Office of the Historian

793.94/9705: Telegram

The Ambassador in Japan (Grew) to the Secretary of State

Tokyo, August 26, 1937—5 p.m.
[Received August 26—10:20 a.m.]

316. Yoshizawa82 handed to Dooman83 this afternoon a copy of the Foreign Office Statement83a issued today with regard to the arrest and search of Chinese vessels, the text of which we understand has been transmitted to the United States by press correspondents. Dooman inquired whether, with reference to the last sentence of the statement, any consideration had been given to the status of Chinese vessels owned wholly or in substantial part by third party nationals and to the treatment of cargo so owned on arrested Chinese vessels. Yoshizawa declined to make any comment but he stated that the Foreign Office would be glad to give sympathetic consideration to any case involving property rights of American nationals, if and when such case should arise.

Repeated to Shanghai for relay to Nanking.

Grew
  1. Seijiro Yoshizawa, Director of the American Affairs Bureau, Japanese Foreign Office.↩
  2. Eugene H. Dooman, Counselor of Embassy in Japan.↩
  3. For text of press statement by Japanese Foreign Office on blockade of China coast, see telegram No. 323, August 28, 9 a.m., from the Ambassador in Japan, p. 436.↩