Office of the Historian

600.939/330: Telegram

The Counselor of Embassy in China (Lockhart) to the Secretary of State

Peiping, June 8, 1939—noon.
[Received June 9—7 a.m.]

266. Department’s 110, June 6, 6 p.m.

1.
It would appear that there has been practically no relaxation of restrictions upon the fur trade in North China. In one instance where a form of interference was abolished, after representations, another was immediately instituted.
2.
The most notorious instance of interference is that reported in the second paragraph of the Embassy’s 243, May 29, noon.67 According to a letter from the Tientsin Fur Seal Exporters and Importers Association, the furs arrived in Tientsin April 15 and were returned to Tsinanfu on May 27 as a result of the failure of negotiations with the Japanese military authorities at Tsinanfu, who were and apparently still are endeavoring to force the owners to provide them with foreign exchange equivalent to the value of the furs.
3.
The chairman of the association states that he was informed by an officer of the Japanese Consulate General at Tientsin that in future the association will be required by the Japanese military authorities at Tsinanfu to send a representative there to negotiate with them for the possible transmission of furs from Shantung to Tientsin for export. The Chairman believes that the military authorities will endeavor to force the association to provide foreign exchange equivalents of all shipments.
4.
Restrictions on the movements of furs into the British and French Concessions, reported in the Embassy’s 257, June 2, 4 p.m., is a recent [Page 416] instance of Japanese interference with the activities of the fur seal trade. On the other hand certain shipments of furs have reached Tientsin without trouble or interference.
The chairman of the association comments that the owners of such shipments undoubtedly made some “arrangement” with the authorities or that shipments were made through Japanese agencies.
5.
In the light of information received from Tientsin the Embassy believes that the Japanese consular authorities are endeavoring to some extent to effect the removal of the burdensome restrictions but that they are unable to bring this about because of the arbitrary and uncontrollable actions of the Japanese military especially in Shantung. As far as can be ascertained restrictions of one sort or another still exist and it is not believed that they will be removed in the near future unless the Japanese military authorities are compelled by a superior authority to abandon their present position.

Repeated to Chungking. Code text by air mail to Tokyo and by mail to Tientsin.

Lockhart
  1. Not printed.↩