611B.9417/218
Memorandum by Mr. Eugene H. Dooman of the Division of Far Eastern Affairs to the Assistant Secretary of State (Sayre)
With regard to the Philippine cotton textile agreement:
Mr. Veatch and I have had several informal conversations with Mr. Yoshizawa. These conversations were not made a matter of record, for the reason that, during your absence, neither Mr. Veatch nor I felt that we were authorized to make any statement which Yoshizawa could accept as authoritative.
Mr. Yoshizawa showed himself most reluctant to discuss the question of Hong Kong transshipments, and he insisted that if we were to [Page 928] insist upon reopening the question the Japanese Government would have to insist that those transshipments were not understood by it to be included in the quota. However, we told Mr. Yoshizawa that the question whether the transshipments at Hong Kong are to be included in the total figures is one which must inevitably arrive upon publication of statistics if total imports of Japanese textiles into the Philippines should be maintained at the present rate of importation.
We said further that we could not unduly postpone publication of the figures of imports into the Philippines for the whole year. If the Japanese Government could give us a definite assurance that total imports of Japanese goods would be held down to a reasonable figure, say, between three million and four million square meters per month, in publishing the figures for last year we would stress the difficulties which have attended the efforts of the Japanese Government to control shipments and we would make public some expression of satisfaction with the manner in which the agreement had been carried out. We also informed Mr. Yoshizawa that if no such assurance could be given by the Japanese Government we would have to publish the figures without comment, and if the response in this country to the figures of Japanese imports was adversely critical we would be obliged to give consideration to the question whether the agreement should not be terminated.77
Mr. Yoshizawa has said more than once that he believes that we have taken a very moderate position. He promised several weeks ago to present our thoughts to the Japanese Government and to urge it to give the assurance requested. We have no doubt but that he has telegraphed to Tokyo, as promised, but he states that he has thus far received no reply.
- On August 28 Mr. Dooman handed Mr. Yoshizawa a table of statistics compiled by the Philippine Bureau of Customs (611B.9417/214a).↩