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.]
327
FROM
CHINA.
Decypher.
Sir M. Lampson. (Peking).
July 7th. 1931.
D.
12.34.p.m. July 8th. 1931.
R.
9.00.a.m. July 8th. 1931.
No. 220.
Addressed to Shanghai No. 97 of July 7th.
Your telegram No. 89.
Last thing I desire is to embarrass either Calder
Marshall, or any of his three colleagues concerned. I do not know just what they mean by "circumstances" in which
they gave their original opinion but in any case I offer
no objection in confident belief that they will be as
discreet as possible. Anything like a public contro-
versy just now can and probably will be very detrimental to British interests in general and Shanghai interests in
particular. It is far from certain for instance that
Wang's offer as embodied in Article 16 might not be re- pudiated by Chinese side and certainly provision therein contained regarding Tientsin would be. Whole matter is
now before His Majesty's Government who have to weigh the pros and cons before issuing necessary instructions
to me when I resume negotiations and it will be lamentable if through unwise public agitation etc. we stir up exacerbation on both sides and thus prejudice whatever prospects we may have of getting anything at all satis- factory out of the Chinese. My own view is that Feetham's report far from helping us is more likely to have an irritating effect and stiffen Chinese attitude,
but this time alone will show.
Repeated to Foreign Office.
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