893.01 Manchuria/587
Memorandum by the Under Secretary of State (Castle) of a Conversation With the French Ambassador (Claudel)
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The Ambassador went to the Foreign Office91 to discuss the matter with Berthelot and Léger and learned from them the official French point of view. The French Government feels that the safety of the world depends upon peace treaties, such as the Kellogg Pact and the Covenant of the League of Nations; its cardinal policy, therefore, is to preserve the sanctity of these treaties (presumably of the Versailles Treaty also) because that Government understands that, unless the idea can once and for all be done away with that “might makes right,” there is very little chance for a peaceful world; the French Government feels this very strongly in relation to the Far Eastern situation; it is willing and intends to follow the lead of this country undeviatingly; on the other hand, the French Government is unwilling in any way to take the lead itself because it feels that American interests in the Orient are far greater than French interests; the French Government is violently anti-Japanese and for that reason also is not willing to suggest to Japan that it make any friendly advances toward China for the sake of settling the problem although it would be glad to see us do so.
The Ambassador said he realized that it would be difficult for us, at the moment, to give advice because there is no Japanese Ambassador here. He pointed out that Mr. Grew, who is an expert diplomatist, might well do so in Japan. I said that this was very difficult inasmuch as every call Mr. Grew made at the Foreign Office was advertised in the Japanese papers and that Shiratori generally twisted what he had to say. The Ambassador said it would be fair to say that the French Government at the moment had two outstanding policies, the first being what I have described above, the maintenance of treaties, that, although it would deplore the crash of Japan with the ensuing chaos in the Far East, it would prefer to see this rather than to permit Japan to get away with its ignoring of treaties. Its second policy is to do everything to be on good terms with the United States and to accomplish this is, of course, one of the reasons why the French Government so strongly stands with us in our Far Eastern policy.
As he was leaving the Ambassador said he supposed we knew that Japan had definitely and formally offered to make an alliance with [Page 296] France, agreeing that if France would form such an alliance the Manchurian market would be open to France and that Japan would do all in its power to throw Oriental business into the hands of France. I asked the Ambassador if this was meant to be a military alliance. He said it was, but that when the French Government flatly refused Japan asked what kind of an alliance it would be willing to make. They offered an economic alliance either with or in the place of the military alliance. The Ambassador said that the French Government was, of course, not willing to make any kind of an alliance and that it knew the purpose of such an advance was to get money from France.
- i.e., in Paris.↩