Historical Documents - Office of the Historian

893.515/1404: Telegram

Washington, July 31, 1939—8 p.m.

233. Reference Department’s 201, July 15, 5 p.m.91

1.: A reply has been received, in the form of an aide-mémoire from the British Embassy, to the Department’s communication summarized in the telegram under reference. The Department assumes that your [Page 437] British colleague will have been informed by his Government of the contents of this aide-mémoire, and assumes that he will have informed or upon request will inform you fully of its contents.
2.: The Department desires that you inform the British Ambassador of what you have already done toward impressing the Japanese Government with the interest and concern of this Government in regard to the broader aspects of the situation at Tientsin, including the currency aspect (as reported in your telegrams 284, June 19, 8 p.m.,92 and 354, July 23, noon93), and that you continue your efforts along this line. Although we do not share in every particular the British Government’s views regarding the implications of the facts in the situation and regarding probable consequences of possible courses of action, we desire that you emphasize in your conversations with Japanese authorities the fact that the question of currency developments in China is necessarily a question of concern to the United States and that adverse effects upon American interests of action taken by the Japanese in connection therewith must inevitably adversely affect public and governmental opinion in this country.

Hull

Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1939, The Far East, Volume III