893.113/1579
Memorandum by Mr. Joseph C. Green of the Division of Western European Affairs of a Conversation With the First Secretary of the British Embassy (Wiggin)
In compliance with the Under Secretary’s instructions, I requested Mr. Wiggin to call at my office this morning. I handed him the note of January 10, addressed to the British Ambassador in reply to the latter’s note No. 396 of December 12, 1934.43 Mr. Wiggin read this note with care. I then permitted him to read despatch No. 1056 of November [October] 24, 1934, from the Consul General in Hong Kong.44 We discussed at some length the Hong Kong regulations in respect to the transshipment and export of arms, with special reference to the provisions of the Convention and Statute on Freedom of Transit, signed at Barcelona on April 20, 1921.
Mr. Wiggin said that it was obvious that the Hong Kong control of the arms traffic to China needed to be stiffened and that the suggestion contained in the penultimate paragraph of our note of January 10 was a very reasonable suggestion.