against a Protecting State as an act of insubordination, in the end the protectorates would tend to become unqualified possessions. But herein lies the possible threat of a reappearance of the final phases of the Holy Alliance of unsavory memory. Since the purpose should be to prepare the weak and dependent States to become truly independent as soon as possible, the "mandates" ought not to be conferred by the League of Nations for an indefinite period, as General Smuts suggests, but for a comparatively short period of years, subject to a possibility, though not necessarily a right, of renewal.

The other answer to the question is to be found in the creation of International Commissions, not identified with any single Power, but representing those most interested, and directly responsible at all times to the Supreme Council of the League.

General Smuts proposes that the Council should deal directly with the Balkan States. If this is feasible, it must be also practicable to deal directly with Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia, Armenia and the rest of Asia Minor. There are some advantages in keeping Asia Minor free from any alien flag, unless it be the flag of the Council. Spheres of influence and protectorates are not easily dissociated from accusations or suspicions of governmental connection with monopolistic schemes. Publicity is the preventive as well as the remedy for such evils. It would be fully as easy to secure ample publicity concerning the work of a Commission as

concerning the activities of the staff of a single Government, possessing a "mandate." Suppose then that the éxternal affairs of the autonomous States in General Smuts's second class and the administration of the dependent territories in his third class were entrusted to an International Commission, headed by a Hoover or a Sir Harry Johnston. The Commission would be more amenable to the direction of the Council than a mandatary would be. Its subordinate staff would be more probably chosen for a proven efficiency than if it were drawn from the civil service of any single nation. If the United States for instance had a mandate for Asia Minor, could we expect that Washington would be uplifted suddenly beyond the temptation to find rewards for "deserving" Democrats or Republicans, as the case might be?

A Commission system could be readily conformed to the various safeguards demanded by General Smuts, such as, approval by the representatives of an autonomous people, the right of appeals to the Council, the prohibition against forming military forces, and the guarantee of equal economic opportunity to all.

But the chief recommendation for the Commission system under the direct control of the Council is that it could be ended at any time without international friction, and that from start to finish it would be free from even the appearance of the ancient vice of parcelling out the spoils of victory among the conquerors.

J

APAN is now seeking at the Peace Conference recognition of her paramount position in the East-a so-called Monroe Doctrine establishing the supremacy of the Japanese Empire in this quarter of the world.

The case of Japan rests upon three grounds. (1) Japan was allied with the Entente Powers during the four years of warfare since 1914, giving her cooperation in return for a virtual free hand in the East. (2) This made possible Japan's diplomatic assault on China: summarily, the 1915 demands accepted by the Chinese Republic under duress; the attempt to block China's break with Germany and entrance into the Great War by the side of America; the repeated renewals of the efforts to make China a vassal of Japan, culminating in the recent Sino-Japanese Military Convention; and the beggaring of the Chinese nation by indiscriminate loans. (3) The seeking of special arrangements, such as the Ishii-Lansing Agreement, which could be turned by Japanese statesmen into a recognition of Japan's claims by the United States and other countries.

It is the contention of the Chinese Republic that she cannot have her patrimony bartered away by third parties without reference to her. China holds that she was coerced into signing the 1915 Demands and sub

sequent arrangements establishing the hegemony of the Japanese Empire over her. The Chinese plenipotentiaries maintain that no League of Nations conceived in the spirit of justice can leave unredressed these

wrongs.

That the American government looks with sympathy upon the case of China in the world's forum is evident from the record.

POSITION OF AMERICA

The United States at the height of the crisis between Japan and China announced its attitude toward the two countries in order that our

stand might be clear. The State Department declared on May 7, 1915:

"At the beginning of negotiations the Japanese Government confidentially formed this Government of the matters which were under discussion, and accompanied the information by the assurance that Japan had no intention of interfering with either the political independence or territorial integrity of China, and that nothing that she proposed would discriminate against other powers having treaties with China or interfere with the 'open door' policy to which all the leading nations are committed.

"This Government has not only had no thought of surrendering any of its treaty rights with China, but it has never been asked by either Japan or China to make any surrender of these rights."

Our Government, nine days later, handed an identic note to both China

and Japan bluntly setting forth our dissent from the Japanese statecraft which produced the 1915 Treaties. The American note of May 16, 1915, not only affects the agreements between Japan and China which were the immediate cause of our stand; it remains to this moment a stumbling block to Japan's clear field in China. The American Department of State maintained:

"In view of the circumstances of the negotiations which have taken place or which are now pending between the Government of China and the Government of Japan and the agreements which have been reached, and as a result thereof, the Government of the United States has the honor to notify the Government of the Chinese Republic (and of Japan) that it cannot recognize any agreement or undertaking which has been entered into, or which may be entered into, between the Governments of China and Japan impairing the treaty rights of the United States and its citizens in China, or the political or territorial integrity of the Republic of China, or the international policy, commonly known as the Open Door policy."

THE PEACE CONFERENCE

These declarations of the United States Government are the basis of the American stand at the Peace Conference.

In the first, the United States stated the explicit assurance given by Japan that the political independence, territorial integrity, treaty obligations, and the free economic life of China would not be affected. Had not the 1915 treaties as do the subsequent Sino-Japanese arrangements infringed on these rights of the United States and the other Powers in China, why was it necessary to serve notice on both

Japan and China in less than two weeks that America would not recognize any undertakings then negotiated or subsequently entered into by the two countries across the Pacific?

The answer is obvious. Even at that date the trend of Japanese efforts was clear, and the American Government purposed to state explicitly her dissent. Had not the Japanese policy of indirection and nibbling at China's sovereignty then threatened the Chinese Republic, as it does now, the American Government would have had no need for more than the Japanese assurances given it and the world.

The identic note of May 16, 1915, to China and to Japan obligates America to see to it that the whole framework built by Japan to bind the struggling Chinese Republic in an unnatural alliance is tested in the light of our declared attitude. While all the world stands pledged to give China the square deal, only the United States-unentangled by the alliances of the world war-was free to serve notice on Japan.

That notice of an intention to see

justice done China now stands to the

forefront at the Peace Conference.

The effectiveness of China's appeal for her very life lies in the hands of the United States. Will we forget our Chinese obligations?

PREPARING FOR REVISION OF COMMERCIAL TREATIES

The Empire of Japan is planning a thorough-going revision of its commercial conventions. She expects to reorganize her economic pacts in or

der to be better fitted to take part in the world's trade when conditions return to a normal basis.

In preparing for the postbellum economic developments, Japan has established an Extraordinary Treaty Revision Commission. This will be a new and important addition to the Foreign Office charged with revising

all commercial conventions and working out a fundamental customs. tariff policy.

SIX-MONTH CONVENTION WITH ITALY

Owing to its cancellation at the end of 1917 by the Italian Government, the Japanese-Italian Commercial Treaty was to become inoperative. Negotiations, however, bebetween the two countries concerning

GATHERING FRUITS OF VICTORY

In The Right-About, a paper published by soldier-patients at Debarkation hospitals in New York City, Secretary of War Newton D. Baker says:

"Tell the soldiers, who have fought the battle for democracy and won the victory, that their Commander-in-Chief is gathering the fruits of that victory they have won, and is writing the treaties that will make those fruits everlasting and free to all the peoples of the earth.

"The American Army abroad represented democracy in arms. It was associated with armies representing the democracy of the old world. Together they have made possible a new world in which it is recognized that democracy will be as fundamental in the relations of peoples and nations, as it was previously in America alone.

"The treaties now being written at Versailles will express the aspirations of America, which have become the aspirations of free peoples throughout the world. In this war freedom has triumphed not only with arms, but with ideas."

It is not conceivable that under the guise of a league of nations, an international state can be set up which in a congress, court of arbitration, or any forum whatsoever, could restrain one single ideal, or set aside one principle of America's Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of our country which sprang from it, or the laws, habits and customs of our people, justified by a century and a half of experience, and finding deeper lodgment in the judgment and hearts of mankind than ever before in the history of the world. With this as a fundamental conception, I say that all the advances in thought of all the nations of the earth; all of our common education, our art, science and literature, mean nothing and we still are as naked savages, with the thinnest veneer of hypocrisy covering our stark ugliness, unless out of this awesome slaughter and bloodshed can come a confraternity of men and women, speaking the unanimous voice of all the peoples of the world, and agreeing upon principles not of internal government nor national statesmanship, nor even international polity, but which shall be based upon the single object-the abolition of war.-Frank P. Walsh at League of Nations Congress.

By L. Oppenheim, Whewell Professor of International Law in the University of Cambridge, England, Member of the Institute of International Law, Member of the International Council of the World's Court League.

We may congratulate one another on account of the great victory which the cause of right, justice, and humanity has achieved after more. than four years of hard and desperate fighting in which so many millions of lives had to be sacrificed. If the Central Powers had been victorious, and even if peace had to be concluded without a decided victory, the world would have proved not ripe for a League of Nations. The world would not have been ready either to have all judicial differences settled by an international Court of Justice, or, in case of political differences, to renounce the right of resorting to arms previous to listening to mediation on the part of an International Council of Conciliation. The utter defeat of Prussian militarism was a necessary preliminary to the establishment of a League of Nations, and every real and true pacifist was therefore compelled to range himself against the

Central Powers. But now that the fight for victory in the war is over, another fight begins, namely the fight for a good peace. The millions of lives lost in the World War will have been sacrificed in vain, should the world return to its pre-war conditions under which the Powers faced one another, armed to the teeth, and with the constant fear of a sudden outbreak of war. Only the establishment of an International Court of Justice and an International Council of Conciliation can preserve mankind from another disaster like that which befell it by the outbreak of the World War on August 2, 1914. By the break-up of the Russian and Austrian Empires, and by the disappearance of the Hohenzollern dynasty in Prussia and Germany, the world is freed from the nightmare of autocracy. The road is now everywhere open to constitutional and democratic government, and thereby the reconstruction of international relations on new lines has not only become possible but necessary. Let us hope that, guided by the fourteen points laid down by President Wilson, the Peace Congress assembled at Paris will initiate a new epoch of history.