided to exclude Yap from the mandatory territories assigned to Japan. In order to maintain successfully therefore that the Island of Yap is not included in the mandatory territories assigned to Japan the Imperial Government consider it necessary for the American Government to prove not merely the fact that the particular line of views was stated at the meetings but also that the meeting decided in favor of those views. Further, in this same connection the Imperial Government would point out that views expressed by the delegates previous to arriving at a decision are not necessarily to be interpreted as reservations naturally attached to the decision. It follows that the question whether the Island of Yap is excluded from the mandatory territories assigned to Japan must be judged from the decision of May 7th by which the mandatory powers and their mandatory territories were for the first time and at the same time finally decided upon and it must be concluded that whatever utterances may have been made previous to that date were only preliminary conversations that took place before the decisions were reached and in themselves possess no such cogency as to qualify the meaning or limit the application of the decisions. This conclusion is the more irrefutable since the Imperial delegation never expressed their agreement whether at any meeting of the councils or elsewhere with the above-stated views of President Wilson or of Mr. Lansing. Furthermore Viscount, then Baron, Makino announced distinctly his disagreement with them at the meeting of Foreign Ministers held on April 30th, 1919.
2. A view is advanced further in the note under reply that if Yap was meant to be included among the islands assigned under the [Page 274] mandate to Japan then the decision of May 7th, 1919 should have been drafted in more specific language than is the case. In the opinion of the Imperial Government, however, it is more in accordance with sound principles of interpretation to say that the fact should have been set down with especial clearness if exclusion were meant as an exception always requires to be stated definitely [expressly]. To assert that the fact of nonexclusion should have been specifically mentioned in a decision of this kind could only be regarded as an extraordinary and even an unreasonable contention with which no one would be likely to concur.
It must also be remembered that if a decision in favor of the exclusion of the Island of Yap—a question of grave concern to Japan and one on which the Japanese delegation invariably maintained a firm attitude—had really been made, as it is implied by the argument of the United States Government, at the meeting of May 7th at which Japan was not represented it could not but have been regarded as an act of entirely bad faith. It is therefore inconceivable to the Imperial Government that such a decision could have been reached at a meeting at which no Japanese delegation was present. Since the decision under consideration says on the one hand “German Islands” and on the other does not make any exception of Yap, the Imperial Government regard it as perfectly clear that the ex-German Pacific islands north of the Aleutians [Equator] with no exception whatever all belong to the mandatory territories allocated to Japan. Nor are the Imperial Government alone and unsupported in their interpretation of the decision for they are in receipt of authentic information that the Governments of Great Britain and France being of the same opinion as the Japanese Government on the matter made statements to that effect in their replies to the American note in November last.21 If the decision incorporated in the memorandum appended to the minutes for May 7th be one which was really reached at the meeting on the meeting [sic] of the Supreme Council held on May 6th as represented in the note under reply then the inevitable conclusion will be that inasmuch as the meeting held on the latter date, id est May 6th, was that of the Heads of Delegations of the United States, Great Britain, and France, the contention of the American Government is tantamount to saying that President Wilson by himself arrived at an understanding which differed from that of all others present, a conclusion difficult to understand.
Again a reference is made to the use of words “certain islands” by Mr. Lloyd George at the meeting of the Supreme Council held on May 6th 1919 tending to prove the exclusion of the Island of Yap. Granting for the sake of argument that the words “certain islands” occur in the minutes for May 6th the use of such a phrase is perfectly natural and easy to understand without supposing it to refer to the exclusion of Yap. There are other islands in the South Pacific north of the Equator which did not belong to Germany and it does not appear how better Mr. Lloyd George could succinctly describe the islands to be allotted to the Japanese mandate in that region than [Page 275] as “certain islands.” “Certain” is a word which is far from approbation [appropriate] to mean “all but one.” and had he had the exclusion of a single island such as Yap in mind he would have been almost sure to have explicitly mentioned it. Seeing that the British Government adopts the interpretation that it was decided at that time that all the ex-German Pacific islands north of the Equator were to be assigned under the mandate to Japan it is obvious that in employing the words Mr. Lloyd George cannot have intended to signify the exclusion of Island of Yap.
To sum up, since in a matter of such a grave nature as the establishment of mandatory territories only what appears on the face of the decisions should be accepted as authoritative, the Imperial Government cannot agree in giving an extraordinary and unusual interpretation to the decision on a vague ground that certain thoughts and intentions not expressed in the text thereof existed in the mind of the delegate of one power only.
3. The decision of May 7th, 1919, was made public on the following day, the 8th. If the published text of the decision differed in sense from what was understood by the Government of the United States to be its meaning the latter should have and would naturally have been expected to have entered an immediate protest. No such step was taken however at the time and the Imperial Government fail to understand the reason why the American Government should have allowed more than a year and a half to pass by before electing to question the decision. The note under reply refers to the fact that President Wilson’s statement before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on August 19th, 1919, called forth no comment by any nations and points to this absence of contrary opinion as amounting to evidence to prove that no power found anything in the President’s view to which it could take exception. The Imperial Government are quite unable to follow contentions of this kind. In the one case we [have the] publication of an international agreement in which the American representative participated whereas the other was essentially a pure domestic affair. As to the former, in case the published text would be found to differ from what was understood by one party it was encumbered [incumbent] upon him forthwith to lodge a protest and have the errors if any rectified. In the latter case however no third power is called upon to make any refutation or correction and consequently the fact that there was no nation which took it upon itself to make any adverse comment has no bearing whatever on the matter under consideration.
4. On the strength of article 3 of the [obsolete draft] mandate covering ex-German islands in the Pacific north of the equator submitted to the Supreme Council on December 24th, 1919, it is contended in the note under reply that no definite agreement had yet been reached as to the final disposition of all the ex-German islands in Pacific north of the Equator. The Imperial Government would point out that this article was intended solely to provide a means of settlement in view of any dispute that may arise as to boundaries or the assignment of lands. Such provisions were by no means confined to the particular draft in question but there were also found similar provisions in all original draft mandates covering other territories which were simultaneously submitted to the same meeting. [Page 276] If the American contention in this connection is to be upheld it must needs follow that all the mandatory territories are liable to be honeycombed by exceptions or exclusions. But such a conclusion is wholly at variance with facts and cannot be thought by anyone to be convincing. Consequently the reference made to it in the note under reply tends in the opinion of the Imperial Government in no way to strengthen the contentions of the United States Government.
5. In the concluding part of the note under reply it is observed that even on the assumption that the Island of Yap should be included among the islands held under the mandate by Japan it is not conceivable that other powers should not have free and unhampered access to and use of the island for the landing and operation of cables. If this observation is put forth irrespective of the fact that the island is within the mandatory territory then the question seems to be one which should be freely settled by the nation which has the charge of the place, namely, Japan. If this meaning be however that owing to the nature of the mandate the island should have its doors kept open the Imperial Government would draw attention to the [fact that?] at the meeting of the Commission on Mandates held on July 8th, 1919, Colonel House opposed Count Chinda’s claim that the same equal opportunities for commerce [and] trade should be guaranteed in territories belonging to the C class as in those belonging to the B class. In view of the position thus taken by the American delegate the Imperial Government feel obliged to state that in their opinion the American Government cannot with justice contend for the open door in the C class territories at least as against Japan and to inform the United States Government at the same time that they cannot consider themselves bound in any way to recognize the freedom of other nations in the manner insisted upon by the American Government in regard to the landing and the operation of cables even in places where the principle of the open door is to be guaranteed.
I have the honor to request you to be so good as to transmit to your Government the views of the Imperial Government as above stated.
[I am] et cetera. Signed. Count Uchida, Minister for Foreign Affairs.”