893.6363 Manchuria/83: Telegram
The Ambassador in Japan (Grew) to the Secretary of State
[Received November 22—2 p.m.]
254. 1. My British colleague today informed me that he has been instructed by his Government to make renewed representations to the Japanese Government concerning the projected oil monopoly in Manchuria. The instruction recapitulates most of the arguments already advanced, adding that the British Government will probably be obliged to set forth the situation in Parliament and that a deplorable impression will be created if the Japanese Government fails to carry out in good faith the assurances already given with regard to the open door in Manchuria. Clive57 proposes to see Hirota shortly and states that he will inform me of the result of his interview.
2. The Ambassador also showed me in strict confidence several telegrams from London reporting conversations between the British Ambassador in Washington and the Chief of the Far Eastern Division of the Department. A telegram of November 17 reports Dr. Hornbeck as stating that the focal points of the oil negotiations are now in London and Tokyo, not in Washington, and that he felt it was he who should ask for information from Lindsay. A subsequent telegram of November 19 indicates among other points that the Department had learned from the oil companies that further action on the part of British Government was now only a matter of hours and that the American Government was awaiting with interest the further initiative of the British Government.
3. The British Foreign Office apparently interpreted Lindsay’s telegrams as indicating that the Department suspected the good faith of [Page 761] the British Government on the oil question because Clive writes me tonight:
“After you left I got from Washington the repetition of a telegram to the Foreign Office to the effect that the latter were wrong in supposing that Dr. Hornbeck suspected our attitude over the oil question and adding his (Lindsay’s) regrets at the wording of the previous telegram which might have given that impression.”
4. Clive was very emphatic in assuring me that his Government regards the oil monopoly in Manchuria as a most serious test case of the future validity of the principle of the open door and counts implicitly on our cooperation in pressing the matter. He regards the cases of the Manchurian monopoly and the Japanese petroleum control law as quite distinct on the ground that the first is covered by treaty rights and the second is not.
- Sir Robert Henry Clive, British Ambassador in Japan.↩