763.72119 Military Clauses/31: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Edge) to the Secretary of State
[Received September 10—2:25 p.m.]
525. Herriot received Senator Reed and myself yesterday afternoon accompanied by Marriner.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Turning to the situation in Manchuria Reed said that there was an interrelation between this question and armaments question since the Chinese-Japanese difficulty would come into play at Geneva at the same time and might serve as another spoke in the wheels of disarmament. Reed said that of course he realized that the interests of French policy as well as French economic development lay rather in China than in Japan and the Prime Minister said that this was exactly so—that all French policy was based on a respect of treaties, on the machinery for the organization of peace as developed at Geneva, and that the commercial relations were of course infinitely greater with China than with Japan, and that her colonies bordered China at one point.
Herriot had received a short time ago a prominent Japanese returning to his country who said that there could be no question but that the Japanese attitude on the Shanghai-Manchurian question had been wrong and ill-advised but that Japan was in a dilemma between ill-advised Army officers on the one hand and the Communists on the other. He said that this Japanese who represented the moderate elements had said he hoped France would use her influence to point out to Japan her errors and how far they were alienating her position as a world power. He said that he thought that French influence would have more effect perhaps than any other since it would be felt in Japan to be the least interested. He pointed out, however, that any representations of this kind must be done with the greatest gentleness in order to meet with any effect because of the peculiar susceptibilities of the Japanese people. The Prime Minister asked his informant whether he thought Japan would go so far as to get out of the League in case of the acceptance of the Lytton report, and the answer was yes; that it was possible that they might feel it desirable to remove themselves from the obligations which they had taken in the League Covenant. The Prime Minister then said he brought up the question of the fact that this would in no way remove them from their obligations towards the United States and certain other nations in [Page 240] the Washington Treaties nor from the obligations of the Briand-Kellogg Pact and asked whether he thought they would go so far as to run the danger of rupturing these. He said that the Japanese then replied that the financial situation of Japan was so bad that he did not think they would ever carry their threats that far.
Reed said, however, that if some action were not taken on the Lytton [report by] the League, the League would certainly lose all moral authority particularly in the United States and that as there could be no question as to the attitude of practically all of the small powers it was only on the attitude of England and France that the prestige of obligations undertaken depended.
The Prime Minister then asked what the attitude of England was and Reed said that he was leaving for London early next week in order to see MacDonald and Simon to discuss this very subject, whereupon the Prime Minister asked if he will be coming back to Paris as he would like very much to talk with him again after he had had an opportunity of discussing the matter in England. Herriot then invited Reed, Marriner and myself to lunch with him at the Foreign Office on Monday, September 19, for the expressed purpose of continuing the conversations.
Cipher copies to Berlin, London, Brussels and Berne.
- For other extracts of this telegram, see vol. i, p. 429.↩