793.94/5746
Memorandum by the Secretary of State
The Japanese Ambassador reminded me that he had informed me on his last visit that the trouble at Shanhaikwan would be localized. He said he now came to confirm it. There had been no further aggression there during the week. I asked him what about the press reports of large movements in Jehol. He said he thought that was very much exaggerated; that during the present bitter winter weather no such movements were probable, and he hoped therefore that the press reports were untrue. The Ambassador said further that the movements of insurgents in the neighborhood of Pogranichnaya on the Chinese Eastern Railway had been dealt with effectively and that now the Chinese Eastern Railway and all the other railways in Manchuria were in regular operation; that the Japanese estimates of the number of insurgents in Manchuria had been originally two hundred thousand and that now they were reduced to forty thousand. I told him that I was surprised at his figures because my information was that the number of insurgents in Manchuria against Japanese domination was thirty million.
The Ambassador then changed the subject to the coming meeting at Geneva on the 16th, and asked me whether I had any advice to give to his Government. I told him that unfortunately I could not take the [Page 109] position of advising the Japanese Government on what it should do and that if I should, I feared they would not follow it. He said of course there was one thing that must be regarded as not susceptible of compromise—that was the recognition of Manchukuo; that was a matter of principle which could not be compromised. Then I said: “You take the position which is equivalent, I suppose, to requesting that the fifty other nations of the world should compromise their principles.”
As he went out the door I said to the Ambassador in all seriousness I would advise him not to inform his Government that the American Government was likely to change the position which it had taken deliberately as a matter of principle in these matters. He said there was no danger of his doing so; that when he was in Japan many people came to him and said that they supposed that when the new American Administration came in on March 4th, that Administration’s policy towards Manchuria would be changed; that he had always replied to them that that was not so—that the policy of the note of January 7th30 and of our attitude towards the peace treaties was a policy which was in general favor throughout the United States and represented all parties.