793.94/2758: Telegram
The Chargé in France (Shaw) to the Secretary of State
[Received November 18—7:10 p.m.]
762. From Ambassador Dawes for President Hoover and Secretary Stimson:
As suggested in your 560, November 17, 11 p.m., I have made it perfectly clear to the Japanese that the United States insists strongly upon Japan’s not being allowed to extort by force a ratification of treaty rights and that it emphatically insists upon the settlement of these broader questions not being made a condition precedent to [Page 479] Japanese troop withdrawal. I also said that this Government is cooperating on these objectives with the League of Nations. They understand the American position to be entirely unchanged in this matter.
You say in your 560:
“It is still my opinion that the most likely road to settlement is offered by the presence of neutral observers and that, if pressed hard enough, Japan would consent to them.”
I reported in No. 757, November 17, 8 p.m., from Embassy the memorandum of a proposition discussed by the Japanese delegation among themselves as something their Government might authorize and the full text of which they had wired to their Government with a request for authority to present it to the League Council. The Japanese delegation has not received an answer to this cablegram but, realizing that the occurrences on the fighting front have precipitated an extremely critical situation, they have now cabled to Tokyo for authority to submit only point 2 to the League, with point 1 to be withdrawn, even though it had been a condition for agreement to the substance of point 2. Thus the Japanese delegation hopes now to get its Government to permit it to propose the nomination of a commission consisting of League members to be sent by the League to China (China proper and Manchuria) and entrusted with making investigations into questions such as anti-Japanese agitations, etc., with a view to enabling the Council to deliberate upon a basis of complete information. As I dictate this, the Council is hearing Yoshizawa report the sending of this second recommendation to his Government and express his hope of obtaining authority to present the matter to the League.
I was given a confidential statement by Matsudaira of an alarming internal condition in Japan, one so dangerous to existing authority there that he cannot permit it to be discussed. This concerns the leaders of a plot against the Government, who exercise direct control over the command at the front. I fear anything almost may happen in Japan, and Matsudaira himself considers this one of the most critical internal periods in Japanese history. I have advised him strongly to inform Sir John Simon of exactly what he told me. Matsudaira had told me about it after a strong statement from me on the determined attitude of my Government and on what I believed would be the effect of today’s military operations upon public sentiment in condemning Japan’s position. Nothing would appear to be lacking in the recommendations of Matsudaira to his Government, but he strongly fears that, for the time being at least, the power to determine policy is beyond the Government’s control. [Dawes.]