793.94/2713: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Chargé in France (Shaw)
560. For Ambassador Dawes: Referring to Embassy’s No. 750, November 16, 11 p.m.
As to Simon’s proposition, the trouble is that it yields the central point for which the League of Nations and the United States have both been contending; that is, that Japan shall not be permitted to extort by force a ratification of these treaty rights. In your answer to him you exactly hit the point. The United States does not object, providing China consents, to Japan’s obtaining a ratification; but [Page 471] to permit Japan to get it as a result of the pressure of its armed occupation would make ducks and drakes of all the laboriously built-up peace treaties. Is it not the chief thing to get Japan and China into negotiations with such agenda limitations and under such circumstances that no one can say a ratification of the treaties was being wrung out by force. It is still my opinion that the most likely road to settlement is offered by the presence of neutral observers and that, if pressed hard enough, Japan would consent to them. If Japan refuses, it will be necessary to outlaw her and let her sizzle for the time being under the influence of a good Chinese boycott and feeling against her all the moral pressure of the world. The Japanese Army has been as hardboiled as an Easter egg, and if finally our views have to be publicly stated, they will be sufficiently forcible to crack the egg. If Matsudaira knew this it might help.
Today there are current certain press reports to the effect that this country is weakening in its insistence upon not making the settlement of these broader questions a condition precedent to withdrawing Japanese troops and in its desire for cooperation in this objective with the League. These stories are utterly false, and this Government’s position is entirely unchanged. I hope you will make sure that this is understood by Matsudaira and Yoshizawa.