793.94/2865
Memorandum by the Secretary of State
The Japanese Ambassador asked for an interview to communicate some very important matters from his government. When he came he told me that he had communicated to Baron Shidehara the message which I had sent the other day, in which I had summed up the situation as it existed after the capture of Tsitsihar, and that he had notified Shidehara that I must now reserve full freedom to publish every step that had been taken. The Ambassador said that he was now instructed urgently by Baron Shidehara to notify me of the following things:
- One. That the Japanese Government was doing its utmost to conform to all of the friendly suggestions which had been made throughout this Manchurian matter by the American Government.
- Two. That it was firmly determined to withdraw from the Tsitsihar region as soon as possible, and the Ambassador told me he had received in confirmation of this a direct message himself from the Consul at Cheng Chia Tun that two battalions of infantry and one company of artillery already had passed through there on their return from Tsitsihar.
- Three. That General Honjo had been strictly instructed not to interfere with the civil government of Tsitsihar, and that the Assistant Chief of Staff of the Japanese Army, who was a very important [Page 47] personage, had been sent from Tokyo to hold General Honjo in check and had already arrived this morning at Mukden.
- Four. That Baron Shidehara had instructed the Ambassador to say that the Japanese Government will strictly adhere to the outline of its Manchurian policy as stated in the memorandum which the Ambassador had handed to me on November 9th in answer to my memorandum of November 5th, and that I could rely upon its doing this no matter what news to the contrary I might receive from Paris. (This last remark related to the statement which Yoshizawa had made in Paris two days ago, about which I had reported to Debuchi for Shidehara on November 19th.)
The Ambassador then went on to report to me what he himself had learned from Paris, saying that he did this without the instruction of his government, but that he was in constant communication with Paris and that constant communications were passing between Paris and Tokyo. He asked me if I had heard of the proposals before the League which had come through Matsudaira.68 I told him that General Dawes had informed me several days ago of a proposal which Matsudaira had suggested, which seemed to me entirely unsatisfactory. I said that this proposal in substance was that Japan and China, without even the presence of any neutral observers, should negotiate the various matters concerning evacuation and concerning the treaties or, in other words, matters in which Japan was on the defensive before the world, while at the same time he had proposed that a neutral commission should investigate the matters between China and Japan of alleged grievances against Japan where China was on the defensive. I said that, in other words Japan was unwilling to submit to neutral opinion even in the shape of observers in matters in which she was the defendant, while she was all ready to consent to a neutral investigation of matters in which China was the defendant, and that this, in my opinion, would not do at all or meet the proposition for which I had contended.
The Ambassador replied that I must have been entirely misinformed. He asked me if I had not heard of the proposals yesterday. I said that I had heard of them only through the press. The Ambassador said that Japan now had offered to the League to consent to a neutral commission to go to China, including Manchuria, to investigate all matters which were in controversy between China and Japan. I asked him whether by this he included all of the controversies which we had been discussing relating to the evacuation and to the treaties, and he said yes. He said that they only wished to have a high-class commission composed of men of standing in the world; that in September when the League proposed a commission of military attachés they had naturally objected, but now they were in favor of a neutral [Page 48] commission provided it was of high class and they did not even insist that Japan and China should be represented on it. He said they at first proposed that, but the League had replied that that might prevent unanimity in its recommendations. He said that therefore they would be perfectly satisfied to have the Japanese and Chinese representatives go as adjuncts. I asked him point blank whether the Japanese Army authorities had been consulted. He replied that they had and had consented, and that steps were being taken to prepare public opinion to agree to the step. He said that Japan hoped to save its face by escaping the provisions of the League Resolution of October 24.
The Ambassador then went on to say that an armistice had been suggested, but that Japan had refused it because it would seem that that would admit a technical state of war. I told him I did not think that was a necessary inference. I said that both China and Japan could agree to a suspension of hostile acts by either government against the other or its nationals without, in my opinion, admitting a state of war. I told him that if he wished to communicate with Shidehara, he could tell Shidehara that I thought the Japanese proposal of a neutral investigation into all these matters was a long step forward by Japan in the direction of bringing itself into alignment with the methods and opinion of the Western world, and I reminded the Ambassador that two years ago, in the case of the controversy between China and Russia, he had told me how Oriental opinion was invariably opposed to neutral investigation and insisted upon direct negotiation. I told him in the second place that he might inform Shidehara I thought that unless a suspension of hostilities was agreed to, the proposal for an investigation would be greatly marred and would fail to enlist the sympathy of the public opinion of the world, which it otherwise would. He said he would report my views to Shidehara at once.
- Tsueno Matsudaira, Japanese Ambassador to Great Britain.↩