700.00/182

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Secretary of State

The British Ambassador1 came in upon the Department’s request to talk about the commercial relations of this Government with the Government of Australia.2 Before the Ambassador and I touched upon this subject, I said to him that there was a matter very deeply in my mind which I desired first of all to bring to his attention, as follows: that this Government, of course, very fully understands the serious difficulties and problems confronting the British Government in Europe and especially in the Mediterranean area, sympathizes with those difficulties and is anxious to see them solved or alleviated at the earliest practicable date; that naturally this Government has not the remotest disposition to inject any views or comment whatsoever into the conferences or communications between Great Britain and Italy relating to the affairs between those two governments. I then said that of course this Government is profoundly concerned about the Japanese movement and plan to abolish and for an indefinite time destroy the operation of the spirit and principles relating to the sanctity of international treaties and international law and, in fact, relating to all the laws of war and humanity as well, which laws are being violated on a wholesale scale; that our opposition to this entire movement of destruction in one-half of the world rests primarily on moral concepts and considerations and, in turn, upon the sanctity of agreements and the preservation of international law, both of which rest upon this moral foundation; that, of course, in addition we are strongly opposed to the course of Japan in violating all laws of war and of humanity, the wholly unjustifiable and outrageous nature of which is patent to both the thinking and the unthinking; that the principle of non-recognition has been very carefully kept alive by this and certain other governments during recent years, including the British; that if any important country like Great Britain suddenly should abandon [Page 134] that principle, to the extent of recognizing the Italian conquest of Ethiopia, for example, such would be capitalized by desperado nations and heralded as a virtual ratification of the opposing policy of outright treaty violation, and treaty wrecking, and the seizure of properties by force of arms; that, if the British should feel constrained to recognize the Ethiopian conquest at this critical juncture, the repercussions in the Pacific area might be very serious in many ways; and that while I could not foretell with certainty, it need not be surprising to see the American people let down and give away very noticeably in their present support of the policies of this Government in the Pacific area, which policies I did not need to repeat to the British Ambassador; that this condition might develop, to say nothing of the extent and manner to which the Japanese Government would capitalize such recognition of its right to ignore and destroy solemn treaties and to make that a universal precedent at this time. I said that the League of Nations at present is understood to consist largely of Great Britain and France, so that if the Italian regime in Ethiopia should be recognized by Great Britain through some intervention by the League at Geneva, the precedent at this critical juncture would still be very bad, not to say destructive. I went on to say that this Government fully realizes the difficulties which the policy of non-recognition presents as a policy of indefinite operation, but we here have assumed that the policy is of universal importance as a factor and agency in the restoration and stabilization of international law and order, and that the whole question of when and how the permanency of this policy might be interrupted or modified by some general arrangement or understanding entered into by all or most of the nations of the world proceeding in a peaceful and orderly manner could be left to the future. The Ambassador did not take issue with anything I said on the general merits of the matter. I concluded by saying that as soon as the Ambassador could get these facts before his Government and if and when he should receive a reply, we would be much interested to hear further from him. The Ambassador said that the British have been contemplating taking this very question up first with the French but since the French have no government just now it will be delayed, and furthermore that the League Council has adjourned for a week or ten days which will further delay the matter.

C[ordell] H[ull]
  1. Sir Ronald Lindsay.
  2. See vol. ii, pp. 120 ff.