793.94 Commission/832
Memorandum by the Secretary of State
Mr. Osborne, the British Chargé, called at my request.2 I told him that I had heard of his conference with Mr. Castle yesterday, and that the matter was so important that I wanted to hear it direct from him. He told me that he had received a message asking him to inquire of us (1) whether we would continue our cooperation with the League in regard to the Sino-Japanese matter and (2) whether we would make a public statement of approval of the proposed report made public yesterday by the Committee of Nineteen, for action by the Assembly, at once and before the Assembly acted. I told him that so far as cooperation with the League was concerned, our policy remained unchanged; that it was the same as had been announced publicly in October, 1931,3 namely, that in this matter we would continue to cooperate with the League, using our independent judgment on each matter as it arose and acting in general through the diplomatic channels; that in this respect the policy of this Administration was quite unchanged and I had no reason to believe that there would be any change by the new Administration.
But as for making a public statement before the Assembly acted, I thought it would be most highly unwise both from our standpoint [Page 187] and from the standpoint of the nations in the League, as well as from the standpoint of the common objective which we are all seeking to attain. I said that if we should do so, it would inevitably be seized upon by Japan as evidence that the United States was behind the whole movement of the Assembly and was now seeking to impose its will upon the Assembly in the adoption of this report. Furthermore, such action could hardly fail to arouse resentment on the part of some of the nations in the League itself as an unwarranted interference with League action by an outsider.
Mr. Osborne replied that he completely agreed with me on this last point, and that he had been unable to understand the putting of the question and still thought that it might be some mistake in transmission. He said that he, himself, could see how for us to do so might completely destroy the effect of the moral judgment of the League. I asked him whether Sir John Simon was in London and whether the message came from him and he said that it did.
- At Mr. Stimson’s residence, “Woodley”, at 10 a.m.↩
- See telegram No. 73, October 9, 1931, 6 p.m., to the Consul at Geneva, Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. i, p. 17.↩