Historical Documents - Office of the Historian

893.102S/1789: Telegram

Tokyo, May 4, 1939—6 p.m.
[Received May 5—8 a.m.]

213. Our 111, February 27, 2 p.m.; Shanghai International Settlement.

1.: I was called to the Foreign Office yesterday evening where the Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs handed me an aide-mémoire replying to our representations of February 27. Copy of the aide-mémoire is being sent by air mail to Shanghai, with the suggestion that Gauss in his discretion communicate the text to the Department by naval radio.40 Sawada requested that our Government, after considering the Japanese position, cable instructions to Gauss with a view to enlisting his cooperation in working out the points presented by the Japanese Government.
2.: The salient features of the aide-mémoire are: (a) the land regulations at Shanghai are obsolete and should be revised; (b) administrative machinery of the Settlement should be modified and improved along lines of reducing British representations and increasing Japanese representation in the Municipal Council, reducing administrative expenditures and increasing the number of Japanese in the police and other departments; (c) close cooperation is desirable between Settlement authorities and the special city government of Shanghai with a view to maintenance of peace and order and safeguarding general public welfare; (d) the Settlement authorities to suppress terrorism and to prevent the use of the Settlement as a base for anti-Japanese activities.
3.: An identical or closely similar aide-mémoire was handed to British Ambassador.

Grew

Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1939, The Far East; The Near East and Africa, Volume IV