893.51/4154: Telegram

The Ambassador in Japan (Warren) to the Secretary of State

[Paraphrase]

2. Your 2, January 12. Mr. Clive, who is the British Chargé in China, Minister Schurman, and myself had a conversation while I [Page 528] was visiting Peking in the course of which Mr. Clive told me that it would be advantageous for the Consortium to continue discussions with the Chinese officials in order to find a means for consolidating both the internal and external Chinese floating debt. I told Mr. Clive that it was my opinion that the Japanese Government would give its consent to having the representatives of the Japanese banking group join with those of the other Consortium groups.

Upon my return to Tokyo my British colleague informed me that Mr. Clive had cabled to him after our conversation and that he had asked Uchida37 about the matter. The Ambassador’s telegram of December 18 to the British Foreign Office to which you refer was based upon this conference.

My British colleague [showed to me] yesterday Clive’s telegram and also his own to the Foreign Office.

I asked Uchida after my return whether his Government would consent to having the representatives of the Japanese banking group take part with the other representatives in such discussions. He told me that the Japanese Government would [not?] object and that he would include such a statement in his answer to the American Government’s note to the Japanese Embassy November 23.38

Uchida handed to me at the Foreign Office on December 26 a copy of his memorandum39 replying to your note of November 23. As he told me he was cabling it to the Japanese Chargé in the United States for presentation to you, I naturally did not telegraph it to the Department. Uchida thought that his answer expressed his Government’s willingness to agree that the representatives of the Japanese banking group might associate themselves with the representatives of the other Consortium groups in continuing the consideration with the Chinese officials of a basis for the consolidation of the Chinese floating debt.

The telegram of December 18 from the British Chargé in China to my British colleague did not relate to any immediate loan and it so stated. I discussed the matter with my British colleague yesterday and later with Uchida. The latter told me that I may state that his Government is willing to have the representatives of the Japanese banking group take part with the others in continuing discussions with the Chinese officials for the purpose mentioned above and that his Government would raise no objection to the making of a loan to China for the single purpose of consolidating and refunding the external and internal Chinese floating debt.

Warren
  1. Count Yasuya Uchida, Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs.
  2. Foreign Relations, 1922, vol. i, p. 794.
  3. See memorandum from the Japanese Embassy, Dec. 28, 1922, ibid., p. 797.