[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: JAPAN.
༢༠
Decypher.
Sir R. Craigie (Tokyo)
14th June, 1939.
D.
6.52 p.m.
14th June, 1939.
R.
1.55 p.m.
14th June, 1939.
No. 556.
()()()()
69
78
IMMEDIATE.
Judging
62 Your telegram No. 53 to Tientsin, first paragraph.
Surely the evidence we have is prima facie evidence and complicity in a political murder is a "crime in ordinary circumstances"? Moreover Minister for Foreign Affair's assertion (my telegram No. 557) that protection habitually given in the concessions to political offenders is unjustifiable in the case of the man accused of complicity in the murder seems to me unanswerable. from the latest information I cannot but maintain the opinion I had criginally formed that our refusal to hand over these men is not only politically insupedient but legally unsound. It seems to me we are risking our whole position in North China involving ourselves at an inappropriate moment in serious trouble with Japan on account of legal niceties which I frankly find myself
unable to appreciate.
It seems to me essential that, as a result of exam- ination of fresh facts referred to in your telegram to Shanghai, men should now be promptly handed over for trial
If this is done, in accordance with the normal procedure.
But the
I will then do my utmost to obtain cancellation of repressive measures against the concession. military, having got pretext they wanted, are now in full cry and the longer we delay the more difficult it will be to head them off.
Addressed to Foreign Office telegram No. 556 of 14th June; repeated to Shanghai No.444, Tientsin No. 49.
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