[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government, and should be 23
returned to the Foreign Office if not required for official use.]
(5316/1/10)
To: JAPAN.
Code telegram to Sir R. Craigie (Tokyo)
Foreign Office, 5th June, 1939.
No. 263 (R)
XXXXX
1.15 p.m.
37
IMMEDIATE
34 My telegram to Tientsin No. 44 [of June 5th
offenders in Tientsin Concession].*
political
You should seek an immediate interview with the Minister
for Foreign Affairs and inform him of the instructions I have
given to the Consul-General at Tientsin,
You should point out that we are going a long way to
meet the Japanese wishes in this matter, but that it would be utterly repugnant to the Eritish sense of justice to hand over to execution, men against whom we have received no evidence of the
crimes alleged.
You should inform the Minister for Foreign Affairs that
our authorities in Tientsin have received threats that unless the
Japanese demands are met by June 7th forcible action of some
kind will be taken against the Concession, and you should urge
him to reflect whether the attainment of a local objective by
such means is worth the serious repercussion in a wider political
sphere that it will cause.
The Military Attaché should also speak strongly to the
military authorities on the same lines, and ask for immediate
instructions to Tientsin to prevent any such outcome.
Repeated to Shanghai No. 433 and Tientsin No. 45