793.94/2158
Memorandum by the Chief of the Division of Far Eastern Affairs (Hornbeck) of a Conversation With the Counselor of the British Embassy (Osborne)
Mr. Osborne called and read and showed to me the texts of several telegrams received by the British Embassy from London. These telegrams were in part repeats of telegrams received by the British Foreign Office from the British Minister in China. The substance of the whole was that the Chinese Government had asked the British Government and others to send observers to Manchuria. Before receipt of the Chinese Government’s request, the British Minister to China had been on the point of sending a Secretary of Legation and a Military Attaché to Manchuria, but in view of the Chinese Government’s request he was withholding action and referring the request to his Government. The British Government had telegraphed to the French and other Governments that it was willing to do two things: (a) to send observers and (b) to address both the [Page 140] Chinese and the Japanese Governments calling on them to refrain from hostilities, provided the other Governments would agree to do likewise.
I explained to Mr. Osborne that we had had a similar request from the Chinese Government and that we had been in the fortunate position of being able to reply that we had already sent our observers.
There followed some discussion of the capacity of observers and the distinction between observation by them in the capacity of reporters to their own governments and the function which might be that of observers who would attempt to make a common report. Mr. Osborne said that his understanding of the Chinese Government’s proposal was that each set of observers should report to its own government. I said that that was what the American observers were doing, namely, to report to the American Government. I said that newspaper reports here had indicated that there had been some kind of observers of each of four governments, American, British, French and Spanish, in Manchuria, but that reports from Geneva indicated that Geneva was not sure how many observers or of what countries were there.
Mr. Osborne said that he believed his Government wanted to send observers for its own information. I said that I thought it might be said that this Government hoped that they would.
The conversation there ended, with a statement by Mr. Osborne that if he received additional information on this subject he would at once communicate it and a statement by Mr. Hornbeck that he would be glad to try to reciprocate.