Office of the Historian

393.1164 University of Shanghai/51: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Consul General at Shanghai (Lockhart)

Washington, July 24, 1938—2 p.m.

Following for Tokyo as Department’s 255, July 24, 2 p.m.:

Reference Shanghai’s 1012, July 19, 6 p.m.,31 in regard to University of Shanghai. In the light of the situation outlined in the telegram under reference and in previous communications, the Department feels that representations of an emphatic character should again be made to the Japanese Foreign Office in regard to this matter. In your approach to the Foreign Office it is suggested that you may care to point out, inter alia, that evacuation of the property by Japanese troops without returning the property to the control of the missions concerned does not in any way lessen the responsibility which attaches to the Japanese Government for damages to the property and for losses suffered by the missions by reason of Japanese occupation and control; that the continued failure of the Japanese authorities to return the property to the complete control of the missions’ representatives is undeniably open to the interpretation that the Japanese authorities intend to render the property useless to its owners and to force its sale, particularly in view of the fact that the seat of hostilities has long since been far removed from Shanghai and of the fact that the Japanese military have evacuated the property; that this arbitrary interference with American rights and interests is obviously inconsistent with repeated assurances of the Japanese Government to the effect that American rights and interests shall be respected; and that accordingly this Government asks that appropriate steps be taken without further delay to effect the prompt return of the property in question to the full control of its owners.

As the Department may subsequently consider it advisable to give publicity to the matter, please telegraph the Department the substance of your representations to the Foreign Office together with the text of any written communication you may leave with that office.32

Hull
  1. Not printed.↩
  2. For Ambassador Grew’s representations, see memoranda of July 30, Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. i, pp. 778 and 779.↩