793.94/4336
Memorandum by the Secretary of State
The Italian Ambassador came in and said that he had been asked by Mr. Castle to send a note of protest to Japan, which he had forwarded to his Government; that Signor Grandi had at once accepted it and proposed to go ahead; but when they consulted their Ambassador in Tokyo they found that the British Ambassador had not received instructions to do it and that the American Ambassador had cabled home urging the withholding of this message. Therefore, de Martino said, they were holding this, and he wanted to ask what the situation was now.
I told him that the situation had changed since Mr. Castle spoke to him and for two reasons it seemed to me that it would be wise to withhold making the protest for the present: in the first place I had learned this morning that peace negotiations were going on at Shanghai, apparently with a fair chance of success; that if they were successful there would be no need of making the protest; and in the second place we were now only two days off from the Japanese election which is being held Saturday, the twentieth; that the Japanese are particularly sensitive just before an election and would be likely to use a protest now to inflame the nationalistic feeling in the public of Japan; that therefore I thought it was wiser to withhold this notice for the present and that I had so notified Mr. Claudel, who had just preceded de Martino.