"The American Association of Shanghai, representing all American interests, expresses appreciation of the action of {he Department of State in presenting a note to the Japanese Foreign Office on October 6 demanding that Japan cease discriminating against American trade with China and hinting at retaliation. They hope that if a satisfactory reply to the Note is not soon received Or if Japanese promises fail as heretofore, to be translated into action pressure along the lines suggested will be promptly brought to bear in order to secure correction not only of the matters mentioned in the note but of all other grievances of which the Department of State is well "Failure now to secure correction {o abuses of our long-established treaty rights is likely to encourage the Japanese to further acts of monopolistie encroachment which would eventually bring them into conflict with the United States. Strong action now is more likely to produce a peaceful solution and avoid the possibility of more serious complications later.
"The continued destruction of American mission property, including churches, schools, and hospitals, by air bombing, and the refusal to relinquish control of American property held by the Japanese Army, constitutes an open attempt to nullify the influence and good-will of American cultural effort in China, established and supported over a period of a hundred years of self-sacrificing effort by millions of American Citizens, ro Oust American Business "Japan has already begun to implement its programme designed to oust American business from China, Pressing large distributors to turn over their North China business to Japanese agents, and approaching home offices of producers. and manufacturers in America with virtual threats that unless agencies here, mow in the hands of American or Other firms, are turned over to Japanese control the American producers may say goodbye to future business in China. Compliance with such Japanese demands would be likely permanently to damage the position of American firms in their China business.
"The Japanese scheme, predicated on monopolistic control of transportation in China, in violation of the Open Door, already denies facilities for the shipment of American goods inland unless in the hands of Japanese distributors and Japanese forwarding agents. It involves plans for Japanese control of extensive Chinese industrial activity which was a large consumer of American raw and semimanufactured materials, the products of American labour and of our farms, by denying transportation facilities also to products of purely Chinese-owned enterprises. a decent basis of equal opportunity.
"We pledge our support to the laudable stand taken by the Department of State in the interests of American labour, industry and export trade, and are ready to act cooperately in the defence of our position, built up by decades of effort and until now in' the present crisis threatened with impairment as a result of apparent misunderstanding by the American public of our contribution to American economic well-being by functioning in foreign trade."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.