793.94/4435
Memorandum by the Secretary of State
The British Ambassador came and said that he had read my letter to Senator Borah and was a little disturbed by some of the intimations in the press that it had been addressed somewhat to his Government. He asked whether I had any further comment to make about it and I said no.
He then said that he thought the situation in China was getting to be very serious and full of peril. I replied that I thought it was full of peril, and my letter had been intended in part as the best defense that I could think of against that peril. I told the Ambassador that I had been hearing strongly from Mr. Johnson, our Minister to China, that the Chinese were becoming more and more aroused by the continued aggression of the Japanese during the past four months while at the same time China had placed her case in the hands of the Powers and the Powers were doing nothing to stop the aggression; that Johnson had pointed out at the time when the Japanese propaganda began to threaten the validity of the Nine Power Treaty and to suggest demilitarized zones around five Chinese cities that if this propaganda was not answered by the other Powers, matters in China were ripe for a rebellion like the Boxer Rebellion, and the safety of Americans, British and other foreigners all through China would be endangered; [Page 441] that these messages from Johnson were the chief impelling motive of my letter to Borah. I said that perhaps in one sense my letter was partly addressed to British public opinion because I had noticed a strong tendency on the part of one group in Britain to defend Japan’s action in these respects, and I alluded to the recent statements of General Ian Hamilton of the British Staff and J. L. Garvin in the London Observer. I told the Ambassador that I thought such statements were very dangerous because they actually seemed to take sides with Japan against China in a very critical juncture; that I was not forgetful of the equal friendship which I owed Japan and China, but I could not shut my eyes to the fact that in the major features of this controversy Japan was in the wrong.