[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.]
From CHINA.
Decypher.
Sir A. Clark-Kerr (Shanghai)
15th June, 1939.
D.
R.
8.24 p.m.
3.30 p.m.
15th June, 1939.
15th June, 1939.
No. 555.
mmmmmmmmmmmm
61
81
IMMEDIATE.
69 Tokyo telegram No. 556.
I confess that Sir R. Craigie's proposal fills me with
concern.
2. The issue seems to be a nicety of morals rather than
of law. It is arguable that in the first instance we held
too fast to our sense of justice, but the situation now is
that Japanese are without any legal niceties trying by
blackmail to force us to submit to their solution of a
question from which we have been cutting a fair and just way
of escape.
Indeed it no longer seems to be a solution for
Sir R. Craigie says that if the men are handed over he will do
his utmost to obtain cancellation of repressive measures
which suggests that he himself is doubtful whether the
actual handing over means that the measures will necessarily
be abandoned.
3.
As I see it position now is that if we give way
Japanese will be persuaded that they have but to put enough pressure upon us and we will do whatever they want anywhere
in China. Yielding at Tientsin will mean increased pressure
at Kulangsu followed by Shanghai.
4. Sir R. Craigie considers we are risking our whole
position in North China by our present attitude. My view
is/