Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 6.djvu/314



(Telegram.)Tokio, Septembre 2nd, 1903.

reference to your telegram of the 31st ultimo, you will say to Count Lamsdorff that it being the acknowledged desire of both Powers to arrive at an understanding as soon as possible, the Japanese Government fear that discussions would be greatly protracted if the negotiations were now to be transferred to Tokio without some accepted basis for negotiations; and you will add that the Japanese Government, having presented their proposals in concrete form to the Russian Government, believe that negotiations, wherever conducted, would be greatly facilitated if the Russian Government were primarily to announce whether such proposals can in principle be accepted as the basis for negotiations. The Japanese Government do not understand that the acceptance of those proposals as such basis would exclude amendments that might be regarded as necessary. On the contrary, such acceptance would merely fix a definite point of departure, which is desirable in all negotiations and very important in the present case. You will use every endeavour to secure the desired announcement from the Russian Government.

St. Petersburg, September 5th, 1903.

(Telegram.)Received, September 5th, 1903.

Count Lamsdorff yesterday. With the view of preventing any misunderstanding about the sense of the instruction contained in your telegram of the 2nd instant, and also with the view of impressing upon the Russian Government the feeling of importance placed by the Japanese Government on the matter, I prepared a Note Verbale which I handed to him. We then had a rather prolonged discussion on the question. The substance of his remarks is as follows:

According to his experience of 40 years in the Foreign Office, negotiations of an international character had always been conducted on the proposals of one Power together with the reply of the other, and it was not usual to accept the proposition of one Power as the sole basis of negotiations.