793.94/1874: Telegram
The Chargé in Japan (Neville) to the Secretary of State
[Received September 25—9:35 a.m.]
161. Department’s 167, September 24, 4 p.m.66 I delivered the note to the Minister for Foreign Affairs this afternoon. He read it and said that he supposed it was sent in support of the action of the Council of the League of Nations. I replied that presumably it was, judging from prior instructions which I had received. He then asked me if it had been published to which I replied that I did not know. He said that he would much prefer not to have it published as a certain section of the public might misunderstand. He said that he appreciated the very considerate and friendly attitude of the Secretary of State.
He then referred to the statement issued after the extraordinary Cabinet meeting of September 24, which he told me had been sent to the Japanese Embassy in Washington and which the Department probably has received.67 He said that this statement summarized the situation and that he had nothing to add.
He said that he had replied to the League communication stating that Japan was refraining from any act which would tend to aggravate the situation or prejudice the peaceful settlement of it and that Japan was prepared to collaborate with the Chinese to seek adequate means whereby troops might be withdrawn. He said that there had been proposals for an independent commission to investigate the situation but that he did not see any need for it as he thought that Japan and China could settle amicably matters at issue between them.
I spoke to the British and the French Ambassadors today, the former stated that he had received instructions to support the League resolutions and that he would leave a memorandum to that effect with the Foreign Minister. The French Ambassador stated that he had received no special instructions to press the Japanese Government to abide by the League resolutions but that he was seeing the Foreign Minister and would “talk about them” by which I understood him to mean support them, as he was sure they were in accord with his Government’s views.
I asked him whether the Chinese had approached him with any proposals. He said that they had not made any concrete proposal for settling the questions at issue; that the Soong proposal had been withdrawn before it would [could?] be formally made, and that as China had appealed to the League he was simply awaiting further developments.
[Page 67]I then asked him whether the Soviets had manifested any uneasiness in connection with the matter. He said that they had not, except to inquire about the Chinese Eastern Railway. He said that the telegraph service to Moscow was very bad and that telegrams sometimes took 48 hours. The Japanese Ambassador had been asked whether it was true that the Japanese had seized the southern terminus of the Chinese Eastern and were about to occupy Harbin. He had assured the Soviet authorities that the Japanese had no intention of doing either. The Commissar of Foreign Affairs had then said that he had no interest in the matter as it seemed that the situation resembled the Russo-Chinese situation of 1929, when Japan had maintained a strictly neutral attitude.
- See footnote 63, p. 58.↩
- Copy received September 25; for text, see Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. i. p. 11.↩