Cablegram 3 TOKYO, 25 March 1939, 5.57 P.m.
Following from Colonel Lloyd [1]- (Begins) Continuing yesterday’s message [2] : hi my meetings with senior Japanese officials during recent weeks, in no cases have they advanced any vestige of complaint regarding Australian attitude upon the contrary they volunteered the indication that Australian public level-headedness (taking into account rather widespread feeling internationally) is appreciated, as is also our commercial reasonableness in Japan’s present circumstances. Suggest that this may be regarded as offsetting the Consular complaint which seems the more curious for his point that there is no anti-Australian sentiment in Japan when there is no first reason why there should be any; anyway we are not warring with anyone, nor equalling any objective comparable, for instance, with the Japanese announcement of southward expansion policy which, inter alia, is directed towards our own position in the Pacific.
Trust these responses correct the interpretation of your enquiry as in the above circumstances no comprehensible motive of the Consular protest known to the Australian Office here. [3]
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1 Lt Col E.E. Longfield Lloyd, Australian Government Commissioner in Japan.
2 Document 55.
3 A copy of this cablegram was sent to the Department of External Affairs 27 March 1939.
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[AA: A981, JAPAN 181, ii]