[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
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AFFAIRS OF CHINA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
RESP REGS 13 JAN 11
[December 28.]
SECTION 1.
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No. 1.
Sir C. MacDonald to Sir Edward Grey,~(Received December 28.)
(No. 268. Very Confidential.) Sir,
Tokyo, December 9, 1910. AMONGST the confidential print recently received at this embassy is your despatch No. 288 of the 22nd September, 1910, in reply to one from His Majesty's representative in Washington, No. 183, Very Confidential, dated the 24th August,
1910.
Mr. Bryce points out that the State Department in Washington do not appear 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 the attitude of Great Britain towards the Chinchow-Aigun project, which attitude appears to have to some extent irritated American official feeling,
Mr. Bryce further states that Mr. Huntington Wilson, Assistant Secretary of State and Acting Secretary during the summer absence of Mr. Knox from Washington, had indulged in language of unbecoming strength with reference to the Russo- Japanese Convention recently concluded, and particularly with regard to Great Britain's share in its conclusion. Mr. Bryce adds that very similar expressions had been used, by Mr. Miller, the head of the Far Eastern Department, who also "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.' In concluding his despatch, Mr. Bryce thinks that it is desirable that His Majesty's Government should take any further opportunity that might present itself of soothing American susceptibilities in Eastern matters, and should make it plain to them that, whatever be the purposes of Russia and Japan, His Majesty's Government have no share in any policy unfriendly to the commercial policy of the United States in that part of the world.
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Both the gentlemen mentioned by His Majesty's representative in Washington were for many years attached to the American Legation (as it then was) in Tokyo, Mr. Wilson as Second Secretary and Mr. Miller as Japanese Secretary, and they are both well known to me. Of the former, Mr. Bryce says that he enjoys little weight among his countrymen and none at all with the President, though his voice 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.
That Mr. Wilson's voice or opinions could carry any weight anywhere is remarkable; when attached to the American Legation here he was considered of no consequence whatever; tactlessly hostile to the people of the country, he was much more occupied in ascertaining whether he had been properly placed at diplomatic functions in accordance with his rank (he was for a brief period chargé d'affaires) than in cultivating friendly relations with the Japanese or with his colleagues. He had the good sense, or rather the good fortune, to marry a very pretty and clever wife, to whose influence and management of her husband was due his transference to the State Department.
Mr. Miller, originally a missionary in Japan, was possessed of a scholarly knowledge of the Japanese language, a sound judgment, and wide appreciation of the good and bad points of the Japanese character. His relations with this legation and myself were always most cordial.
In your reply to Mr. Bryce you fully concur with his Excellency as to the extreme desirability of working with the Americans and not imperilling our good relations with them in other parts of the world by adhering too literally to the policy of strict reciprocity in the Far East, but you point out what a difficult position His Majesty's Government have been placed in by the recent policy of the United States in China. As evidence of this policy you refer (1) to the ill-timed proposals made by the United States in the winter of 1909-10 for the internationalisation of railways in
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