500.A15A4/2640
The Counselor of Embassy in the United Kingdom (Atherton) to the Chief of the Division of Far Eastern Affairs (Hornbeck)
[Received February 6.]
My Dear Stanley: I have written so many despatches lately on the British view of the Japanese question that I hesitate to write any more. Yet even at the risk of repeating myself I will once again give you a résumé of a significant conversation which I had with an important person over the week-end.
In spite of the Rome conversations and Flandin’s28 forthcoming visit to London, Great Britain is still apprehensive of the German situation. My informant outlined the European scene in much the same way as reported by Mayer29 in his telegram No. 966 of January 22, 7 p.m.30 Given the European situation, Great Britain does not feel she can afford to permit a Far Eastern crisis to develop; she is aware of the dangers inherent in the Japanese situation but likes to feel that the threat in the Pacific is rather evenly divided between the British Empire and the United States. To meet this threat England offered us an alliance and, when we refused, she quite understood. She is intensely conscious of the strong pacifist movement which exists in this country as well as in the United States, which would have great weight in deterring any democratic government from using force. This constitutes another reason, added to the fact that she has not an alliance with the United States, why Great Britain is going to try to work in cooperation with Japan rather than adopt an aggressive, antagonistic attitude. On the other hand, my informant stressed that England is not blind to the fact that Japan’s policy aims at a gradual economic elimination of all British and American interests (and incidentally those of other Occidental nations) from China, and subsequently from the Far East in general. Some day Japan will put forward claims in the Pacific Ocean to which the British Empire and the United States will not be willing to accede. At such a time Great Britain will probably again be ready to join with the United States, just as to-day she is ready to enter an alliance, to maintain a satisfactory position in the Far East, by force if necessary.
My informant emphasized that the British can not comprehend why America does not at least understand their present attitude vis-à-vis the Far East. It seems to them the only possible policy if, in the last [Page 29] analysis, one is unwilling to use force today. The British feel that they have in reality given us the choice of the only two possible policies. With our refusal of an alliance, the only policy that remains is to cooperate as far as possible with the United States without creating an issue with Japan and at the same time going as far as possible with Japan in an effort to guide her through friendliness. On the other hand, my friend stressed that an alliance with Japan is out of the question.
I could get nothing from the Foreign Office when I asked Victor Wellesley31 the other day about the Japanese advance in Chahar. They were inclined to think it was the Japanese militarists forcing the hand of a too pacifist Foreign Office. Perhaps you will be interested in the following quotation from an article in the Economist, dealing with Mr. Hirota’s New Year’s speech on January 22nd, since the editor of this paper I feel has always tried to have an equable outlook on the Far Eastern situation:
A “positive solution lies in meeting the points which Mr. Hirota made about Japan’s foreign trade—points which were well and temperately expressed, and which the rest of the world will continue to ignore at its peril. The truth is that, if the world opts for economic nationalism, no negative guarantee whatever can prevent Japan from extending her own national domain over the rest of the Far East. If we want that guarantee from Japan, we must give Japan a counterguarantee of access for Japanese trade to the world market. Here are the elements for a promising set of negotiations which ought to be conducted simultaneously in the economic, political and naval fields.”
If you find this letter of any interest, I should be grateful if you would pass it on and give me a line of any reactions you get on our recent London reports on the Japanese question.
With best regards,
Sincerely yours,
- Pierre liltienne Flandin, President of the French Council of Ministers.↩
- Ferdinand L. Mayer, Counselor of Legation in Switzerland.↩
- Vol. i, p. 5.↩
- Sir Victor A. A. H. Wellesley, British Deputy Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.↩