711.9421/43
Memorandum by the Assistant Chief of the Division of Far Eastern Affairs (Hamilton)
During the course of a call the Japanese Ambassador referred to a conversation he had had with Mr. Hornbeck shortly before the Ambassador’s departure for Japan,43 in which Mr. Hornbeck had suggested that the Ambassador might care, while he was in Japan, to look informally into the question whether the Japanese Government would be favorably disposed toward the idea of a consular convention being concluded between the United States and Japan. The Ambassador said that, after discussing the matter with the appropriate Japanese authorities, he was in position to tell us that the Japanese Government would be prepared to enter into discussions looking toward the conclusion of such a consular convention. The Ambassador said that the Japanese Government thought that the consular convention between the United States and Germany44 might serve as a model or guide in formulating a consular convention between the United States and Japan. The Ambassador said further that when in San Francisco he had talked with Japanese consular officers on the Pacific Coast in regard to the matter; that they were favorable to the idea of such a convention being concluded; and that the Ambassador expected shortly to receive from them the draft of a convention which might be used by the Embassy here in instituting informal discussions in regard to the matter.
[Page 841]During the conversation no definite statement was made in regard to whether the negotiation of such a convention should be conducted in Washington or in Tokyo, although Mr. Hamilton remarked on one occasion that he assumed that the actual negotiations would take place in Tokyo.
- See memorandum by the Chief of the Division of Far Eastern Affairs, June 26, 1934, p. 664.↩
- Treaty of friendship, commerce and consular rights, signed at Washington, December 8, 1923, Foreign Relations, 1923, vol. ii, p. 29.↩