"20. Why was it necessary to form a commission of four members, one to be designated by each the United States, France, the British Empire, and Italy, to exercise authority over the plebiscite area of Upper Silesia: that is to say, why was it necessary to name the United States as one of the powers which should appoint one of the four commissioners and then leave the decision of such commission to a majority vote?"

THE REPLY OF THE PRESIDENT.

"MY DEAR SENATOR FALL: You left yesterday in my hands certain written questions which I promised you I would answer. I am hastening to fulfill that promise. "I feel constrained to say in reply to your first question not only that in my judgment I have not the power by proclamation to declare that peace exists, but that I could in no circumstances consent to take such a course prior to the ratification of a formal treaty of peace.

"I feel it due to perfect frankness to say that it would, in my poinion, put a stain upon our national honor which we never could efface, if after sending our men to the battlefield to fight the common cause, we should abandon our associates in the war in the settlement of the terms of peace and dissociate ourselves from all responsibility with regard to those terms.

"I respectfully suggest that, having said this, I have in effect answered also your second, third, and fourth questions, so far as I myself am concerned.

"Permit me to answer your fifth question by saying that the provisions of the treaty to which you refer operate merely to establish peace between the powers ratifying and that it is questionable whether it can be said that the league of nations is in any true sense created by the association of only three of the allied and associated governments.

"WOULD REDUCE COST OF LIVING."

"In reply to your sixth question, I can only express the confident opinion that the immediate adoption of the treaty, along with the articles of the covenant of the league as written, would certainly within the near future reduce the cost of living in this country as elsewhere, by restoring production and commerce to their normal strength and freedom.

"For your convenience, I will number the remaining paragraphs of this letter as the questions to which they are intended to reply are numbered.

"7. I have had no official information as to whether Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, or Switzerland will join the league.

"8. I answered your eighth question in reply to a question asked me at our conference the other day.

"9. In February, 1917, Spain was requested to take charge of American interests in Germany through her diplomatic and consular representatives, and no other arrangement has since been made.

10. The committee to prepare plans for the organization of the league, for the establishment of the seat of the league, and for the procedure of the first meeting of the assembly has been appointed, but has not reported..

"11. Article 118 of the peace treaty, part 4, under which Germany renounces all her rights to territory formerly belonging to herself or to her allies, was understood, so far as special provision was not made in the treaty itself for its disposition, as constituting the principal allied and associated powers the authority by which such disposition should ultimately be determined. It conveys no title to those powers, but merely intrusts the disposition of the territory in question to their decision.

"TRUSTEESHIP FOR COLONIES.

"12. Germany's renunciation in favor of the principal allied and associated powers of her rights and titles to her overseas possessions is meant similarly to operate as vesting in these powers a trusteeship with respect of their final disposition and

government.

"13. There has been a provisional agreement as to the disposition of these overseas possessions, whose confirmation and execution is dependent upon the approval of the league of nations, and the United States is a party to that provisional agreement. "14. The only agreement between France and Great Britain with regard to African territory of which I am cognizant concerns the redisposition of rights already possessed by those countries on that continent. The provisional agreement referred to in the preceding paragraph covers all the German overseas possessions in Africa as well as elsewhere.

"15. No mention was made in connection with the settlement of the Saar Basin of the service of an American member of the commission of five to be set up there.

"16. It was deemed wise that the United States should be represented by one member of the commission for settling the new frontier lines of Belgium and Germany, because of the universal opinion that America's representative would add to the commission a useful element of entirely disinterested judgment.

SAAR BASIN UNDER LEAGUE.

"17. The choice of the commission for the Saar Basin was left to the council of the league of nations, because the Saar Basin is for 15 years to be directly under the care and direction of the league of nations.

"18. Article 83 does, in effect, provide that five of the members of the commission of seven to fix the boundaries between Poland and Czechoslovakia should be nominated by certain countries, because there are five principal allied and associated powers, and the nomination of five representatives by those powers necessarily means the nomination of one representative by each of those powers.

"19. No such commission has yet been appointed.

"20. It was deemed wise that the United States should have a representative on the commission set up to exercise authority over the plebiscite of Upper Silesia for the same reason that I have given with regard to the commission for settling the frontier line of Belgium and Germany.

"Sincerely, yours,

"WOODROW WILSON."

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20, 1919.

UNITED STATES SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS,

Washington, D. C.

The committee met, pursuant to adjournment, at 10 o'clock a. m., in room 426, Senate Office Building, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge presiding.

Present: Senators Lodge (chairman), McCumber, Brandegee, Fall, Knox, Harding, Johnson of California, New, Moses, Hitchcock, Williams, Swanson, and Smith of Arizona.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. Mr. Ferguson, will you be heard now?

STATEMENT OF MR. JOHN C. FERGUSON, ADVISER TO THE PRESIDENT OF CHINA.

The CHAIRMAN. Will you please state to the stenographer your full name and address? Also will you please state to us your work in China and your experience there?

Mr. FERGUSON. My name, sir, is John C. Ferguson. I hold an official position under the Chinese Government as adviser to the President of China.

I went to China in 1887; was president of the Nanking University till 1897, and from that time till 1902 was president of the Nanyang College, Shanghai. Since 1894 I have held various advisory positions in connection with the viceroys at Nanking and Wuchang and in the railway administration. Since 1911 I have lived in Peking and have been associated with the four men who have held the office of President of the Republic of China. I am a resident of Newton, Mass. Is that sufficient, sir?

The CHAIRMAN. That covers your service entirely. I should like to know, from your experience, which has been a long one, what has been the general attitude of the United States toward China?

Mr. FERGUSON. I should say that the general attitude of the United States toward China has been one of friendly cooperation and of solicitude for the welfare of China. The United States has scrupulously avoided any interference with the internal administration of China, and avoided any attempt to take part in any seizure of China's territory, or to connive at such seizure on the part of other powers. The CHAIRMAN. Has the United States ever deviated from this policy?

Mr. FERGUSON. Not as far as I have known, either from my experience or from official records. It has had provocation on three different occasions to deviate from the policy, at the request of the Chinese Government, for political reasons.

When concessions were obtained by other powers at the city of Canton in the south of China the United States was offered a special

tract of land to be called a concession for its own administration. It refused to take it over.

When the Shanghai Settlements were arranged-I speak of "Settlements" with a capital S; that is the districts where foreigners live-the British Government was given a settlement, the French Government was given a settlement, and the American Government was offered a settlement known as Hongkew. This settlement was never taken up by the American Government, and was not accepted, though it had been offered to it freely by China.

Senator KNOx. What was the area of this settlement, do you know?

Mr. FERGUSON. I should say about 3 square miles.

Senator BRANDEGEE. Do you remember who was Secretary of State at that time here?

Mr. FERGUSON. That was shortly after the Civil War. I think Mr. Seward was Secretary of State, if I remember correctly, sir.

Again, after the Boxers' War, in 1901, a concession was offered to America at the same time that concessions were requested by Italy and Austria and other powers, at Tientsin, and the United States Government refused to accept the proposition.

So that, as far as I know, in no instance has the United States deviated from that fixed policy.

The CHAIRMAN. How would the Chinese regard our support of what are known as the Shantung questions in the treaty, in view of what you have been saying?

Mr. FERGUSON. I can not speak officially on behalf of the Chinese Government in such a matter, naturally, but I can simply give to the committee my impression, from my close relationship with the Government, as to the opinion, which is that the arrangement proposed under the treaty would be considered by the Chinese-and is so considered as a deviation from our policy, and that irrespective of whether the leased territory of Kaiochow is given to Japan for a short period or for a long period. That China has considered that the lease which she made with Germany in 1898 was voided by her declaration of war against Germany, and that in the nature of the lease itself it is not a transferable lease. No such experience has ever occurred in China, where there are many concessions held by foreign nations, as that a lease given for the residential purposes of one nation should be transferred for any cause to another nation.

Senator BRANDEGEE. I was called out of the room for a minute, and will you let me ask you a question? I did not hear whether you said that this concession which Germany had, which is now, under this treaty, transferred to Japan, in itself provided that it should be nontransferable.

Mr. FERGUSON. I did not make that statement, Senator.
Senator BRANDEGEE. No.

Mr. FERGUSON. I said that under the general precedents no such transfer had ever occurred, and that China considered, in granting such leases, always that they were nontransferable.

Senator HITCHCOCK. Doctor, does not the lease provide in its terms that it may be transferred with the consent of China, or that it shall not be transferred except with the consent of China?

Mr. FERGUSON. No, sir; that question had never been raised up to that time in China to my knowledge, and I might say, sir, that Ĩ

have been, through the granting of concessions, one of the agents of the Chinese Government in making such arrangements for concessions

Senator HITCHCOCK. Are you sure that expression is not in there? Senator BRANDEGEE. Let him finish his sentence.

The CHAIRMAN. Let the witness finish his statement.

Mr. FERGUSON. I am not sure with reference to the text of the treaty which was made in March, 1898, with Germany, without reference to it; but speaking from memory I should say that it contains no such clause, because up to that time the question had never been raised and never been thought of as a possible thing.

Senator HITCHCOCK. Now, assuming that I am right, and that the clause appears in there that it shall not be transferred except with the consent of China, would it not follow that if China gave her consent it would be transferable?

Mr. FERGUSON. I suppose so

Senator HITCHCOCK. And that that would be contemplated as one of the possibilities?

Mr. FERGUSON. Yes, but I might say that that was never contemplated as a possibility in the granting of a foreign concession to any nation, that it would be transferred to another nation. I may say, Senator, that in the railway contracts it has been explicitly stated, in several railway contracts which China has made, that the rights can not be transferred to any third nation without the explicit consent of the Chinese Government to it.

Senator HITCHCOCK. So that if in this treaty made with Germany, by which this concession was secured, the clause does appear that it can not be transferred without the consent of China, it would be unusual, and would imply that the possibility was contemplated of China giving her consent?

Mr. FERGUSON. Yes, though I think it does not occur.

Senator BRANDEGEE. If that provision was in the lease, that it could be transferred with the consent of China, and the consent of China was obtained under duress, that would not be a compliance with the provision, would it?

Mr. FERGUSON. I should think not, sir.

Senator MCCUMBER. But as a matter of fact, China did consent to its transfer, did she not?

Mr. FERGUSON. She did, under duress.

Senator McCUMBER. And she consented to it before she entered into the war?

Mr. FERGUSON. Yes.

Senator MCCUMBER. Well, the duress was practically the same kind of a duress that was exercised by all of the other governments in obtaining concessions, was it not?

Mr. FERGUSON. No, sir; i was an unusual duress.

Senator MCCUMBER. Do you not think there was a duress exercised in all of these concessions, to Great Britain and France

Mr. FERGUSON. There was always a duress exercised for the transfer of every bit of Chinese territory to any alien nation, whether that duress was military, financial, or political; it was some type of duress.

Senator MCCUMBER. So Japan was following the course of the Caucasian nations in obtaining her concessions?