Japan's position regarding the regarding the Far Eastern settlement has been expressed by the Japanese Ambassador to the United States, Viscount Kikujiro Ishii. He stated:

"The only important question now is with regard to China, especially in regard to the so-called Shantung question. The best way to treat this question is to expose before the American public the true facts of the case, as the facts explain themselves.

"In 1898 China granted to Germany a 99year leasehold of Kiao-chow, in the Province of Shantung. The lease included the Bay of Kiao-chow and its surrounding district, together with mining concessions along the Tsingtao-Tsinan Railway, which railway also was granted to Germany. Thus Germany acquired from China two kinds of concessions, first, the territorial leasehold, and, second, concessions of an economic character.

"After Japan had driven the Germans from the Shantung Peninsula, following a two-months' siege, Japan took the initiative and offered to surrender to China the German leasehold, upon the transfer to Japan,' by right of conquest, of the said leased territory, being consented to by Germany in the Peace Conference. Japan's voluntary offer to restore it to China was, of course, of the

greatest advantage to China, as China was entirely powerless to recover, by her own means, her territorial sovereignty in Shantung for seventy-five years more.

"The Treaty of 1915 placed China in a position to recover this important advantage without sacrificing either blood or treasure. Therefore, the Treaty of 1915 was not an unfair transaction, but was exceptionally advantageous from China's point of view. So far as the territorial integrity of China is concerned, it is, for those reasons, entirely in favor of China.

"There remains the second kind of concession, the economic concession, which Japan was to retain in her hands as in the days of German occupation. Here again Japan's goodwill toward China went so far as to offer to withdraw her civil and military administration from the railway zone, by withdrawing troops and police forces, and making the Shantung-Tsinan Railway a joint enterprise of Japan and China, instead of an absolutely foreign administration, as it was under the German occupation.

“That was the purport of the accord of September, 1918. Thus China acquired by the Treaty of 1915 the recovery of her entire territorial sovereignty, and by the accord of 1918 she further acquired participation in the administration of the former German railway from Kiao-chow to Tsinan.

"When Japan took possesion of Kiaochow by force of arms in 1914, China remained neutral. Japan's action in Shantung even met with protest from China. Since November, 1914, Japan has occupied Kiao-chow and the railway zone from that port to Tsinan, the capital of the province, by right of conquest.

"Three years afterward-that is, in 1917– China declared war against Germany. But the declaration of war remained only on paper, there being no German forces in

China then, and China having sent none of her forces abroad. China's declaration of war could not possibly change the state of things which had existed since 1914.

"Therefore, the Chinese argument that China's declaration of war against Germany had ipso facto annulled the leasehold treaty of 1898 had no legal ground, in view of the fact that Japan had, three years before China's declaration of war, replaced Germany in Shantung."

The statement of the Chinese Delegation at the Paris Conference, protesting the disposal of the Shantung question by the Great Powers, says:

"The Chinese delegation has been informed orally on behalf of the Council of Three of the outline of the settlement proposed regarding the Shantung question. Under this settlement all rights to Kiao-chow, formerly belonging to Germany, are transferred to Japan. While Japan voluntarily engages to hand back the Shantung peninsula in full sovereignty to China, she is allowed to retain the economic privileges formerly enjoyed by Germany.

"These privileges, the delegation is informed, refer to the Tsingtao-Tsinan Railway, 280 miles long, the mines connected with it, and the two railways to be built connecting Shantung with the two trunk lines from Peking to the Yangsze Valley. In addition, she obtains the right to establish a settlement at Tsintao and, although the Japanese military forces, it is understood, will be withdrawn at the earliest possible moment, the employment of special railway police is permitted.

"Such being the outline of the proposed settlement, the Chinese delegation cannot but view it with disappointment and dissatisfaction.

"These German rights in Shantung originated in an act of wanton aggression in 1897,

To

characteristic of Prussian militarism. transfer these rights to Japan, as the Council of Three proposes to do, is, therefore, to confirm an act of aggression, which has been resented by the Chinese people ever since its perpetration.

"Such a virtual substitution of Japan for Germany in Shantung is serious enough in itself, but it becomes grave when the position of Japan in Southern Manchuria and Eastern Mongolia is read in connection with it. Firmly intrenched on both side of the Gulf of Pechili, the water outlet of Peking, with a hold on the three trunk lines from Peking and connecting it with the rest of China, the capital becomes but an enclave in the midst of Japanese influence.

"Moreover, owing to China's declaration of war against the Central Powers on Aug. 14, 1917, and the abrogation of all treaties and agreements between China and these Powers, the German rights automatically reverted to China. This declaration was officially notified to and taken cognizance of by the allied and associated Governments. It is, therefore, significant that the Council in announcing the settlement of the Kiaochow-Shantung question referred to the rights to be transfered to Japan as 'the rights formerly belonging to Germany.'

"It appears clear, then, that the Council has been bestowing on Japan the rights, not of Germany, but of China; not of an enemy, but of an ally. The more powerful ally has reaped a benefit at the expense, not of the common enemy, but of a weaker ally. . . . "Japan based its claim for the German

rights in Shantung also on the treaty and notes of 1915, and the notes of 1918 with China. It is to be noted, however, that the documents of 1915 were agreed to by China under coercion of an ultimatum threatening war in case of non-compliance with the twenty-one demands.

"The notes of 1918 were made by China as the price for Japan's promise to withdraw her troops, whose presence in the interior of Shantung, as well as the establishment of Japanese civil administration had aroused such popular opposition that the Chinese Government felt constrained to make the arrangement.

"The Chinese delegation understands that the Council was prompted by the fact that Great Britain and France had undertaken in February and March, 1917, to support at the Peace Conference the transferring to Japan of the German rights in Shantung. To none of these secret agreements was China a party, nor was she informed of their contents when invited to join the war against the Central Empires. The fortunes of China

appear thus to have been made objects of negotiation and compensation after she had already definitely allied herself with the Allied Powers.

"Apart from this, it is at least open to question how far these agreements will be applicable, inasmuch as China has since become a belligerent. The claims of Japan referred to in this agreement appear, moreover, to be scarcely compatible with the Fourteen Points adopted by the powers associated against Germany.

"If the Council has granted the claims of Japan in full for the purpose of saving the League of Nations, as is intimated to be the case, China has less to complain of, believing, as she does, that it is a duty to make sacrifices for such a noble cause as the League of Nations. She cannot, however, refrain from wishing that the Council had seen fit, as would be far more consonant with the spirit of the League now on the eve of formation, to call upon strong Japan to forego her claims animated by a desire for aggrandizement, instead of upon weak China to surrender what is hers by right. . . ."

transcends in international importance a majority of the questions of European politics which have deadlocked the Peace Conference for months while the world has waited anxiously for peace, and with respect to the fundamental interests of America it is more important than most of those questions combined.

That the decision of the Conference, rather of the Council of Four, for the conference as a whole was not consulted, was very unsatisfactory to China you have learned from public sources. That the decision also was unsatisfactory to most of the governments that participated in the decision you may not know. I know of only one nation-Japan-that is at all satisfied by the decision, if, indeed, Japan is entirely satisfied. Great Britain and France were obligated to take the attitude their representatives did in this question by agreements secretly entered into with Japan early in the year 1917, made at a moment, it is now interesting to recall, when the war was at a very critical stage for the Allies, and when the United States and China (China because of the advice of the American government) were considering the question of declaring war; yet neither the Chinese nor American governments were apprised of the existence of those secret agreements until some time after the Peace Conference met in Paris, when President Wilson, at a meeting of the Council of Ten, insisted that copies be placed on the council table. Among Frenchmen and British with whom I talked in Paris there was no pretense that

the treatment accorded to China represented the sentiment of the French and British peoples. Political expediency dictated the attitudes of the French and British Governments.

Political expediency, and political expediency alone, also dictated dictated the action of President Wilson in assenting to that decision. I can state, with perfect certainty of the accuracy of what I say, that the President's action in this matter was contrary to the opinion of three of his four plenipotentiary colleagues, and was directly opposed to the unanimous advice of all the official experts attached to the American Commission to negotiate peace political, military and naval experts who had studied the various aspects of the question. For instance, military and. naval experts gave opinions on the military and naval effects of a Japanese foothold in Shantung upon both China and the United States to the effect that such a position of Japan endangered the defensive position of China vitally, and also dislocated the international balance in eastern Asia to the probable disadvantage of America. Political and economic experts gave opinions that to establish Japan in possession of the former the former German railway and other industrial rights in China is tantamount to impairing seriously China's political and economic autonomy.

That President Wilson himself was not content with the decision of the Council of Four in the case of