Mr. Joseph L. A. Avenol
Secretary General of the League of Nations
Geneva
I acknowledge the receipt of your telegram of September 19th, 1938, transmitting the invitation based on the first paragraph of Article 17 of the Covenant, and addressed to the Imperial Government by the Council of the League of Nations.
The Imperial Government holds to its firm belief that the method as envisaged by the Covenant of the League of Nations can not bring about a just and adequate solution of the present conflict between Japan and China. Its attitude in this regard has repeatedly been made clear in the past.
I have the honour of bringing to your knowledge that, for this reason, the Imperial Government regrets that it is not able to accept the invitation of the Council.
Kazushige Ugaki
Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan
Transcription note
Page number not printed on the page (it falls between pp. 46 and 48). "can not" is printed as two words.
This site gathers the verbatim texts of treaties, laws, speeches and other official documents printed in two
English-language periodicals published in wartime Japan: the Tokyo Gazette (1937–1942), a monthly digest
of government reports issued under the supervision of the Cabinet Information Bureau, and Contemporary Japan: A Review
of Far Eastern Affairs (issues of 1941–1945), published by the Foreign Affairs Association of Japan, whose
“Documentary Material” section reprinted official texts.
It also includes the “Texts of Treaties, Agreements, Notes and Statutes of the Powers Concerning Manchuria”
(1895–1932) printed as Supplement III of the Japan-Manchoukuo Year Book 1934 (the first of a section of texts from year books), and, from the two periodicals,
selected government programmes, reports, statistical articles, chronologies and profiles of public figures.
Only texts printed in full in the journals are included; commentary, summaries and articles about them are not.
The issues covered are those indexed on the Tokyo Gazette table of contents and
Contemporary Japan pages at Frog in a Well,
and scanned on the Internet Archive.
These are official translations and statements of the wartime Japanese state and its allies, and should be read as such.
Transcription. The texts were transcribed from the page scans by AI models (Claude Opus 5.5, Claude Sonnet 5.5 and, for the Japan Year Books, Claude Haiku 5.5;
the model used is named at the foot of each text) reading the page images, and have not been proofread by a person. Original spelling and romanisation are kept. Page numbers in the margin link to the page
of the scan on the Internet Archive: check the scan before quoting.