741.942/22: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Great Britain (Kellogg)
203. Following telegram, dated July 8, received from Legation Peking:
“Despatch number 43, June 27, from American Consulate General at Mukden reports acting British Consul General there states he has received instructions from his government that new commercial treaty now being negotiated in London between Great Britain and Japan, that a clause has been proposed presumably by Japan providing that Chosen, Kwantung Leased Territory and South Manchuria Railway Zone are to be placed on same status as Japan for purposes of new treaty, that the clause related particularly to taxation of merchandise between Japan on the one side and South Manchuria Railway on the other, that it was specifically provided that British extraterritorial courts in railway zone would not be affected by proposed clause.”
You may make discreet inquiries regarding this matter.
For your guidance you are informed that the assimilation of the South Manchuria Railway Zone to Japanese territory would establish a precedent which this Government could not but regard as an unfortunate impairment of the territorial and administrative integrity of China; that this Government has consistently opposed the exercise of political powers asserted to be derived from the concessions for the Chinese Eastern Railway and the South Manchuria Railway; and that, at the Washington Conference, the Japanese delegation, while claiming certain of such political powers in the zone of the latter Railway, did not go so far as to assimilate the zone to national territory as seems now to be proposed.