793.94/5497
Memorandum by the Under Secretary of State (Castle) of a Conversation With the British Chargé (Osborne), August 11, 1932
Mr. Osborne came in to see me, bringing an instruction from his Government to say that the British Government felt that either joint or single representation in Tokyo to the Japanese Government on the subject of the withdrawal of the Japanese Legation guard in Peiping would be unwise and useless and asking what we felt in this matter.
I told Mr. Osborne that we entirely agreed that it would do no good to make representations in Tokyo, that in any case it would certainly be premature and that, for these reasons, we took the same attitude as the British Government. He then said that, if hostilities should develop south of the Wall, his Government would favor combined representations to Tokyo and Nanking, urging the neutralization of the Legation quarter. I told him that obviously we would be glad to join with the other nations in making such a request if it seemed necessary, but that this would seem to me hardly to be going far enough. I said that I understood the most informal kind of suggestions had been made in Peiping, on the part of certain Chinese, that in case of trouble the entire city and the surrounding territory would be neutralized. I told him that, if there was any possibility of accomplishing this, it would be worth striving for, not only as protection but as saving some of the great monuments of the world, which were really the property of the world. He said he wondered whether [Page 569] Japan would agree to neutralize Peiping, which, after all, would be something like asking the Germans invading France to promise not to go near Paris. I told him that, of course, I did not know, but that, if the time came, it would be worth making an attempt.
Mr. Osborne said he would communicate this to his Government.