611b.003/55
Memorandum by the Chief of the Division of Far Eastern Affairs (Hornbeck) of a Conversation With the Japanese Chargé (Fujii)
Mr. Fujii called on me and said that he was instructed by his Government to call in connection with the question of the pending Philippines tariff act. He said that the Japanese Government was apprehensive, in the feeling that this act was being formulated with a view to cutting down the flow of Japanese exports into the Philippines and it hoped that the American Government would take steps toward preventing the adoption of such provisions. He talked about the development of Japanese trade with the Philippines and the needs of the Filipino consumer and he gave me a slip of paper (here attached)1 on which there were written some figures of imports and exports.
As Mr. Fujii’s remarks were somewhat rambling and inconclusive, I inquired whether there appeared to be anything in the proposed act which was discriminatory against Japanese trade. Mr. Fujii said that the Japanese Government was not well informed with regard to the exact provisions but that it believed that the effect would be adverse to Japanese trade. I raised a question of the purposes which governments have in mind when they make tariff laws and emphasized the point that such laws are made with a view to safeguarding the interests, as conceived by the makers, of the populations within or behind the tariff walls and are very seldom indeed made for the purpose of doing any particular damage to a population of any particular country outside of those walls. Mr. Fujii continued somewhat diffusely, and I finally asked whether he would tell me as exactly as possible just what his Government had instructed him to say. He then slowly made the statement that he was instructed “to request that the American Government advise the Philippine Government against making a tariff which would have the effect of interfering with Japanese-Philippine trade.” I repeated this formula and thanked him for giving it to me. [Page 815] He then hastened to say that the instruction which had been given him was rather vague; and he added at once the question: What did 1 “think?” To this I replied that I thought first of all that the Philippine tariff act would be formulated with a view to safeguarding and promoting the interests of the people of the Philippines and those of the United States; that I could not conceive that there would be any thought on the part of the makers of discriminating against or doing damage to Japan; that, as Mr. Fujii knows, this Government is animated throughout, in the field of foreign relations, by the desire to act in conformity with the principle of the “good neighbor”; and that I thought that everybody responsibly connected with the matter would try to act on the basis of sound economic and political principles.
I then, without giving Mr. Fujii an opportunity to reply, went on to say that, inasmuch as he had, under instruction, brought up this question of the Philippine tariff, I would like to mention to him a matter which was related to it but of which we had not intended to make mention. I said that it appeared that the Japanese Consul General at Manila has been making speeches’ in the Philippines and expressing himself publicly there on the subject of this pending legislation, in a manner which is scarcely in keeping with or appropriate to the responsibilities of his official position. Mr. Fujii replied that he had heard that some of the Philippine newspapers’ had complained. I said that this was quite true and that the complaints had not been restricted to the Philippine newspapers. I said that I thought it would be well for the Japanese Government to give some thought to the matter and consider whether the proprieties were or were not being violated.
Mr. Fujii reverted to expressions of appreciation of what the Department of State had done in connection with the Arizona matter2 and, after exchange of the usual amenities, the conversation ended.