Office of the Historian

893.506 Manchuria/41: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the First Secretary of Embassy in China (Salisbury), at Peiping

Washington, April 8, 1938—6 p.m.

102. Your despatch 1499, December 22, 1937.97 The West Coast Life Insurance Company in a letter to the Department dated March 2597 has represented to the Department that recent legislation in Manchuria if enforced may render it necessary for the Company to discontinue the transaction of new business and that exchange restrictions are being placed in effect which in a number of instances will prevent policy holders residing in Manchuria from maintaining [Page 449] their insurance contracts in force owing to their inability to remit premiums in the currency of the policy. It is requested in the letter that, as the time limit for compliance with the new laws is May 31, immediate action be taken by the Department.

The Department desires that the Embassy instruct Harbin to review the situation with the Company’s local agent, and take or ask Mukden to take such action as may be appropriate along the lines indicated in the Department’s 405 to the Embassy of December 23, 7 p.m.99 The Consul should report briefly by telegraph the extent and nature of present and prospective restrictions upon the Company’s business and the action taken by the Consul, if any.

Hull
  1. Not printed.↩
  2. Not printed.↩
  3. Foreign Relations, 1937, vol. iii, p. 951.↩