RESPONDING TO JAPANESE SHIPPING MONOPOLY DURING PARIS PEACE CONFERENCE WILSON, WOODROW; AND ROBERT LANSING. Two Typed Letters Signed: Lansing, as Secretary of State, to President Wilson * Wilson, as President, to former Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission Edward N. Hurley. The first, sending a telegram [present], arguing that Japanese monopoly over shipping routes in the Pacific has driven rates unacceptably high, suggesting that Europe might divert a portion of their shipping to alleviate the problem, and recommending that he bring the matter to Hurley's attention. The second, sending Lansing's letter and asking, in full: "Is there anything possible to be done about this? It is clearly a serious situation, and I should like to see it relieved." Together 3 pages, 4to, the first written on a folded sheet, the second on "The President of the United States" embossed stationery with integral blank; horizontal fold, the second with paper clip stain at upper left. Paris, 6; 9 January 1919 Lansing: ". . . After our entrance into the war, as you know, American shipping was almost wholly withdrawn from the Pacific which left to the Japanese nearly a complete monopoly of the carrying trade between the United States and the Far East. The rates became exorbitant and American merchants complained of discrimination against themselves. . . .
"The demand for tonnage in the Atlantic of course, is pressing. The starving people of Europe must be fed and the material needed for reconstruction work in Belgium and France must be supplied, but if the suffering nations of Europe can divert a part of their shipping to this effort to recapture control of Far Eastern commerce it may . . . protect in a measure our own commercial interests in the Orient. . . ."
With--Telegram from Counselor of the United States Department of State Frank Polk to Robert Lansing, describing the problem summarized in Lansing's letter. 1 page, 4to, telegram form. Washington, 3 January 1919.