793.94112/299: Telegram
The Consul General at Shanghai (Gauss) to the Secretary of State
[Received January 3—1:23 p.m.]
7. Shanghai’s 1133, December 22, 4 p.m.30 Inspector General of Customs Maze31 states in a confidential letter addressed to this Consulate General that a Secretary of the Japanese Embassy informed him on December 26 that the Inspectorate General should reopen the custom houses at Nanking and Chinkiang as an essential preliminary to the proposed opening of the Yangtze. Maze replied that consideration would be given the matter and suggested that the proposals be put in writing.
The Inspector General states further that he has learned that the Japanese Government will demand that Japanese commissioners be appointed at both of the above mentioned places and that a large number of the staff shall be Japanese. He states that it will probably be difficult to compromise on basis of appointment of a non-Japanese foreign commissioner with an additional Japanese administrative or deputy commissioner and with provision that some of the staff be Japanese.
[Page 485]He observes that he cannot state that the National Government would either approve the proposed reopening of the two customhouses or accept such a compromise as outlined, but he concludes by stating that his impression is that the Japanese may even refuse to reopen the Yangtze in the absence of compliance with their requirements regarding the customs, or may otherwise independently appoint, from Tokyo, a Japanese staff.
The Secretary of Embassy indicated in the course of the interview the Yangtze would probably be opened as far as Nanking about the end of February or beginning of March, but he stated that no date had yet been fixed.
Repeated to Peiping, Chungking, Tokyo.
- Foreign Relations, 1939, vol. iii, p. 796.↩
- Sir Frederick William Maze.↩