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Government were able to meet the perfectly proper complaints on particular issues which your Excellency has from time to time, under my instructions, made to them. I reminded the Ambassador that, as I had made plain to him at an earlier interview, conversations that he and I might have on these matters were, in my view, complementary and supplemental to those which your Excellency was having at Tokyo, but that it would be of great assistance to the establishment of the better relations, which the Ambassador desired, if the representations that your Excellency has made could be satisfied. The Ambassador again repeated that he himself much hoped this could be done. In all these matters, however, on one side or the other, we were dealing with the past and what really ought to concern us both was the future. Japan wanted to get British co-operation and his Excellency did not think it ought to be impossible to find means by which this co-operation could be established. Was it, however, the wish of His Majesty's Government to go back to the status quo of two years ago? If so, that would interpose a grave obstacle in the way of the progress he desired to see. In reply to this, I again assured his Excellency that we had no desire whatever to assume a position that asserted the impossibility of change and we had, as I had reminded him earlier in our interview, made this plain in our note. At the same time, we did insist that, if change there were to be, it should be change that was the outcome of free discussion and negotiation and that it must be accompanied by recognition on the Japanese side of the legitimate complaints that we had from time to time advanced and by regard for our equally legitimate interests in China. There was, moreover, another consideration of great importance which we must constantly keep in mind, and that was the interests of China itself. It was impossible for us to make terms in regard to matters in which we were interested at the expense of China. Subject to these considerations, which were, however, fundamental to the position of His Majesty's Government, nothing would give me greater satisfaction than to make any effort, in conjunction with his Excellency, to effect an improvement in Anglo-Japanese relations, which was so greatly, as I thought, in the interest of both countries. I asked his Excellency to give me the opportunity of considering what he had said to me in the course of our interview and possibly, if this was not unduly delayed, any answer that his Government might give to our recent note, after which perhaps, if convenient to him, we might have a further conversation.
I am, &c.
HALIFAX.
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