711.417/752
Memorandum by the Under Secretary of State (Grew) of a Conversation With the Japanese Ambassador (Matsudaira)
The Japanese Ambassador asked for an appointment and said that he had been requested by his Government to endeavor to obtain a reply to the Ambassador’s memorandum of July 20, 1926 concerning the Fur Seals Convention, as the Japanese Diet was about to meet and it was believed that national pressure in the interest of the Japanese fishermen might force the matter into discussion. The Ambassador said that there had been a good deal of criticism of the Japanese Government when the Convention of 1911 was concluded, and intimated that this criticism was the basis of the Government’s present desire to hold a conference for the purpose of negotiating a new Convention.
I told the Ambassador that I had just been on the point of asking him to see me because our reply to his representations of July 20 was only just completed. A thorough study of the situation had been made by our experts in an endeavor to meet the points raised by the Japanese Government and the results of these studies were contained in the memorandum which I now handed him. I alluded to the Japanese suggestion that two separate treaties might be substituted for the present Convention, one between Japan, Great Britain and the Soviet Régime, and the other between Great Britain, Japan and the United States. In this connection, I drew his attention to the fact that the Convention of 1911 is now recognized as binding by Soviet Russia, the latter having by a decree of February 2, 1926 made the Convention applicable to the Soviet Government and its citizens, and I intimated that this situation would, of course, be bound to be disturbed by a new conference. I furthermore said to the Ambassador that it was our desire so far as possible to try to find means to meet the Japanese viewpoint concerning the fur seals situation if this could be done short of altering the Convention and that as I had told the Ambassador before we would gladly consider and study any points the Japanese Government might raise with a view to ascertaining whether the situation could be improved by administrative regulations rather than by new treaty provisions.