COPY.
Immediate.
No. 120.
British Embassy,
Tokyo.
21st August, 1937.
24
Your Excellency,
I have the honour, in accordance with telegraphic
instructions which I have received today from His Majesty's
Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, to point out
to Your Excellency that damage to British property and danger
to British lives at Shanghai is continuing and to request that
the extent to which the Japanese operations at Shanghai are
endangering British interests may be fully realised. The
magnitude of these operations has been out of all propertion to
the comparative unimportance of the incident, namely the killing
of two members of the landing party, which gave rise to it.
According to the information which has reached His Majesty's
Government, the Chinese reinforcements, of which the Japanese
Government complain, were only brought up after the Japanese had,
as a result of that incident, more than doubled their naval
strength at Shanghai and landed a large number of reinforcements
there.
2.
I am to request that Your Excellency's Government will
realise that public opinion in Great Britain and in the world
in general attributes the course of events at Shanghai mainly
to Japanese action there. His Majesty's Government consider it
therefore particularly incumbent on the Japanese Government to
insist on measures to end a state of affairs potentially
disastrous to others.
Acceptance of the proposal for withdrawal
which His Majesty's Government have had the honour to put forward
would at least be a helpful contribution.
I avail myself of this opportunity to renew to Your
Excellency the assurance of my highest consideration.
His Excellency
Mr. Koki Hirota,
(signed) J.L. DODDS
H. I.J.M.'s Minister for Foreign Affairs.
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