793.94/2791½
Memorandum of Trans-Atlantic Telephone Conversation60
Secretary: I called you up just to clarify one or two things and to be sure we understood each other. Of course you got my statement [Page 508] yesterday that we would not put any obstacles in the way of the League’s full action. Did you not?
Dawes: Yes, I did, and I have talked with Briand. He is entirely satisfied.
Secretary: He was satisfied with that statement?
Dawes: Entirely. I did not show him the statement I made to the press, but as to the other he expressed satisfaction and complete understanding.
Secretary: What I want to be clear that you do understand is that if the League proceeds to go on as you suggested in your telegrams and in your telephone conversations—that it might go on under the other articles on sanctions. We will offer absolutely no obstacles to that at all.
Dawes: They are cleared away, I think by what you have done.
Secretary: I mean that our position is perfectly understood. I do not see personally—I always hope that they may reach some settlement, but I do not think that it looks very much as if that would be the case now, and if they do not I see no other way that the League can do than to go ahead.
Dawes: That is the idea.
Secretary: Did you in your telephone message to me yesterday say that you had discouraged Sze from invoking Article 15?
Dawes: Yes, Briand is very anxious not to have Article 15 invoked now.
Secretary: I do not think you ought to give any advice to him. We do not want to take the responsibility of any advice to him.
Dawes: I have not given any advice to him. I said to him that I was giving him advice not to bring us into it. I told him this morning that we had no advice whatever to offer to him.
Secretary: That is all I wanted to be sure of. Certainly I should not give him advice.
Dawes: I was only talking to him about what he proposed to say about us.
Secretary: Certainly do not discourage him from going ahead.
Dawes: No, I am not going to. Not at all. The situation is this. Matsudaira has received from his government and transmitted to Briand a proposition from the Japanese Government recommending the appointment of a commission of the League, not under Article 15, but under Article 11.
Secretary: That was for an investigation of China and not Japan.
Dawes: Of China in Manchuria.
Secretary: But it did not include an investigation of Japan in Manchuria.
[Page 509]Dawes: I do not know as to the wording of that. Matsudaira is coming to see me in a few minutes.
Secretary: There would be a great difference between an investigation of China alone and a really full investigation of everything on the part of China and Japan.
Dawes: Well the proposition as I understand it is that a full investigation, that is as Briand has explained it to me, a full investigation of everything by Japan as well as China.
Secretary: That is very much more hopeful.
Dawes: In one of these telegrams we have got just what Matsudaira has to say. I will read it to you.
Secretary: Do not read it as the telephone connection is not good.
Dawes: Briand is still hopeful that they will agree with some investigation and that they will agree to a cessation of hostilities. However, I do not think Sze will agree to that. He tells me that as long as things run along this way and public sentiment in his country is getting worse all the time, he has been moving along and trying to keep it satisfied. The first thing they are going to do is overthrow his government and mobilize troops. I think it is a hopeless situation but Sze will ask for action under Article 15. I think he is going to present a proposition of his own tomorrow.
Secretary: Do you think that Sze would oppose a full investigation with a temporary cessation of hostilities?
Dawes: A full investigation?
Secretary: A full investigation of everything that Japan has done as well as China.
Dawes: I do not say that he will oppose that. He does not feel that he would oppose that but——
Secretary: Would he vote against it in the Council?
Dawes: I doubt whether he would or not.
Secretary: I doubt if he would vote against it. There is a chance—I mean if Japan has come to offer a full and neutral investigation with a cessation of hostilities, that is a step further than they have ever done yet. I say, if Japan has come to the point of offering to support an investigation by the League of everything in Manchuria both on the side of Japan and on China, that is a further step forward than I have heard of Japan doing thus far at all.
Dawes: Well that is right. Matsudaira has been waiting for that and it has come and that will go to the Council for discussion tomorrow. Sze’s proposition——
Secretary: I think if Sze voted against that he would run the risk of putting himself in wrong.
Dawes: I do not think he is going to do that at all, and of course they are all very doubtful as to whether Japan can back up and do [Page 510] what it has agreed to, but Sze will allow that to be discussed, in my judgment, and put it through if he can possibly do it. Because of public sentiment, he claims his government is in danger.
Secretary: The important point of that will be to have a fully empowered neutral commission. It must not be a partisan commission.
Dawes: That is right and I told Briand that. Do you remember, you suggested that in one of your telegrams—about a commission. I told him that you had been talking very much about that.
Secretary: I never thought that Japan would allow it from the beginning, but if she has come to that point, by all means that is a long step forward.
Dawes: Briand seems satisfied with your position in all these things and the fact that you are sympathetic to any movement on their part that they think best to take and thus when it comes to the decision made on their part that you will of course consider what your responsibilities are in connection with some acts of assistance to the League policy, consistent with your ideas. We have the same situation as we have always had, except now we are relieved of the disadvantage of all this talk about whether we are coming or whether we are not coming.
Secretary: That is good. Have you anything more?
Dawes: Matsudaira is downstairs and don’t you think I had better send down to him to see if he has any late news?
Secretary: I will not hold the wire, but I will tell you this——
Dawes: I can give it to you right away. In my telegram No. 75761 the three Japanese points are mentioned. The Japanese withdraw the first point. They are not making the second point conditional upon the first point.
Secretary: The second point in that telegram as I understand it was merely an investigation of China and it did not include Japan.
Dawes: When I read it over it rather strikes me so.
Secretary: I will send you a telegram. All I want to get over the telephone are the things we are in a hurry about. There is one other thing. If the League should order an investigation, the investigating body should be purely a League agency. It should not include the United States.
Dawes: They will want to know about that.
Secretary: I am inclined to think that it is very much better not to have the United States on it, but to have a purely League body. They can get plenty of impartial investigators from the other nations and it would carry great weight provided it was purely impartial. On the other hand, if we allowed one of our members to go, I am inclined to think it might make misunderstanding again here, but I [Page 511] will reserve—I won’t say definitely on that—I will not decide definitely against it in case there should be strong reasons the other way but that is my first impression.
Dawes: Until they make it. Let them make it first, and we do not have to participate in any discussions.
Secretary: It would be purely a League function. It would be an investigation under Article 11 of the League and we are not a member of that. At first thought there would be danger of misunderstanding here. I should not want to cripple it by staying away. We might be able to protect ourselves in some other way, but I would prefer not to do so. I have one or two other things. It occurred to me—this is for your confidential information—you have written me about the Nine Power Pact and the question of whether there should be an investigation of that Pact and I have answered that we did not want to do so, so long as there was any danger of crossing wires with the League. Do you remember? Now so long as the League has jurisdiction of this matter I do not think we had better invoke the Nine-Power Pact.
Dawes: I think that is wise because you can decide whether to invoke it after this thing is settled one way or another.
Secretary: But this is for your confidential information. Do not tell anybody. If the League should fail—if the League should break down and should be unable to go ahead with the imposition of sanctions under Article 16—if there should be a deadlock and it should just become futile, then I would consider very seriously for the United States to go ahead as the depository of that treaty by calling a meeting here in Washington, but I do not want anybody to know about that.
Dawes: I will keep it confidential.
Secretary: So long as the League is working on it, I do not think it ought to be thought of. Is it true that Chiang Kai-shek is going to Manchuria?
Dawes: I do not know. I have not heard about it.
Secretary: There is just one thought further—for your confidential information, we are very anxious that in case there should be a break with Japan that the issue should be perfectly clear and I think the League ought to have that in mind in whatever steps it takes. It is a very serious thing that when a breakdown occurs it should be on an issue which puts the blame squarely on Japan and they ought to think of that very carefully in whatever they do. That is what occurred to me. If Chiang Kai-shek, as the President of China, was making a peaceful visit to Manchuria, if the Japanese should not allow him to come it would be very serious for them.
[Page 512]Dawes: That is another occasion for your independent position. That is if they should fail to make that clear that you have the material there to make a perfectly clear statement in connection with your position.
Secretary: I strongly hope that they will not fail and we are doing everything we can to help them.