793.94 Commission/367: Telegram
The Ambassador in Italy (Garrett) to the Secretary of State
[Received 2:15 p.m.]
87. Ambassador Rosso told me last night that the Japanese Chargé d’Affaires had recently come twice to see him. He told him that Japan was asking the League of Nations as well as the powers concerned to postpone discussion and publication of the Lytton report until Japan had had 1 month to consider it in every detail in Tokyo and in addition time for their chief delegate who he thought would be Ishii to proceed from Tokyo to Geneva. Rosso had said that this would seem to mean a long delay to which the Chargé d’Affaires had answered that it was a matter of such vital concern to his country that they would have to be “hard” about it and not permit anything to be done which would jeopardize their position. The Chargé d’Affaires spoke several times of the possibility of Japan’s withdrawal from the League and intimated that perhaps Italy would also be withdrawing. As to the latter Rosso said to me that not only was he completely against it but he felt sure that there was now no question of it. He mentioned the communiqué given out on this subject after the last meeting of the Fascist Grand Council (see my despatch No. 1365, April 1465) and said that he had been informed that the subject of Italy’s withdrawing [Page 259] from or remaining in the League would not be brought up at the October meeting of that Council. He thought this was significant of change of attitude.
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