Office of the Historian

893.102S/1307

Memorandum by the Consul at Shanghai (Josselyn) of a Conversation With the Chinese Commissioner of Finance, Municipality of Greater Shanghai (Choy)58

[Shanghai,] December 5, 1933.

Mr. Choy called this afternoon and gave me the following information:

That Sir Miles Lampson’s proposal regarding extra-Settlement roads was not agreeable to the Chinese for the reason that the Chinese [Page 616] objected to the appointment of a Japanese as Assistant Commissioner, since the appointment was to be made by the Shanghai Municipal Council and it should be free to appoint anyone it chose, i.e., British, Japanese or American. Also that the Chinese would not be opposed to a Japanese Superintendent in the northern district provided they could “put teeth in the agreement” so that the Japanese Superintendent would be made to serve the Shanghai Municipal Council and not the Japanese Consulate General. I pointed out to Mr. Choy that it was my understanding that the agreement itself would not specify that there should be a Japanese Assistant Commissioner but that the nationality would be understood between the Chinese and the Shanghai Municipal Council.

Choy said that he had just come from a tiffin at which were present Mr. Fessenden,60 Mr. H. E. Arnhold61 of the Shanghai Municipal Council, O. K. Yui62 and himself and that at this tiffin Mr. Arnhold had proposed that they sign the original agreement which was initialed in 1932; in other words, ignore the Japanese. Choy said that the Chinese were perfectly willing to do it if Arnhold would get the Shanghai Municipal Council to back him up.

He asked me to let Minister Johnson know the attitude of the Chinese toward Sir Miles Lampson’s proposal, and I said I would try to do so.

P. R. Josselyn
  1. Copy transmitted to the Department by the Consul General at Shanghai in his despatch No. 9249, December 11; received January 2, 1934.↩
  2. Stirling Fessenden, U. S. secretary general, Municipal Council, International Settlement, Shanghai.↩
  3. British Member, Municipal Council, International Settlement, Shanghai.↩
  4. Chinese secretary general, City Government of Greater Shanghai.↩