711.94/2559
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Under Secretary of State (Welles)
The Minister Counselor of the Canadian Legation90 called to see me this afternoon. He said that his Minister, Mr. McCarthy, was in Warm Springs and that he had consequently come himself with a personal and urgent message from his Prime Minister, Mr. Mackenzie King.
He said that Mr. Mackenzie King is very much concerned at the newspaper reports that Secretary Hull has been consulting the Pacific powers, namely Great Britain, the Netherlands, Australia and China, through their representatives in Washington, concerning his conversations with the Japanese Government representatives, and that the Canadian representative had not been included in these conversations. Mr. King felt that Canada was as much a Pacific power as any of those mentioned and was as vitally interested in the outcome of the discussions with Japan as the others and he desired to express his regret and concern that Canada had not been included.
Mr. Hume Wrong mentioned in his own behalf that he believed the Canadian press had taken up this matter and was emphasizing the fact [Page 658] that a Canadian contingent of troops had only recently been sent to Singapore, and that in view of these facts the omission of Canada had created considerable astonishment.
I said that I would immediately lay this message before Secretary Hull. I said, however, that without being familiar with the precise circumstances, I knew of no country for which the Secretary of State had a higher regard than for Canada, nor a greater appreciation of its importance in the Pacific region.
Furthermore, I said that there certainly was no statesman for whom Mr. Hull had a higher personal regard than Mr. Mackenzie King. I said that, without any certainty, I could only assume that the Secretary of State had believed that in view of the constant and close contact between Mr. Mackenzie King and the President, the former had been kept closely apprised by the latter of all developments with regard to the Japanese situation and that for that reason he had not believed it necessary to include a Canadian representative in these discussions.
After discussing the matter with Secretary Hull, I telephoned Mr. Wrong and said that I wished to reiterate what I had previously stated, but also to add that in the hurry and rush of these recent days, Secretary Hull very naturally had called in to conference with him the representatives of the Pacific powers who had been during the past months discussing these Pacific matters with him almost daily. I said the fact that Mr. McCarthy had not been discussing these matters with Secretary Hull was one of the reasons that it had not occurred to Mr. Hull to include a representative of Canada in the conversation, but that Secretary Hull would be more than happy in any future conversations that might be held to see to it that Canada is represented. I emphasized Secretary Hull’s high regard and esteem for Canada and for the Prime Minister, and his regret that any apparent misunderstanding had taken place.91