711.94/2226
Memorandum by the Secretary of State
The Ambassador of Japan called at his request. He said that he was having decoded a message from his Government to the President in reply to the recent message sent by the President some ten days ago to the Prime Minister of Japan relative to the general state of relations between our two countries. I thanked the Ambassador and said that I would be glad, since he has requested it, to arrange for him to see the President tomorrow morning, if possible, in order that he might deliver this message in person to the President, according to what he says are his instructions from Tokyo.
[Page 570]I made one or two general remarks to the effect that progress in our relations depended on whether the Japanese Government has seriously decided to abandon its policy of conquest by force and turn in the opposite direction of peace based on a peaceful settlement of relations in the entire Pacific area such as our two Governments may be able to work out. The Ambassador said that he felt that the note would mark an improvement in the relations of the two countries and would offer opportunities for a gradual increase of these improved relations.
The Ambassador then took up the matter of our two oil tanker shipments to Soviet Russia through Vladivostok. I said that his protest did not have a thing to stand upon; that these shipments ate entirely legitimate under all laws of commerce; that they are also supported by the Japanese-Russian agreement of Portsmouth;82 that they are just as valid acts of commerce as the shipment of vast quantities of oil from this country to Japan; that the amount of these two tankers is microscopic—that is 100,000 or 200,000 barrels compared with the hundred million barrels and more which Japan has bought from this country during the past four years; and that it is, therefore, greatly surprising that the Japanese press, much less the Japanese Government, would attempt thus to make a mountain out of a molehill.
I then inquired of the Ambassador whether Japan would, as a condition preceding to dealing further with their protest, agree in the future to acquiesce in any objection Soviet Russia may make to Japanese purchases of any oil from the United States. The Ambassador made no reply except to say that the reasons I offered were strong but that the masses of the people in Japan are being required to use charcoal instead of oil and that they are being harangued by the press and public agitators with the reminder that they are not getting any oil from this country while they point to the American tankers passing Japan loaded with oil for Russia. I said this, of course, was purely spurious as an economic or business fact.
I then inquired of the Ambassador just what they wanted us to do, whether in fact they were asking us to turn the ships squarely around and sail them back to the United States, and I proceeded to answer for him by saying that would be preposterous. The Ambassador then said the answer was to let the two Japanese tankers that were leaving this country monthly be loaded with oil to take back to Japan. I inquired whether they could not use some of their free money both in this country and South America to pay for the oil to go in these two tankers. He said he would look into that. I requested him to be sure to do so and let me know further.
- Treaty of peace of September 5, 1905, Foreign Relations, 1905, p. 824.↩