J94 CHINA INCIDENT

forces in individual local issues, we must reluctantly face the fact
that the civil government in Tokyo has very little influence with
these forces where their general objectives are concerned.

" GOODWILL ENVOYS "

October 5, 1937

Kojiro Matsukata came in for. a talk before departing for the United
States. In spite of my informal recommendations to Kabayama,
Soyeshima, and others against sending so-called goodwill envoys to
America, a whole flock of them are going out: Matsukata, Ashida,
Takeishi, and Bunjiro Suzuki to the United States, Viscount Ishii
to England and France, Admiral Godo to Germany, Baron Okura
to Italy, etc. In America they will get nowhere.

Their fundamental theme is that they are fighting China in self-
defence, and no American will listen to such rot, however presented.
The American is a priori sympathetic to China and always has been,
and he is, furthermore, almost always sympathetic to the under-dog.
Japan is fighting on Chinese soil. What more need be said ? These
envoys will receive a rude shock if I am not greatly mistaken.

But Matsukata says that he is not going as a goodwill envoy but
simply to make business contacts and to buy needed commodities
such as oil, scrap iron, and trucks. I warned him that he would find
public opinion in the United States inhospitable to Japanese claims
that China is responsible for the present conflict, that Japan has
recently done much to render difficult the continued application of
the good-neighbour policy, and that in shaping its own policy and
action the American Government must listen to public opinion at
home. He claims that American influence is to-day paramount in
Japan and can play a prominent part in helping to stop the warfare,

On October 5, President Roosevelt delivered his famous " Chicago speech "
calling for a " quarantine " of aggressor nations. Shortly thereafter, the
Belgian Government invited the signatories of the Nine-Power Treaty of 1922,
promising to respect the political and administrative integrity of China, to attend
a conference at Brussels.

WHAT CAN THE NINE-POWER CONFERENCE

ACCOMPLISH?
October 9, 1937

As for the military and political situation, the Japanese are making
a big drive around Shanghai, doubtless with the purpose of impress-
ing the Nine-Power Conference. They appear to have cleaned up a
good deal of ground. But what we ask ourselves is this : assuming
that the Japanese Army is able to occupy and control all the territory
it wishes ; supposing that the Chinese forces are partly annihilated,
wholly disorganized, disrupted, scattered* What then ? Can they or