894.6363/77: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Great Britain (Bingham)
365. Your 529, September 19, 4 p.m.
1. The British Foreign Office having made inquiry in regard to the attitude of this Government and the Department having indicated in its telegram No. 347 of August 31, noon,35 that it would be prepared to give sympathetic consideration to proposals which the British and Dutch Governments might care to offer in the direction of the taking of joint or concurrent action, the Department naturally supposed that the British Foreign Office would without too great delay, in view of the Japanese requirement that the oil companies submit a report on plans of future operations before October 1, next, indicate to this Government what it would be prepared to do or would suggest for action concurrently with the other interested governments.
The Department has now instructed the Embassy at Tokyo informally to invite the attention of the Japanese Government to the fact that the American firms concerned are convinced that if they are to be required to install equipment and maintain stocks of oil in no way related to their ordinary commercial requirements, if such stocks are to be subject to purchase by the Japanese Government at a price to be fixed by that Government, and if quotas for the importation of oil are likely to be prescribed without regard to the amount of business done in the past by such American concerns, there would be created conditions so hazardous and burdensome as to impair the ability of the companies concerned to conduct their business in Japan in a commercially sound and prudent manner.
It is hoped that the British Government may, in view of the facts that its representations were made almost 2 months ago and have thus far apparently yielded no favorable results, find it possible to express to the Japanese Government substantially similar views, thus tending to confer on the independent démarches of the interested Governments some of the advantages which might flow from simultaneous and joint action.
2. Please seek an early opportunity to inform the Foreign Office orally in the above sense.
3. For your confidential information but not for communication to the Foreign Office unless they first impart similar information, the Ambassador at Tokyo telegraphed under date September 19 that the Netherland Minister on September 18 under instructions from his Government made representations to the Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs.