At very long last Colonel Henry Stimson, U.S. War Secretary, has sought to correct a widely held impression, arising from statements made by him in a book "The Far Eastern Crisis," that the British Government had failed to "go along" with him, when he was Secretary of State in 1932, in his desire to invoke the Nine-Power Treaty when Japan seized Manchuria. It was in February of that year that he put forward to the British Foreign Office a proposal for a joint invocation of the Nine-Power Treaty, and in his book, Col. Stimson wrote "While no explicit refusal to my suggestion was ever made I finally became convinced....that the British Government were reluctant to join in such a demarche."
The facts of the case are well known in British diplomatic circles, and have been given wide publicity during the last nine years. On receiving the draft of Col. Stimson's proposed joint invocation, the Foreign Office telephoned to Geneva a paragraph containing the non-recognition doctrine, and this paragraph was embodied in the declaration issued by the twelve niembers of the Council of the League of Nations on February 16, 1932. At the same time a written answer was- handed tothe American Embassy for transmission to Washington stating that the British Government was most anxious to cooperate with America in this matter, and that in view of its adherence to this declaration, it was hoped that those of the League Powers who were signatory of the Nine-Power Treaty might also associate themselves in the proposed invocation.
As Sir John Pratt, in a letter to "The Times" on November 10, 1938 wrote "The Foreign Office, so far from refusing io go along' with Mr. Stimson did all they could to further his proposal. To obtain the concurrence of several Governments in a particular draft is, however, always a cumber some and sometimes c lengthy process. It is not in general the kind of procedure that commends itself to the State Department, and Mr. Stimson preferred to drop the idea of a joint invocation and turn his draft into the letter from himself to Mr. Borah of February 24, 1932."
In giving evidence before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Washington on January 29, Col. Stimson in reply to questions said his book on the subject of the British policy vis-à-vis of Manchoukuo had been far too widely and sweepingly interpreted as a condemnation of the British Government, which had made a long, and to some extent effective effort resulting in juridical condemnation of Japan by the League of Nations. He explained to the Committee that he had gone into that point now only because Great Britain had so many times been mistakenly criticized with his apparent authority by people who had not read his book.
Unfortunately the same result comes from reading the book, for in it he definitely declares his conviction "that the British Government were reluctant to join in such a demarche." It is quite clear now that what the British Government was endeavouring to do, and did indeed succeed in doing, was, as a member of the League-of Nations, to persuade the Council and the Assembly of the League to take action parallel to that which Washington contemplated. It would obviously have been incorrect procedure for it to have acted independently of the League, and it is clear that whatever misunderstanding arose was due entirely to the fact that Great Britain was a member of the League and the United States, unfortunately, were not. In this connection it needs to be noted that when Sir John Simon drafted and proposed the League Assembly resolution adopting the doctrine of non-recognition, Col. Stimson hastened to express his pleasure at this action, and on August 8, 1932, in a public speech pointed out that the refusal of the United States alone to recognize the fruits of aggression might be of comparatively little moment to the aggressor. This vindication of the attitude of the British Government in those days has probably come much too late to correct a misunderstanding which has had such long currency, but it certainly serves to show the correctness of the British attitude and the Government's willingness to do what it could to ce-operate with the United States Government.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.