793.94/6644: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Straus) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 4—8:30 a.m.]
342. Yesterday evening Léger94 talked with Marriner about the background of the French reply to the Japanese note of explanation with regard to their attitude toward China which had been communicated by the Japanese Ambassador here to the French Government. The reply was handed to the Japanese Ambassador yesterday morning and released for the press of this morning.
Léger said that the French Government had been slow in making any statement on the subject not because its intentions were in doubt [Page 160] but because they felt that the first interests in this subject lay in the United States and in England and they wished to be sure that any attitude they might adopt would be insofar as possible in accord with the policies of these two countries. He said that up to the present the British attitude had not been made perfectly clear but that when the matter was called officially to the attention of the French Government by the note of explanation of the Japanese Ambassador they felt it was essential that France’s position as an upholder of the existing treaties should be made absolutely clear. He feels that the French reply makes it plain that France does not regard Japan as having any different relation to China than that of the other signatories of the Washington agreements and would expect any question arising to be settled by the friendly procedure specified in article 7 of the agreement of February 6, 1922.
Mailed London, Geneva.
- Alexis Léger, Vice Political Pirector of the French Foreign Office.↩