793.94 Advisory Committee/131: Telegram
The Chargé in the United Kingdom (Johnson) to the Secretary of State
[Received January 4—12:55 p.m.]
6. My 3, January 1, 5 p.m. A conversation at the Foreign Office last evening threw some additional light on the rather general statement made to me by the Foreign Secretary on January 1st regarding his conversation with the Chinese Ambassador. It seems that the Chinese Ambassador had spoken to Mr. Eden of the forthcoming meeting of the League Council and had asked for his view regarding the advisability of calling for a meeting of the Advisory Committee of Twenty-three which the delegations, it was said, obviously desired should take place. The Chinese Ambassador had made it sufficiently clear that the object of a meeting of the Advisory Committee in his view was that it should serve as a preclude [prelude?] to a proposal for imposing sanctions on Japan and specifically sanctions on oil. He evidently hoped for favorable reaction from Mr. Eden. As stated at the Foreign Office, Mr. Eden’s reply to the Ambassador was definitely intended to discourage him from any such idea, for he pointed out to him the impracticability of raising such a question at this time and the serious complications which might result therefrom in Anglo-American, Anglo-French and Anglo-Dutch relations. He also advised the Chinese Ambassador that in his opinion there was no real work which the Advisory Committee could do to good purpose at this time and that before the Ambassador considered such a step as requesting the Committee to convene he should be very sure what the reaction of the principal interested powers would be. It was to this end that Mr. Eden suggested to him that he should, through his colleagues in Washington and Paris, endeavor to ascertain the views of the United States and French Governments.
I was told also that the Soviet Ambassador recently informed Mr. Eden that his Government has been able to provide a certain amount of war material for China but not very much and that he, the Soviet Ambassador, supposed that Great Britain, France and the United States were doing likewise within certain limits. The Ambassador expressed his opinion that unless aid in war material could reach China from foreign sources, her struggle against Japan was a hopeless one. Mr. Eden, it seems, concurred in this opinion. The Foreign Office pointed out to me, however, that in fact there are no supplies of war material except rifles and a certain number of Lewis guns, which are available for export from this country; that it was impossible for British sources to furnish Chinese requirements in aircraft [Page 490] or submarines which had been requested by the Chinese Ambassador. The present scale and progress of British rearmament make the prompt supply of any such material impossible.
The foregoing was given me simply as confidential information which might possibly be of interest to the Department.