793.94/2065: Telegram
The Consul General at Shanghai (Cunningham) to the Secretary of State
[Received October 12—11:40 a.m.]
The following telegram has been sent to the Legation:
Conditions in the International Settlement, particularly in the northern district, have become more threatening each day during the last week. The municipal authorities have endeavored to lessen the tension by conciliatory methods. These efforts were successful until the 10th and during the past 48 hours outbreaks have been threatened continuously. Yesterday afternoon the Japanese held a mass meeting in the Japanese Primary School on North Szechuen Road attended by some 2,000 of their nationals. This was followed by a Japanese civilian parade. A serious clash between Chinese and Japanese was only prevented by the timely intervention of the International Settlement police. The tension between the Chinese and Japanese is due on the one hand to what is believed to be an unnecessary display within the Settlement and on Settlement roads of military forces by the Japanese. Chinese are past mastersin their ability to display on posters libellous caricatures and this ability may have been carried to a very great extreme, not only in Chinese territory but in Chinese business houses in the Settlement, and these but naturally incite the Japanese to make efforts to suppress such posters.
Another contributory cause is the extension of the Japanese boycott, which prior to September 19th was not deeply seated, to enforcing a policy of nonintercourse with the Japanese, which has resulted in an unprecedented paralyzing both of trade and personal relations. To illustrate the extent to which such a course is being pressed, one of the local Japanese banks paid a commission of some $600 to secure 75,000 local silver dollars on the 8th, through a private agency, rather than apply to one of the larger foreign institutions to supply the amount for fear admission of such extreme necessity would too seriously affect the standing of Japanese institutions with foreign banks. I have never known the advocacy of so complete nonintercourse during any of the preceding boycotts as there has been no justification. War conditions would not cause a more complete nonintercourse policy than is being enforced during the last few days in Shanghai.
The International Settlement authorities previously have attempted to exclude caricature posters that were either antiforeign or affected only one nation. The municipal authorities now, due to modified administration, are impotent in their efforts to prevent posters being displayed in the Chinese shops in the International Settlement though they did suppress them in 1925. These posters are of such a character as to justly incite the Japanese and threaten law and order in the Settlement. The municipal authorities of the International Settlement have orally expressed the hope that I26 would suggest to the Japanese the undesirability of an extraordinary display of military forces. Though I feel that the Japanese marines stationed here are [Page 164] unnecessarily conspicuous and have numerically increased by some 200, it is difficult to find a satisfactory reason for bringing it to the attention of the Japanese Consul General or to express the hope that until the municipal police authorities have become incapable of handling the situation that this display should not be increased beyond what has been customary during the last 3 years.
- As Senior Consul at Shanghai.↩