FOREIGN RELATIONS, 1934, VOLUME III



States of the measures which the General China and Porcelain Ware
Exporters' Association in Japan is understood to have taken.
  The American Government will be glad, if any measure to restrict
imports of china and porcelain ware should be considered necessary,
to enter into informal discussions with the Japanese Government
before such measures are put into effect.


611b.003/55
Memorandumn by the Chief of the Division of Far Eastern Affairs
  (Hornbeck) of a Coniversation With the Japanese Charge (Fujii)

                                  [WASHINGTON,] August 24, 1934.
  Mr. Fujii called on me and said that he was instructed by his
Government to call in connection with the question of the pending
Philippines tariff act. He said that the Japanese Government was
apprehensive, in the feeling that this act was being formulated with
a view to cutting down the flow of Japanese exports into the Philip-
pines and it hoped that the American Government would take steps
toward preventing the adoption of such provisions. He talked about
the development of Japanese trade with the Philippines and the needs
of the Filipino consumer and he gave me a slip of paper (here at-
tached) 1 on which there were written some figures of imports and
exports.
  As Mr. Fujii's remarks were somewhat rambling and inconclusive,
I inquired whether there appeared to be anything in the proposed act
which was discriminatory against Japanese trade. Mr. Fujii said that
the Japanese Government was not well informed with regard to the
exact provisions but that it believed that the effect would be adverse
to Japanese trade. I raised a question of the purposes which govern-
ments have in mind when they make tariff laws and emphasized the
point that such laws are made with a view to safeguarding the inter-
ests, as conceived by the makers, of the populations within or behind
the tariff walls and are very seldom indeed made for the purpose of
doing any particular damage to a population of any particular country
outside of those walls. Mr. Fujii continued somewhat diffusely, and
I finally asked whether he would tell me as exactly as possible just
what his Government had instructed him to say. He then slowly made
the statement that he was instructed "to request that the American
Government advise the Philippine Government against making a tariff
which would have the effect of interfering with Japanese-Philippine
trade." I repeated this formula and thanked him for giving it to me.

1 Not printed.



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