793.003/292: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Great Britain (Dawes)
41. Your 34, February 17, noon.71 For oral communication to Foreign Office:
The Department believes that the character of the conversations with the Chinese Minister here has already been sufficiently explained. Reference: Hornbeck’s conversation with Campbell, January 25,72 and Department’s telegram to Embassy, 36 of February 15 [14], 5 p.m.71
In the course of Department’s conversations with Wu there have been submitted to Wu three documents. First, a definite proposal given to Wu on December 21;73 a copy of the draft of that proposal was enclosed with Johnson’s letter to Campbell of December 4.74 Second, a slightly modified form of same, to Wu, on December 28.75 Third, a draft of materials for study was given to Wu on January 23, with the express statement that it was not an offer and was submitted without commitment; a copy of this was given to Campbell, with some explanation, on January 25.
Wu declined to take seriously the proposal of December 21 and 28, but the Department still has in mind the possibility of bringing it forward again.
[Page 383]In connection with the materials given Wu on January 23, Wu has recently submitted certain comments, which the Department is studying.
In giving to Wu on January 23 the draft of materials for study, the Department acted on its estimate of the political situation in the light of the Chinese Government’s Mandate of December 28, Wang’s statement of December 30,76 Lampson’s mission to Nanking, Henderson’s77 statement in Parliament of January 22, and other developments. The material submitted to Wu on January 23 was deliberately made sufficiently definite in form to facilitate discussion and sufficiently comprehensive and elastic with regard to provisions to ensure consideration and elicit counter suggestions.
On January 23 the Department telegraphed the Embassy78 requesting information with regard to Henderson’s reported statement of January 22. The Embassy replied on January 2478 that it had been informed that Henderson’s statement was prepared in December and was based on no new developments, that Lampson’s negotiations had been begun on January 9 and that Wang had submitted to Lampson on January 10 an outline of proposals of which Foreign Office had now given the Embassy in confidence a copy. The only other information which the Department has had with regard to Lampson’s negotiations has been conveyed in a telegram from Johnson, China, February 3, which contains the statement that Lampson’s “proposal is practically that of the aide-mémoire submitted to the Department in November.” But the Department finds in that document in this aide-mémoire covered by Johnson’s letter to Campbell of December 4 nothing in the nature of an outline of a proposal formulated for submission as such to the Chinese Government. The Department thus is still uninformed with regard to proposals, offers or suggestions which the Foreign Office through Lampson actually may have made to the Chinese; and Department has been given no information with regard to progress made in the course of the British negotiations.
The Department is continuing its study of the possibilities, it has not abandoned its declared position that abolition of extraterritorial rights must be by a gradual process and subject to safeguards, and it would welcome such information as the Foreign Office may be disposed to give with regard to the points mentioned in the paragraph above.
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- See footnote 54, p. 363.↩
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- Foreign Relations, 1929, vol. ii, p. 657.↩
- Ibid., p. 635.↩
- Ibid., p. 664.↩
- See telegrams of December 28 and December 30, 1929, from the Consul at Nanking, Foreign Relations, 1929, vol. ii, pp. 666 and 668.↩
- Arthur Henderson, British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.↩
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