893.00/3303
Memorandum of the Third Assistant Secretary of State (Long)
The Japanese Ambassador spoke this morning of the Tientsin affair and suggested that a settlement might be made upon the basis suggested in a memorandum of my conversation with Mr. Debuchi on yesterday, with the added proviso that the Government of the United States would be very glad to continue its investigation of the Tientsin incident to determine whether or not there had been American soldiers present in the Japanese Concession on the night of March 12th, and to make proper apology and explanation, if it were finally determined in the course of such inquiry that American soldiers had been there, and had been guilty of misconduct. I told him that this would only continue the matter and would not be a complete settlement, and that I hoped that we could adjust it finally, and that I thought Mr. Lansing wanted to talk to him in the near future on the subject.
He said that he was very anxious to come to a speedy solution.