793.94/285a

The Secretary of State to President Wilson

My Dear Mr. President: I am sending you a flimsy of a despatch just received from Tokio. You will see that it puts the Japanese demand in a very different light. You will remember how the despatch from Peking17 construed it to mean that it was to turn over the entire Yangtze Valley to the Japanese.

Japanese capitalists have advanced about $40,000,000 for the development of these mines and they are very important to Japan—she not having any iron ore near her. It seems to me that her desire to avoid foreign-owned mines in the immediate vicinity is not unreasonable, provided the concession which she asks is not larger than she describes.

The thing that disturbs me most in this eastern trouble is the feeling of suspicion on both sides—a feeling that does not give assurance of peace. These two nations must remain neighbors and unless they deal with each other in the spirit of friendship there is no way of avoiding great antagonism.

With assurances [etc.]

W. J. Bryan
[Enclosure—Telegram]

The Ambassador in Japan (Guthrie) to the Secretary of State 18

Your telegram of April 2, 9 p. m.19 Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs yesterday informed me that Japan’s demands touching the Han-yeh-p’ing works are confined substantially to the Taiyeh mine and two other mines in the immediate vicinity of the latter, all of which she believes should be worked together and that Japan depends for her supply of ore chiefly on these mines whose loss would destroy her iron industry. Kato says Japan’s proposition is that if China agreed to the principle of joint control and operation of these mines a joint commission shall be appointed to determine the territory to be included in the concession: that he could not say it would be only “a few miles for it might include a few tens of miles but certainly it would not run into the hundreds.”

Previous to my interview the British Ambassador had told me that Baron Kato had given him substantially the same information, Kato’s [Page 416] words being that “one could see from the Taiyeh mine the other two mines,” The Ambassador also said that Great Britain had given Japan notice of her established rights in China and as she expected that these would be respected she had not taken any further action although she would have preferred that the negotiations had not been taken up at the present time or at the very least that the Allies had been consulted in advance.

Kato told me the negotiations are proceeding steadily though slowly; that China is willing to consent to the acquisition by foreigners of land leases which if long enough would be satisfactory to Japan but still objects to absolute ownership; that she is willing to establish numerous open marts but objects to the responsibility implied in permitting residents in remote country districts; that the differences as to extraterritoriality, land taxation and policing are very near adjustment and that the question of Fukien has not yet been taken up.

There has been uneasiness about the Han-yeh-p’ing works for some time, Japan fearing that the owners of the Taiyeh mine might sell its control to some hostile interest and it is believed that recently certain parties did actually endeavor to secure the adjacent mines.

Guthrie
  1. Ibid., p. 124.
  2. Filed separately under file No. 793.94/285.
  3. Foreign Relations, 1915, p. 119.