name to take the initiative in urging the powers to unite in a request to Japan to withdraw its troops from Korea. Moved by these appeals and by the natural inclination of his government to do all that was proper to preserve peace between nations friendly to the United States, Secretary Gresham had an interview with the Japanese minister in Washington, in which he referred to the appeals which had been made to his government by Korea and China, and he expressed the hope that Japan would deal kindly and fairly with her feeble neighbor, whose helplessness enlisted the sympathy of the American government, and he said that the apparent determination to engage in war on Korean soil was nowhere more regretted than in the United States. The Japanese minister said that his government recognized the independence of Korea and did not covet its territory, but that the recent troubles had been caused by maladministration and official corruption, and that the Japanese troops would not be withdrawn until needed reforms in the domestic administration of Korea had been made.
On July 8 the British ambassador waited upon Secretary Gresham, by direction of his government, to ascertain whether the United States would unite with Great Britain in an intervention to avert war between China and Japan. Mr. Gresham's reply was that his government could not intervene otherwise than as a friendly neutral; that it had already done so with Japan; that the President did not feel authorized to go further; and that the United States could not join another power even in a friendly intervention.
