393.115 Foster-McClellan Company/2
The Minister in China (MacMurray) to the Secretary of State
[Received September 13.]
Sir: In reference to the Legation’s despatch No. 2179 of June 25, 1929, regarding the efforts of the Japanese police authorities to close the office of the Foster-McClellan Company, an American firm doing a wholesale business in drugs and medicine in the Japanese Railway Settlement in Mukden, I have the honor to enclose copies of informal communications addressed to this legation by Mr. Eiji Amau, First Secretary of the Japanese Legation, under dates of June 26 and July 11, 1929, together with copy of the Legation’s instruction of today’s date to the American Consul in charge in Mukden.40
There are also enclosed copies of despatches No. 238 of July 6, 1929, and No. 239 of July 8, 1929, from the American Consul in charge at Mukden, to the Legation,40 in reference to the matter.
The failure of the Japanese Legation to mention in its informal notes the “new regulations of June, 1928”, which were quoted by the Acting Consul General for Japan in Mukden in his letter of April 24, 1929, to the American Consul in charge at Mukden (see enclosure No. 441 with Legation’s despatch No. 2179 of June 25, 1929), only serves to confirm the belief that the sudden action by the Japanese police, early in 1929, against the Mukden agency of the American firm, was taken not in response to Government regulations, but to the “regulations of June, 1928”, as promulgated by an association of Japanese chemists and medicine dealers, which body has apparently been rather successful in driving out German and Russian competitors from Mukden and other places in Manchuria. The Kwantung Government regulations of 1925, as quoted in the Japanese Legation’s informal note of July 11th, were not mentioned previous to 1929 as applicable to the American firm, and during recent conversations this fact was tactfully brought to the attention of the Japanese Legation. It is believed that it will allow the matter to rest with Secretary Amau’s final informal note of July 11th, expressing the belief that this Legation will acquiesce in the suggestion that the American firm should comply with the Kwantung Government regulations of 1925, which regulations, it is to be noted, quite apart from the question of extraterritorial jurisdiction involved, appear technically inapplicable to a business of the nature of the one conducted in Mukden by Mr. Podlesoff, as agent of the Foster-McClellan Company, since the agency [Page 856] does not prepare, retail, or peddle medicines, and so appears unaffected by the regulations quoted by Mr. Amau.42
I have [etc.]