mission to Negotiate Peace

the Council of Four. Chinda told Lansing flatly that the Japanese delegates "had instructions from home that if the German rights were not renounced in favour of Japan, the Japanese delegates were not to sign the Treaty."

The three days, April 28, 29, and 30, were the crucial days of the struggle.

Mr. Balfour had conferred with Baron Makino and presented a memorandum to the Three, showing, as President Wilson remarked, a "decided approach in the Japanese attitude.”1

President WILSON [said] he had told the United States delegation that his line was this:-"If Japan will return Kiauchau and Shantung to China and relinquish all sovereign rights and will reduce her claims to mere economic concessions foregoing all military rights, I would regard it as returning these possessions to China on better terms than Germany had held them."

Mr. BALFOUR said that there was no doubt whatsoever that Japan was returning these territories to China on incomparably better terms than Germany had held them.

President WILSON said his experts did not agree.

Mr. BALFOUR said that the United States' experts had not heard the Japanese case. The same had applied to his expert, Mr. Macleay.

Mr. BALFOUR continued that the Japanese Government now in power was not the same government as had made the Treaty of 1915 with China. He honestly believed that this Government intended adopting a more liberal policy and had been influenced by what the Japanese representatives had learned in Paris.2

Up to the very last hour of the final decision on April 29, the President was strongly hopeful of finding some more liberal solution. The present writer saw him frequently during these days and knows how he took the problem to heart. He had asked me to gather certain 1See Volume III, Document 42, for copy of Balfour memorandum and subsequent letter.

2Secret Minutes, Council of Four, April 28.

information for him which I did, from the Chinese and the American experts, E. T. Williams and S. K. Hornbeck, and took up to him before the critical meeting of the Three on April 29. He examined the material and the maps carefully.

"There is no possible doubt," I find in my diary of that day, "as to where the President's sympathies lie: he is for the Chinese I made as strong a case as I could for the Chinese position, urging some postponement, at least. The President pointed out how inextricably the whole matter was tied up with old treaties, how Great Britain felt herself bound to Japan and how, with Italy already out, Belgium bitterly discontented, the defection of Japan might not only break up the Peace Conference but destroy the League of Nations."

When the Japanese delegates came in a little later to the Council of Three there was another involved discussion, covering all the old ground. Viscount Chinda did not wish to go so far in making concessions and in defining Japanese intentions as Baron Makino had gone with Mr. Balfour. The President fought for a clearer agreement as to what Japan meant by the control of the police and whether it was to be in the hands of the Japanese Government or in that of the railroad directorate upon which the Chinese were also represented.

The President well knew that public opinion in the United States would be against such concessions to the Japanese. His commissioners and his experts were all strong on that point. General Bliss, whose judgment the President greatly trusted, wrote a letter to him on that very day opposing the plan to "abandon the democracy of China to the domination of the Prussianized militarism of Japan."

The President knew that he was likely to find American

public opinion against him. In the Council of Three and in the presence of the Japanese:

President WILSON said it was extremely difficult for him in the face of public opinion in the United States of America to assent to any part of the arrangement. He was seeking a way to make it possible for him to agree, and it was not a simple matter. Public opinion in the United States did not agree to the transfer of the concession. He was bound to tell the Japanese representatives that. He was trying to see all views and to find a way out. In these circumstances it greatly increased his difficulty, if there were even an appearance of unusual control insisted on, particularly if the transfer of rights to Japan was greater than those exercised by Germany.1

The actual and final declaration or agreement by the Japanese, which, while it was not to be a part of the Treaty itself, was a supplementary understanding, was made on the morning of April 30 and the secret record of the Three is here so important that it is fully quoted:

In reply to questions by President Wilson-the Japanese Delegates declared that:

"The policy of Japan is to hand back the Shantung penin-
sula in full sovereignty to China retaining only the economic
privileges granted to Germany and the right to establish a
settlement under the usual conditions at Tsingtao.

The owners of the Railway will use special Police only to
ensure security for traffic. They will be used for no other
purpose.

The Police Force will be composed of Chinese and such Jap-
anese instructors as the Directors of the Railway may select
will be appointed by the Chinese Government."

Viscount CHINDA made it clear that in the last resort, if China failed to carry out the agreements-if, for example, she would not assist in the formation of the Police Force or the employment of Japanese Instructors, the Japanese Government reserved the right to fall back on the Agreements of 1915 and 1918.

President WILSON pointed out that by that time Japan and China 'Secret Minutes, Council of Four, April 29.