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Japanese Government deeply appreciate such action coming, as it does, at a moment when Japan is being attacked on all sides in China.
In my conversations and communications with Count Hayashi on the subject of the boycott I have been careful to impress upon him the impossibility and the impolicy of our attempting to do more than let the Chinese Authorities know in a friendly and unofficial manner that we consider that the boycott can serve no useful purpose.
(Signed)
I have &c.,
Claude M. Macdonald.
Sir:-
GOVERNMENT HOUSE,
HONGKONG,
29th April, 1908.
I have the honour to acknowledge Your Excellency's despatch of 16th instant with enclosure, and I am glad to learn that the Japanese Government were gratified by the action taken in this Colony in reference to the Boycott.
2.
No public meeting has been held by the Chinese here in order to promote the Boycott, and no such meeting would be allowed. The action taken has been entirely confined to private communications between merchants. A few posters were affixed to walls advocating the Boycott, and these were immediately pulled down by the police, who have orders to stop any such action. I personally summoned the two Chinese Members of Council, and asked them whether any threats or intimidation were being used. They replied emphatically that this was not the case, and they expressed
His Britannic Majesty's Ambassador,
Tokio.
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