THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT
252
FAR EASTERN (China).
CONFIDENTIAL.
January 25, 1939.
[F 826/18/10]
SECTION 1.
Copy No. 129
Sir R. Craigie to Viscount Halifax.-(Received January 25, 1939.)
(No. 1035.)
HIS Majesty's representative at Tokyo presents his compliments to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and, with reference to Tokyo despatch No. 556 of the 28th July, 1938, has the honour to transmit to him a copy of a memorandum left with the Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs on the 24th December, 1938, respecting outstanding Anglo-Japanese cases.
Tokyo, December 26, 1938.
Enclosure 1.
Memorandum respecting Outstanding Anglo-Japanese Cases.
THE British Ambassador has from time to time communicated to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs lists giving brief summaries of the cases in which the Japanese Government have failed to give any satisfaction in reply to representations made by the British Embassy on the subject of the treatment by the Japanese authorities of British rights and interests in China. The last such list was communicated to General Ugaki on the 26th July, 1938.
The document which Sir Robert Craigie now communicates brings up to date the earlier summaries of the questions at issue and contains also a list of cases which have been settled. In the former list are included only those cases to which importance is attached, doubtful cases or cases which it is not desired to press having been carefully excluded from it.
While the fact that a certain number of relatively unimportant cases should have been settled is gratifying, the absence of any apparent desire on the part of the Japanese Government to reach a reasonably satisfactory settlement, or to convey any expression of regret in regard to the vast number of more important questions, is naturally a source of great disappointment. This disappointment is all the more keen, since, given goodwill on the Japanese side, many of the cases in question could be settled overnight. In particular, in such cases as the continued obstruction of the reopening of British-owned cotton mills in Shanghai, the denial of access to British property in Kiukiang and to the commercial harbour at Tsingtao, and the failure to remove the ban on the distribution of the Peking and Tientsin Times, a satisfactory settlement in accordance with the pledges of the Japanese Government, far from involving either complicated negotiations or interference with military operations, would simply necessitate the issue of instructions to the local Japanese authorities to desist from their interference with the British interests concerned.
Sir Robert Craigie therefore desires to emphasise that, if the British Embassy do not more frequently draw the attention of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs to these outstanding cases, this fact should not be considered as evidence either that they have been forgotten or that they have lost importance in the eyes of the British Government. On the contrary, so long as the Japanese Government make no sincere effort to meet the grievances enumerated in this document, these matters must necessarily remain a bar to any improvement in Anglo-Japanese relations.
It is proposed to communicate from time to time to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs revised lists of the cases which have either been settled or are still outstanding.
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