893.102S/1998: Telegram

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

159. Reference Chungking’s 92 of February 24, 11 a.m. I cannot see that it would serve any useful purpose to make any reply to the Foreign Office note which was probably sent principally as a matter of record, but in view of the fact that the proposed reply is authorized I suggest that it be amended to refer to the area adjacent to the International Settlement as “administered and policed by a local regime” and consequently the Council has found it necessary to have “a temporary understanding with that regime”. It might also be mentioned that this temporary understanding is in general along the lines discussed between the Council and the Chinese authorities in 1932.

Prior to the signing of the modus vivendi, the Senior Consul (Italian Consul General)74 communicated its text to his colleagues by circular reporting that he had accepted an invitation (from whom he did not disclose) to attend the conversations as an observer and that he proposed to attend as Senior Consul as a witness at the signing. I expressed the view that it was not desirable or necessary that the Senior Consul as such attend as witness and that to do so might establish a precedent later found to be undesirable. While the Italian Consul General took umbrage at my suggestion, he did not attend or witness the signing and the modus vivendi has not received any formal approval at the hands of the consular body.

Repeated to Chungking and Peiping.

Gauss
  1. Comdr. Luigi Neyrone.