the Hughes view that the submarine was the defensive weapon of the weak, and argued that, since her navy was weak and she had been compelled to abandon construction during the war to supply herself and her allies with shells, she was entitled to certain latitude in the matter.

On the indication that France meant to ask for a high ratio of submarines there was an explosion of British resentment and an interchange of amenities, mainly between the correspondents of the newspapers of the two countries but finding echo in official places. The episode was instructive to Americans as to the present condition of Anglo-French relations, but it had no real bearing upon the Conference itself. As I write the issue remains unsettled with France and Italy standing with the United States for the preservation of the submarine and agreed to ask for equal strength. As Japan holds to the same view, Britain seems isolated, and the solution will probably be found in a compromise which reduces the total tonnage allowed the various nations.

From the American point of view, while the British contention is easily comprehensible in view of British experience in the late war, the determining factor must be found in the views of our own experts, who insist that the submarine is necessary to our defense and more necessary in view of the proposal to reduce our strength in capital ships.

VI. THE CHINESE PHASE

There remains the question of China, and I shall deliberately restrict my comment upon this phase, because it remains the one open matter before the Conference. It was clear from the outset that the Chinese case was bound to be weakened because those delegates who were received as speaking for China represented a country in a state of chaos, and were thus totally unable to guarantee any performance of the Chinese part, even if substantial concessions were made, or more exactly, if full recognition was had of Chinese rights.

At the outset China stated her case in ten points, which were the basis of all future discussion. These were in turn compressed into four points. The text was credited to ex-Senator Root, and these four pots comprehend the principles which will underlie all that is finally agreed upon in the case of China. These Root principles, which Mr. Hughes described as a "charter for China,"

were adopted by the Far Eastern Committee of the Conference on November 21, and by the Conference at the open session of December 10. They provide in substance for the respect of China's integrity and sovereignty, both administrative and territorial. They assure China of the fullest and most unembarrassed opportunity for development. They assert that the "open door" shall be maintained and they pledge all the powers represented at the Conference to refrain from seeking special privileges through the exploitation of China's present chaotic condition.

Beyond this there have been many more or less important proposals. France, Britain and Japan considered withdrawal from certain areas, France and Britain from Kwangchau-Wan and Wei-Hai-Wei, respectively, but these offers were temporarily withdrawn in view of the inability of China to assure order.

Actually, however, the real questions were those of Manchuria and of Shantung, and here the debate still continues. Japan was prepared to concede that Manchuria was a part of China, but she flatly and frankly maintained her purpose to remain in the Fort Arthur Peninsula and to retain her economic position in Manchuria generally. In the case of Shantung, China and Japan agreed to accept the good offices of the United States and Great Britain and sat down to conference.

At the present moment there seems fair prospect of a satisfactory settlement in the matter of Shantung. Yet it is necessary to report that the Chinese have shown themselves at times dissatisfied with the progress of the negotiations. There have been resignations from the delegation and suggestions that there might be a refusal to sign the agreement, as there was a refusal on their part to sign the Treaty of Versailles. Chinese sentiment, both among the educated few in China and in the college groups in this country, has been aroused and there have been a number of public expressions of dissatisfaction.

In the end some viable compromise may be hoped for. In the last analysis none of the great powers is ready to fight Japan to assure China of all she demands, perhaps with perfect justice. China herself, too, is torn by factions and the degree to which she could make use of any benefits which her friends might obtain for her remains open to debate. The first step in Chinese

regeneration must come from within China. The bottom fact in the Chinese trouble is the condition within China. Unless the disorder and disunity there existing are removed, or the great powers are prepared to step in and undertake the administration of China, only limited results can be achieved and these will be necessarily more impressive on paper than in fact.

Some sort of a nine-power agreement is already taking shape in the Chinese question. It will doubtless embody all the principles expressed in the four Root declarations and such specific applications as can be arrived at by common consent. Probably China will also get back most if not all she lost in Shantung. At all events things are to-day tending in that direction, but, on the other hand, Japanese position in Manchuria is likely to be consolidated rather than challenged. And this was to be foreseen.

Next month I shall hope to treat in detail the whole Chinese matter, and I reserve comment until then. Yet at worst China will find herself in an improved condition as a result of the Washington Conference and she will be able to take comfort in the fact that the Anglo-Japanese Treaty, which was for her a very real menace, has been replaced by a four-power compact, in which the United States appears. As she is bound to be a party to the new nine-power agreement, she will find further satisfaction.

After all, a condition of revolution cannot be disposed of by any parchment undertakings of interested nations. And since China is in a state of revolution much if not all the most important steps must be contingent upon her emergence from this condition of anarchy. Therefore it is out of the bounds of reason to expect a settlement of the Chinese Question at this time. It will continue to demand attention, to provoke disagreements, to incite rivalries, no matter what decisions with respect of China are reached here in Washington.

But China, as a cause of war between the United States and Japan, will be dealt with -has been dealt with-in the present Conference, and a basis of common policy for all the great powers has been decided upon. Nations may still disregard these common declarations. Chinese conditions may invite and even necessitate new interventions. Yet it is assuredly something to have exorcised the Chinese peril to American peace and to this achievement will certainly be added many gains for China.

VII. CONCLUSION

In the present article I shall omit all reference to the dramatic episode furnished by the address of M. Briand, and the tacit consent, after this appeal, to drop the matter of land armaments from the agenda. I do this because as a consequence of this decision the whole subject becomes of minor importance and the differences of opinion which resulted between the British and the French belong to a discussion of European politics, not of an American conference.

What I have sought to do here is to give as far as possible a sort of connected narrative, not, to be sure, of the events of the Conference in their calendar order, but rather in their degree of importance and in the fashion in which they were really considered by the Conference. And beyond all else, what was to be emphasized was that the real obstacle was the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, the real triumph the elimination of this alliance and the substitution for it of a fourpower agreement which satisfied British and Japanese requirements without exceeding the limits of the traditional foreign policy of the United States.

By this agreement we have, in a measure, formed an association of nations, limited in field and in scope, but representing the essential will for peace of four great powers in a field where rivalry and misunderstanding might easily lead to war. The more one examines this new treaty, the clearer becomes the fact that beneath the seeming simplicity there is a wealth of meaning. The lessons of Versailles and of the Senate fight are unmistakable, but in addition to these there is new testimony to the fact that the real basis for all associations of nations is a common desire to preserve the peace. This will inevitably lead to a frank and open recognition of the existing rights of neighboring countries.

The Covenant of the League of Nations was an undertaking to preserve frontiers and conditions created by a successful war. These conditions and these frontiers could be justified in history and in right, but they were nevertheless consented to by the defeated nations only under the duress exerted by victorious armies and in no sense was assent to the newly created state of fact voluntary. The Treaty of Washington has, as Senator Lodge justly pointed out, no underlying idea of force because the condition recognized by it was established without

force, as among all the parties in interest, all of whom were represented.

The League of Nations was made with the idea that force would preserve the existing situation until the conquered nations had come to the point of accepting that situation and voluntarily renouncing old aspirations and former possessions. The Treaty of Washington had as a condition antecedent to its framing the voluntary renunciation by all parties concerned of any purpose to disturb the status quo to their own advantage and to the injury of any other party in interest.

Patently it will be a long time before one can imagine Germany and France or Poland and Germany arriving at a similar willingness to accept some status quo as final and joining in giving mutual assurances of a renunciation of all desire to disturb that

status quo. Therefore one must be chary of all attempts to describe the Washington agreement as showing an easy road to the solution of world disorder and the attainment of world peace. Yet so far as history gives us light this Washington method represents the limit we have yet attained in the making of any association of nations.

And so much seems assured, namely, that such success as has been achieved in Washington, and it is considerable, gives promise that there will be other conferences, that Washington may in fact become the clearinghouse for Far Eastern discussions and that, given the Chinese problem, which must remain unsettled, in a large measure, whatever the agreement upon abstract principles, such conferences may enable the great powers immediately concerned to continue to work in harmony and live in peace in the Far East.

Two months ago I told my readers that there was every sign that the United States and Japan were drifting toward war in the Far East. Since Chinese conditions are what they are, it would be rash to forecast that all danger has been removed, but at the least all apparent danger has been eliminated and the mutual misunderstandings and apprehensions of the two nations have been enormously reduced if they have not been finally banished. If this were the sum total of achievement of the Washington Conference it would still justify the wisdom of the President in calling it and testify to the loyal service of all who participated in it.

TH

HERE ought to be another word than "conference" to denote an international conference. It ought to be a special word, large enough to cover all the various activities which concern the making and preserving of the world's peace. For example, I have attended the two greatest international conferences of my generation, and I have never seen them confer. A vast deal of conferring goes on around and about the conference. Experts confer, innumerable experts on innumerable subjects. Individuals confer. Big Threes, Big Fours, or Big Fives confer, privately and portentously. The press

confers with eminent statesmen, or eminent statesmen confer with the press-I don't know which it is-but at any rate, there are press conferences every hour from breakfast to dinner. But as for the conference itself, I insist that it never confers, at least I have

watched two of them closely, and I never caught either of them conferring. It is something which doesn't confer, but is entirely surrounded by conferences, as an island is something which isn't water, but is entirely surrounded by water.

You all know what a conference is, which is why you don't know what an international conference is. conference is. A conference happily has become in recent years an everyday experience; there is no one so poor as to be without one. Conferring is the fashion. If you are in business, the heads of the departments have a conference daily. If you work on a newspaper, at least six conferences a day help to use up the hours which might otherwise be unprofitable. At these conferencesquite tangible, easily perceptible meetingsmen sit around in a circle and resolve to do better in the future, quite as if they were

In front of one building someone has stuck up a couple of pillars, obviously temporary, and has strung a Coney Islandlike string of electric lights across between them. You were sorry to see the Coney Island lights. A smart marine, carrying a bayoneted rifle, with extraordinary briskness flits up the street and then back again, a sign perhaps that arms we shall have always with us. Clearly this was the place. You enter Continental Hall. Silence! No one is there. The auditorium is vacant. You go to the Pan-American Building next door, that luxuriant tropical monument to the Monroe Doctrine. Committees were meeting there behind closed doors. If you could have got in you would have found them attending to unexciting details and technicalities.

The Correspondents and the Delegates You went down the block, further from the mid-U. S. Grantian pile. Here is a low white structure of vast ground area, the "temporary" Navy Building, so called because every public building put in a park is, of course, temporary though it will stand till age withers its charms and custom stales the prefixed adjective. Again a little soldier does an astonishing double-quick across an entrance. This must be the Conference.

You went in. Straight down an endless corridor you proceeded. Doors to the right

of you, doors to the left of you volleyed and thundered: "French Delegation," "French Technical Advisers," "French Legal Experts," "British Delegation," "British-, "British-," "British-," "Portuguese-,' "Portuguese-," and so on, the names of all the nine nations and the seven seas. doors mostly were ajar. You looked in. Shiny desks, shiny desks, left over from the war, and newly varnished, everywhere, everywhere. But not a soul.

The

You passed on. From a large room to the left comes the sound of a British voice, and of laughter, with the American accent, with the British accent, with the Japanese accent. Ah, the Conference! Gentlemen, young and old, but not old enough or venerable enough to be world statesmen, sat, smoking cigarettes, about a long table, listening to British jokes, of the Punch variety.

It was Lord Riddell and the press-a conference, one of the innumerable conferences, an important conference, but not the Conference. You walked around the square, always doors, always names of nations, always shiny desks, always no one. Hard to find, this Conference. Hard to find, this settling of the fate of the world. You came once more near the entrance, and you saw a knob of men in the corridor. They were saying "ratio," "Japan," "capital ships," "Mutsu." The Conference? No, a con