My preceding telegram, D.1243. [1] The following is the text of
the Foreign Office telegram to Washington.

Begins:

The American objectives as described in the preamble of the State
Department's document are unexceptionable. The question is whether
the methods contemplated for their realisation are those most
likely to achieve this aim. It may be assumed that some form of
military occupation of Japan will be a necessary sequel of the
military operations required for her defeat, if only for the
purpose of implementing the purely military requirements of the
Allies. But more than one view is possible regarding its scale and
duration. The total and protracted military occupation, combined
with the assumption of all the functions of Government, is likely
to be a strain on both manpower and physical resources. Faced with
a proud and stubborn race, likely to resort freely to
assassination, a foreign military Government may require the
backing of an Army much larger in proportion to the population
than that required in Germany. This burden may have to be
shouldered if it is the only way to render Japan permanently
harmless. But is there no other way?
Upon defeat Japan will be deprived of her overseas territories and
will be in a position analogous to 1868. She will be militarily
impotent and financially weak. A large part of her industrial
equipment will have been destroyed and she will be unable to
borrow capital. She will be dependent for her very existence on
the resumption of international trade and it should be possible
for the Allies, especially in the period immediately following her
defeat, to decide and control the nature and extent of her exports
and imports. The Allies will also be able to defer making new
Treaties with Japan. Granted agreement between the major powers,
including Russia, should it not be possible for them by exercising
the positive power of controlling trade and the negative power of
withholding Treaties to induce Japan herself to introduce such
reforms in her Constitution and the working thereof, as will
justify confidence in her future good behaviour?
It is desirable also to consider what place in world economy is to
be taken by Japan after defeat, to what extent, if any, Japanese
productive capacity is to be used to supply the needs of, for
example south east Asia, for essential consumption goods and what
are likely to be the economic and political consequences, and,
more particularly, the reactions on projects for the political re-
education of the Japanese people and on the prospects of the
liberalisation of Japanese politics if a large proportion of the
urban population of Japan (more than 50 per cent of a total
76,000,000) is unemployed and inadequately fed.

It seems possible that the enforcement of the necessary economic
controls might be achieved by the military occupation not of the
entire country, but of certain easily held key points, by the
presence of Allied war vessels at ports and by occasional
demonstration flights of massed aircraft.

Might it not be preferable also for the Allies, instead of
suspending the Constitutional Powers of the Emperor, to work
through those powers or through whatever state administration they
may find in being in Japan, using economic sanctions to secure
compliance with such requirements as the repeal of obnoxious laws,
the dissolution of political societies, the reform of education,
freedom of speech and worship, etc.?
If you see no objection, please make an oral communication on the
above lines to the State Department, emphasising that it
represents the preliminary departmental reactions of the Foreign
Office only and is entirely without prejudice, not only to the
laws of the Dominions (which must be expressly reserved) but also
to the final conclusions of His Majesty's Government in the United
Kingdom themselves.

Ends.