No Russo-Japanese Treaty.

New York Times 100 years ago today, July 21, 1912:
Tokio Officials Contradict Statements from St. .Petersburg.
    WASHINGTON, July 20.— Formal denial of the published statement that a treaty between Japan and Russia, looking to the defining of their respective interests in Manchuria and Mongolia, was about to be signed at St. Petersburg has reached the State Department from the American Embassy at Tokio.
    The embassy based its denial on information furnished by the Japanese Foreign Office. State Department officials have nothing to say to reconcile the issue thus raised between St. Petersburg and Tokio.
    The unofficial opinion here is that even if a treaty is being framed it may be nothing more than an agreement between the powers not to interfere with each other in certain zones. This, it is pointed out, could not materially affect the status quo in China, or even in Manchuria or Mongolia, so far as the maintenance of the open door and the right of America, Great Britain, Germany, or France to exercise the same privileges or right there as Japan or Russia is concerned.