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[This Document is the Property of His Britannis, Majesty's Government.]
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AFFAIRS OF CHINA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[32420]
No. 1.
31428
Prat
[September 6.]
SECTION/
195
t
Mr. Bryce to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received September 6.)
(No. 183. Very Coufidential.) Sir,
AS you are aware, from conversations which you have had from time to time with
Dublin, N.H., August 24, 1910. the United States Ambassador in London as well as from reports addressed to you by His Majesty's Ambassador in Tokyo and also by this embassy, that the State Depart- ment would appear not to have succeeded in fully appreciating the views which have guided the policy of His Majesty's Government with regard to the construction of railways in Manchuria, and American official feeling has been to some extent irritated by the attitude of Great Britain towards the Chinchow-Aigun project.
It would appear from information which has reached me from a trustworthy source that this irritation has been somewhat accentuated by the recent Russo-Japanese convention. I learn that Mr. Huntington Wilson, Assistant Secretary of State, and at present Acting Secretary during the summer absence of Mr. Knox from Washington, has lately indulged in language of unbecoming strength with reference to the convention, and particulary with regard to what he regards as Great Britain's share in its conclusion. His views seem to be accurately represented by the language used to you by the United States Ambassador in London as conveyed to me in your despatch No. 59 of the 10th February, namely, that "the policy of the open door' was a dead- letter, and this was a violation of the Treaty of Portsmouth." In terns apparently resembling those used to me in April by Mr. Schiff (see my despatch No. 79), though considerably stronger, Mr. Wilson asked my informant how His Majesty's Government could adopt an attitude hostile to their own commerce, merely in order to meet the wishes of Russia.
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Mr. Wilson is sometimes rather unmeasured in his utterances, but his voice, although that of a subordinate who enjoys little weight among his countrymen, and, I should imagine, none at all with the President, probably carries a certain weight in the State Department (owing to the not very keen interest taken by Mr. Knox in the affairs of his office), and he frequently gives out to the press statements lacking in judgment. More importance perhaps attaches to very similar expressions used by Mr. Miller, the head of the Far Eastern Department. According to my informant, this gentleman showed himself equally hostile to the convention, though at the same time manifesting a juster appreciation of the attitude of Great Britain in the matter.
Finally, Mr. Wilson announced his intention of making the Chinchow-Aigun project a test case under cover of which to attack the arrangements embodied in the convention.
Though I have found no reason to think that the President shares the seutiments expressed by Mr. Wilson and Mr. Miller, and though the press has not said much about the Russo-Japanese agreement since their first expressions of annoyance at the rapprochement between Russia and Japan, which they regard as prejudicial to United States interests, still there can be little doubt that in many quarters in this country and among the public a more or less definite feeling of dissatisfaction prevails with the policy of His Majesty's Government in the Far East. In this connection I might draw your attention to my despatch No. 124 of the 21st May as showing the misunder- standings prevalent with regard to that policy. The catch-word of "the open door has attained a kind of sanctity in public opinion, and the Portsmouth Treaty is regarded with pride as representing the successful intervention of America in la haute politique. Indeed, considering the value of full sympathy and cordial understanding between Great Britain and the United States which has been fully maintained as respects
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