He hesitated to believe that the Government in Tokyo would wish deliberately to challenge the whole position and policy of Great Britain, declared Lord Halifax in referring to the Tientsin situation. He thought rather that the situation had developed out of some misunderstanding, perhaps due to difference in conception.
"We were asked," Lord Halifax said, "to take action which, on the evidence then before us, we felt we could not take. If placed in similar circumstances, the Japanese Government might have felt able to act as they had wished us to act, and were, therefore, at a loss to understand why we refused, and attributed our refusal to a desire to harm their interests.
"I need hardly say that, whatever may have been the general British judgment about events in China, it has never been any part of our intention to allow the Concession in Tientsin to be used as a base for activities prejudicial to Japanese military interests, and if they can be brought to believe that, and would give proof of their repeated declarations that they do not aim at the destruction of British interests in the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.