893.5151/582
The Department of State to the British Embassy
Aide-Mémoire
The receipt is acknowledged of the British Embassy’s aide-mémoire of date March 8, 1939,18 containing the statement, with reference to the recent exchange control developments in north China, that the British Government has advised the British banks concerned not to cooperate with the Japanese authorities in the new measures any more than they find necessary in order to safeguard their own interests, that the British Government understands that there is a tendency in American banking circles at Tientsin to favor cooperation with the Japanese, and that the British Government trusts that if this tendency exists the United States Government will see its way to discountenance it. The aide-mémoire contains the further statement that the British Ambassador at Tokyo has been instructed to concert with the American and French Ambassadors with a view to making strong parallel protests to the Japanese Government, and the British Government expresses the hope that the American Government may see fit to send similar instructions to the American Ambassador at Tokyo.
Shortly after the receipt of the British Embassy’s aide-mémoire a representative of American banking interests in north China called at the Department upon his own initiative to discuss the problem presented by the new trade and exchange restrictions in north China. He was on that occasion informed that in the matter of resistance to trade and exchange restrictions in north China this Government considered it desirable that the various foreign banks there, especially the American, British and French banks, keep in line with each other and maintain a common front in so far as might be compatible with the safeguarding of their individual interests.
With reference to the hope of the British Government that the Government of the United States might instruct its Ambassador at Tokyo to concert with his British and French colleagues with a view to making parallel protests, this Government on March 4 instructed the American Ambassador at Tokyo to make representations to the Japanese Foreign Office in regard to the matter and also suggested that he consult his British and French colleagues with the thought that they might wish to take similar but separate action. Again on March 9 the Department telegraphed the American Ambassador at Tokyo suggesting additional argumentation for use in his approach to the Japanese authorities.
- Not printed.↩