893.102 S/1070: Telegram

The Minister in China (Johnson) to the Acting Secretary of State

[Extract]

1. As the Department is aware from telegrams and despatches from me and the Consul General there has been a good deal of agitation here among responsible foreigners long resident in Shanghai whose business interests are more or less limited to the city and its environs, particularly in real estate, for something to be done at this moment in regard to the establishment of what they are pleased to call a “free [port?]” plan for Shanghai. The chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Britton, accompanied by Bassett of the British-American Tobacco Company, called on me some time ago to tell me of these plans. A memorandum of my conversation with them was mailed to the Department with my despatch March 24th.52 I told them that I was not aware that there was anything in the present situation of Shanghai [Page 683] to persuade the American Government to change its policy in regard to the future of the International Settlement.53

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Johnson
  1. Not printed.
  2. The Department replied in telegram No. 138, April 12, 5 p.m.: “The Department has not yet received your despatch of March 24 but concurs in the view that the present is not an opportune time to bring up a question of this kind.”