Office of the Historian

793.94 Commission/724: Telegram

The Ambassador in Japan (Grew) to the Secretary of State

Tokyo, January 6, 1933—3 p.m.
[Received January 6—5:51 a.m.]

7. 1. Sir John Simon19 recently instructed Lindley20 to say to Count Uchida21 that the nature of the instructions received by [Page 16] Matsuoka22 at Geneva rendered unlikely the possibility of reaching an agreement on the resolution and commentary already provisionally approved by the Committee of Nineteen respecting the Sino-Japanese dispute. Simon therefore fears that when the Committee reconvenes on January 16 it will be faced with a deadlock in its efforts to bring about conciliation and he directed Lindley to urge that Matsuoka’s instructions be modified in a way that will permit a conciliation committee to be constituted.

2. According to Lindley, Uchida replied to him that Japan could not give its approval to any arrangement which failed to take into consideration (a) the independence of “Manchukuo” and (b) direct negotiations for conciliation by the Japanese with the Chinese alone.

Repeated to Peiping.

Grew
  1. British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; representative, League of Nations.↩
  2. Sir Francis Lindley, British Ambassador to Japan.↩
  3. Count Yasuya Uchida, Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs.↩
  4. Yosuke Matsuoka, Japanese chief delegate, League of Nations.↩