893.24/898
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Secretary of State
The British Ambassador and the Australian Minister came in at their request. The Ambassador referred to the opening of the Burma Road on or about October seventeenth. He also made special reference to the French Indochina situation and the need for some steps that would deter Japan from occupying this country with its military [Page 121] forces. He indicated that the British Government was undertaking to render some substantial aid of a military character to the Government of Indochina.
In reply, I proceeded to set out the chief acts and utterances of this Government heretofore in its efforts to discourage and deter Japan from aggressive steps not only in China but in Indochina and the Netherlands East Indies in particular. I need not here recount each of such acts and utterances. They are a part of the well-known history of our disturbed relations with Japan during recent years, including oral protests, protests in writing, protests in public statements and various moral embargoes, as well as the discontinuance of our commercial treaty and the stationing of our Navy at Hawaii. I said that there are, of course, real difficulties in attempting to aid provinces to resist Japan seriously by military efforts when the mother countries, as in the case of France, the Netherlands and even Great Britain herself, are known not to be in a position to render any material aid to their dependencies; that in these circumstances, this Government has gone almost to the limit of resisting step by step Japanese aggression without the very serious danger of a military clash. I then added that we have encouraged countries like Indochina, just as we did the British, to delay and parley and hold out to the last minute against Japanese demands, and that in all probability Japan would not dare make a military attack. I said that this Government expects to continue its protests and its opposition to Japanese aggression, and to this end it plans to render further financial aid to China and to impose more and more reprisals or retaliation of a commercial and economic nature on Japan. I expressed the view that it would not be wise even from the British standpoint for two wars to be raging in the East and the West at the same time; that if this country should enter any war, it would immediately result in greatly cutting off military supplies to Great Britain, which she can ill afford to do without; and furthermore most of us are of the opinion that the fate of both the Eastern and Western world will be tremendously affected by the success or failure of the resistance of Great Britain to the threatened and attempted German invasion of the British Isles.
Something was then said about conferences in regard to bases and more or less unified efforts of defense in the Pacific from Singapore through the Australian area in the direction of the United States with any special objectives farther north. I suggested that Japan is assuming that all of these steps are probable on short notice regardless of whether they have actually been consummated, and there I let the matter rest for the present.