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[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government, and should be returned to the Foreign Office if not required for official use.]
8.
From
JAPAN.
Deuypher.
Sir R. Craigie (Tokyo).
June 21st 1939.
De
10.35 p.m.
June 21st 1939.
R.
5.00 p.m.
June 21st 1939.
No. 629.
55
IMPORTANT.
Your telegram No.305.
Frime Minister's statement in Parliament on June 19th
contained the statement that it was still hoped that a "local
settlement" would be found possible, Your Lordship is also
represented in the Japanese press as having suggested to the
Japanese Ambassador on the 19th instant that negotiations should
take the place of "local settlement". I presume that he had
in mind the need for a settlement confined to local issues but
in view of your authority to me to go ahead with the proposal
for negotiations in Tokyo I think it would be well to make it
clear to the press in London that our main concern is to localise
the issues allowing for negotiations to be conducted through
whatever channel appears most convenient.
your
There is one other point causing some misapprehension: telegram to Shanghai No. 469 reported that the Counsellor of the
Japanese Embassy had been informed of the receipt by the Foreign Office of certain new evidence which was being examined.
It is apparently considered here both in official and unofficial circles that at any moment the examination of this new evidence may permit His Majesty's Government to hand over the four men and I suggest it be made lear to the Japanese Embassy as soon as possible that this is not the case and that the introduction of the blockade measures on June 13th had prevented further progress along these lines.
Addressed to Foreign Office No. 629, repeated to
Shanghai No. 514.