Office of the Historian

793.94/3451

Memorandum by the Secretary of State

[Washington,] January 7, 1932.

I told the Chinese Minister that I had sent to the Japanese and Chinese Governments a note, of which I was going to read him a copy, and I read him the note and then handed him the copy. I then told him the substance of our position: (1) that we had no quarrel with any of Japan’s rights in Manchuria, (2) that we had no desire to intrude into the terms of any settlement which might-be made in the future between China and Japan except (a) such settlement should not impair our own rights in China and (b) there should not be any violation of the Kellogg Pact. I told him that I was going to notify the other members of the Nine Power Treaty this morning and that the contents of the note would not be made public by me before tomorrow morning and I hoped that it would not be by any of the others. He said, of course not.

He then asked what I intended to do, and he used the phrase, “since the League of Nations has failed in its efforts”. I broke in and said that I did not think that it was true that the League of Nations had failed, that we thought that their efforts in getting the appointment of a neutral commission under the conciliation steps instituted by the League were very important, and that I hoped that a solution would come out of it, and I explained my careful efforts to show our entire sympathy with the general objective of the League, while not running any risk of crossing wires with their work. I said that under this [Page 10] step we had referred to the treaty rights of the Nine Power Treaty and I hoped that this would clarify the air somewhat, but as to what future steps should be taken, I would not forecast now what we would do, but wait and see what would be the effect of the step already taken.

He then showed me an extract from his instructions which he handed me, and which are annexed to this11 with the copy of the note which I have given him, and I read them and said that in some respects those instructions seemed to be met by what I had now done in respect to this note.

H[enry] L. S[timson]
  1. Infra.↩