600.939/208: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the First Secretary of Embassy in China (Salisbury), at Peiping
Please transmit the following instruction to Tokyo as from the Department:
“240, July 13, 4 p.m. Department’s 176, July 2, 7 p.m., Tientsin’s 113, June 29, 3 p.m., 114, July 1, 6 p.m., and 121, July 11, 2 p.m., and your 455, July 11, 6 p.m., and 460, July 13, 12 a.m.,46 in regard to the north China embargo upon the exportation of hides and skins.
Provided you have not already adequately covered this phase of the problem in your representations as reported in your 455, July 11, 6 p.m., the Department desires that you approach the Japanese Foreign Office again, in such manner as you consider will be most effective, and, recalling with emphasis the Department’s request that the embargo placed in north China upon the exportation of domestic animal hides and skins be removed, point out that on June 28, the day the embargo was imposed suddenly and without notice, Tientsin exporters had in their possession for immediate exportation to American purchasers and covered by letters of credit raw skins and plates valued at between $400,000 and $500,000 in United States currency, while additional unfilled contracts are estimated at $2,000,000. American dealers, processors, and manufacturers are greatly exercised over the situation. The sudden and arbitrary manner in which the embargo was imposed without allowance for the clearance of contract purchases has placed them in an extremely difficult position. The Department desires that pending the Japanese Government’s consideration of our general representations against the embargo you urge that Government to take steps to effect the immediate removal of the embargo in so far as it affects hides and skins covered by purchase contracts.”
Please repeat to Tientsin.
- Telegrams from Tientsin and Tokyo not printed.↩