793.94/6180: Telegram
The Ambassador in Japan (Grew) to the Secretary of State
[Received April 15—5:58 a.m.]
80. Reference Peiping’s 330, April 14, 1 p.m. While it is unwise to make political predictions in Japan under present circumstances, the press reports of an early fall of the Cabinet are probably premature. A change in the Government will in all probability take place before very long, but I am informed on reliable authority that Prince Saionji desires the present Cabinet to remain in power for the present. As one influential Japanese said to me, “Japan is in a serious rut and does not know how to get out of it. We do not wish a new cabinet until that way out can be found, but when a new government does come in it will follow a more conciliatory policy in international affairs than the present one.” The consensus of opinion among the moderate thinkers is that the policy hitherto followed has brought the country into a deplorable international position from which Japan must extricate herself by a new orientation. Japanese history, they point out, shows that the country has passed through periodical cycles of antiforeign chauvinism which in every case have been followed by periods of international cooperation, as in the Meiji era.92 These liberal thinkers, many of whom are substantial and influential men in high position, confidently predict a similar outcome in the present situation and they aver that the military leaders themselves are now more willing to listen to reason.
Similar statements have been made to me for many months past but the present asseverations appear to carry more conviction and assurance than those made previously. I am aware that they come directly from the Genro himself.93 The decision to withdraw from the League of Nations, by which Japan is placed in an unenviable position before the world, is the climax which may conceivably give the moderates the foothold for which they have waited during the past 18 months.
In view of the effective occupation of all Manchuria it is difficult to foresee precisely what form a new and conciliatory orientation in foreign policy will take. Nevertheless there exists a feeling here that the political pendulum has now swung as far in the direction of chauvinistic nationalism as it will go and that the eventual future tendency will be towards international conciliation rather than a continued isolated defiance.
Under the present domination of the nation’s affairs by the military [Page 276] I personally consider that it is idle to predict a change of orientation in international policy until concrete evidence of such a change is forthcoming. The foregoing views and hopes for the moderates are therefore for the present reported as worthy merely of attentive consideration rather than as reliable prophecy. Repeated to Peiping by mail.