893.111/474: Telegram
The Ambassador in Japan (Grew) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 20—8 a.m.]
838. Department’s 326, June 12, 7 p.m. North China travel restrictions. An officer of the Embassy orally brought this matter emphatically to the attention of the Foreign Office this morning. [He was?] very precise on the unreasonable and absurd features of the new regulations when passport control (relates in detail from personal experience) is already so stringent, and when military necessity can hardly be an excuse. Feeling that a formal protest might only serve to arouse the military and prevent any favorable consideration of our viewpoint, it was suggested that the Foreign Office take up the matter in the appropriate quarter on the basis of the unreasonableness of the regulations rather than as the result of the Embassy’s representations. Mention was of course made of all the points outlined in the Department’s instructions by telegraph but from the standpoint of the nature of the formal protest which might be expected if such Japanese persisted in implementing the new regulations.
Sent to Department via Peiping, repeated to Chungking, Shanghai, Tientsin.