Office of the Historian

693.002/971: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Japan (Grew)

Washington, February 3, 1940—2 p.m.

46. Your 54, January 26, 6 p.m. The Department desires that you approach the Japanese Foreign Office and make appropriate representations against the illegal and unwarranted action of the Swatow Rehabilitation Commission in collecting taxes on imports and exports and upon postal parcels entering Swatow. The Department also authorizes you, in your approach to the Japanese Foreign Office, to recall the interest which this Government has frequently manifested in the preservation of the integrity of the Chinese Maritime Customs and to make appropriate representations in regard to the continued refusal of the Japanese authorities to allow the Chinese Maritime Customs to function at Swatow while in fact opening the port to the trade of Japanese merchants and allowing Japanese-sponsored authorities at that port to collect import and export taxes.44

[Page 719]

Sent to Tokyo via Peiping. Repeated to Shanghai, Swatow, and Chungking.

Hull
  1. For the Ambassador’s note No. 1474, February 6, see Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. i, p. 753.↩