matter under discussion at the moment was the disposition of the German colonies. As you may recall, at that time they had advanced the theory that the German colonies were to be detached from Germany, but that their disposition would be turned over to a league of nations if such a thing was organized, to be disposed of by them, and they brought forward this idea of mandatories. They were discussing the disposition of the German colonies, and President Wilson, as I understand it, proposed that they could just brush this question of the German colonies off to one side by agreeing at that session that they should be detached from Germany. and their disposition invested in the league of nations or some other international trusteeship, to be parceled out afterwards under the mandatory theory in some form, and by that method they would simply get that question disposed of and out of the way, and they could go on to other business. There was a general agreement and it looked like it would be passed unanimously, but the Japanese plenipotentiary, Baron Makino, who was sitting in the council, interposed an objection. They asked him what was the objection. He said Japan could not consent to that. When asked for his reasons, he said that Japan could not consent because she already had private engagements with her allies regarding the Shantung question.

President Wilson then asked, or some one asked, what was the nature of those private agreements. Baron Makino said they were confidential, and he did not feel at liberty to communicate them without conferring with the other Allied governments and with his own government. President Wilson then asked that it be made the sense of the council that the Japanese Government be requested to produce the text of those agreements and to lay them upon the table for the information of the council. That action was taken as the sense of the conucil, and the result was that at the next meeting the text of those agreements was produced. They are known as the Shantung secret agreements, and were produced confidentially. I can say from my own knowledge, coming direct from the Chinese delegation at Paris, that that was the first knowledge which the Chinese Government had of their existence, although myself and many of us had suspected the possible existence of those agreements. from various circumstantial indications, for at least a couple of years. In fact I had for some time felt morally certain of them You could not explain in any other way certain things that had happened. Therefore those agreements revealed that at different dates, from I believe the 16th of February on to the 7th of March and on certain intervening dates, Japan had obtained

Senator HITCHCOCK. In what year?

Mr. MILLARD. In 1917-that Japan had obtained from the British. the French, the Russian, and the Italian Governments written engagements in the case of the British, French, and Russian Govern ments, and oral statements from the Italian Government-by which those nations assented and would support Japan at the Peace Conference in having yielded to her Germany's rights and leaseholds in Shantung Province.

There was one other interesting thing brought out in the French note replying to the Japanese note on that question. France made certain conditions, one of which was that Japan would withdraw her

objections to China entering that war on the allied side. You will find that in the text of the French note, thereby getting it down in black and white, what everybody had known for various reasons to be the fact, that Japan had been keeping China out of the allied group ever since the war started. If you will note the dates of the signing of those agreements you will see that they coincide with our severance of diplomatic relations with Germany and with the efforts which I have just narrated by which we were inducing China to come into the war, which was in February and March, 1917. I guess it was early in March. China, I think, actually took that step on the 9th of March, 1917. However, as we all had been morally certain, but as Mr. Lansing disclosed positively the other day, our Government did not know of the existence of those agreements until we learned of it at Paris, in the manner which I have described, at the same time that China did.

China was urging them to give her assurances in the same way she was urging us to give assurances, but the British, Russian, and French Governments would not give any assurances that the territorial rights of China would be protected, because they had already signed them away to Japan, or were on the verge of doing so; but if China had known it at that time and we had known it at that time, it was reasonable to assume it would have had some influence upon the action of China and upon the action of the United States. If we had been appraised of it at that time we would have said to the nations flatly, "You musy agree to this." We were in a position at that moment to have demanded any conditions from any of those governments, anything in reason that we had said we wanted, and we could have protected China positively by saying, "Here, these things must be unwritten, these things must be wiped out. It will be understood that we will all be there to act on a footing of justice to China when the time comes."

Mr. Lansing also disclosed the other day that at the time of the Lansing-Ishii agreement we also were not informed of it, and after we had declared war on Germany and were in the war, and Mr. Balfour and M. Viviani came over here, they did not tell us, but we were allowed to go ahead and get China into the war under those circumstances, without that information.

After that disclosure at Paris-the date of which Mr. Lansing fixes at January 29-I thought it was early in February-then it was evident in respect to China's case at the peace conference that she had to submit her case to a court of five, because Japan was added to the council of four on the Far Eastern question, and that of those five, four members of the court had signed a secret agreement in advance to decide against her. Under those circumstances it became a question as to whether or not our Government would or could exert its influence upon the British, French, Japanese, and Italian Governments. Russia was also a signatory to one of those secret Shantung agreements, but she was not represented in the conference. The revolution had eliminated Russia. Under those circumstances, as I say, it became a question as to whether or not our Government could prevail upon them to scrap those secret Shantung agreements and to make what we considered to be a proper solution of the Shantung matter, in justice to ourselves and to

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China there. That was the situation I found when I got to Paris. I went over to see Dr. Kou immediately, and one of the first things he said to me was, "Do you know of the secret Shantung agreements?" I said, "I know nothing about them except that I saw a short telegram in one of the New York papers from Paris indicating that something of the facts had been disclosed." I said, "Is it à fact?" He said, "Yes, we have the texts, but of course the texts are confidential at present." He gave me a synopsis of their contents, and I as rapidly as I could posted myself up on the situation of what had transpired before I had arrived at Paris, and from that time on I could follow the developments with more or less intelligence. I was constantly in touch with the experts attached to our commission, the experts on the far eastern question. I had been personally acquainted with all of them for many years. I saw them all almost daily.

Senator JOHNSON of California. State their names, will you?

Mr. MILLARD. The official ones were Dr. E. T. Williams and Prof. Hornbeck, who ranked over there as a captain; and at different times certain naval and military officers were brought into the thing on those angles.

I will say in that connection that on several occasions, when I would prepare little memoranda for the advice and information of the Chinese on certain developments from Japan, I would always take a copy over and give it to our own experts on the commission for their information. The whole thing, as far as China was concerned at Paris, was conducted with the greatest intimacy with the American delegation. Every move that China made was immediately communicated to the American commission.

Every move that any foreign advisor of China made, she immediately communicated to the American experts. Of course none of us could tell whether they went on higher up or whether they did not. We turned them in for the information of Prof. Williams and Prof. Hornbeck. I had various conversations with Dr. Morrison, whom I had known for twenty years, and who probably of all foreigners knows more about the politics and conditions of the Far East than any man, because he is a methodical man and has kept his notes for years, and he indexes them and files them. He is simply a walking encyclopedia of the politics of China of the last 30 years.

Senator JOHNSON of California. Where is he now?

Mr. MILLARD. He is in England now, I believe. At that time he was sick, and his wife had to come over and take him to England. He became ill so he took very little part in matters after I arrived there on account of his illness. But I went up and had several talks with Dr. Morrison about the situation, because he particularly was in touch with the British end of it, being a British subject, and I found that he was very doubtful as to what England was, and he felt very gloomy about the situation. He told me that he was afraid that the sense of the French and British Governments was to make the Shantung agreement stick. I found that our own experts were very much mystified by the official attitude regarding China of the British and French Governments, particularly of the British. They would go over and talk to the men who held corresponding positions to them, and the Far East experts of the British Commission, and they could not fathom-they would know how these men stood-but

back of that there was the superior policy of the Government. One thing accumulated after another, and they felt that the British and French were against them, which turned out afterwards to be the

case.

The situation drifted along in that position and became sidetracked. China meanwhile discovered the psychology of the situation and acting upon the advice of a number of those whose opinions were asked, she interposed a proposal to compromise the matter which opened a way out.

Senator POMERENE. China did?

Mr. MILLARD. China did. It had developed by that time pretty concisely the attitude of the different nations. The attitude of Great Britain and France was that they would have to stand by these secret agreements unless the United States somehow or other persuaded Japan to recede. Japan was saying "We insist upon Germany ceding her possession there to us, because we have promised to restore it to China, and we want to do that in our own way, and any other solution would indicate to the people that they do not take our word for it, and would dishonor us, and so forth, and so on." China proposed a compromise by way of getting around the difficulty. That proposal was made on April 23, in writing to the council of four, and it was in four points. I quote now the sense of it from memory.

The first part was that China would consent to have the treaty of peace cede the German rights in Shantung direct to Japan, provided the other members of the council of four would be, you might say, cotrustees for the eventual turning over of it to China, or a league of nations or whatever body should be organized to carry out these processes.

Japan had made a great deal over there of the enormous expense she had been to in capturing Shantung and driving Germany out of the Far East. China's second proposal to compromise was that she would reimburse Japan for those expenses.

Japan had gotten in the 1918 agreement-I have described how she obtained it a special concession that she was to reserve to herself Tsing Tau, which included railway tunnels, docks, water front, and the whole port machinery. China proposed that during such period when other foreign residential conditions exist in China, Tsing Tau be made an international port.

And the fourth one was merely that Japan would also in the treaty record a definite promise to restore and evacuate Shantung and restore Tsing Tau within a certain specific time. As I say, that proposal was communicated in writing on April 23 by the Chinese delegation to the council of four. Before the decision was made it was known that it was coming up for decision very shortly. Meanwhile all along China had been pressing for a consideration of this thing. She had presented her case in print and in various ways had been pressing to get the thing out of the way. Japan had been retarding it. That compromise was taken under advisement as I understand it by the council of four but Japan objected and succeeded in defeating it.

I do not know what her objection was based on, but it is interesting now to recall that she did reject that proposal, in view of the state, ments that they are making now that she is proposing to interna

tionalize Tsing Tau, which means that she is proposing to hold the kernel of the nut and turn over the shell, and various other claims which she is making now.

It is interesting to put into the record the fact that she was instrumental in rejecting the proposed compromise of the Chinese Government, which would seem to an impartial mind to have met the situation fully, provided Japan has any real intention of getting out of Shantung.

After this decision was announced the Chinese were naturally very much disappointed. The President's reasons were given to them, that he was forced to make this decision because of the uncompromising attitude taken by Japan, which amounted virtually to a threat to bolt the conference and to refuse to join the league of nations. The President was afraid of the general effect upon the world of that thing happening. Of course, I may say here that the President seems to have been about the only one of the powers that seemed to think that Japan's threat was more than a pure bluff. But at any rate he did not think so. He apprehended that that might take place, and he acted accordingly, and he told the Chinese-or rather he did not tell them personally, but sent them word—that he felt that from the oral promise that had been obtained before the Council of Four from Japan, taken in conjunction with the relief which China might obtain from the league of nations, China could eventually get justice by that method.

To that the Chinese delegation responded in substance as follows: In the first place the league of nations had no existence, and in the second place, that if it was organized, its power and authority were problematical. In the third place, that it was not logical to assume that a league of nations, adopted by the same vote and in conjunction with the treaty of peace, would design to reverse the provisions of that treaty. In the fourth place, that the real ruling power, the supreme council, of the league, would be constituted by the same nations as made the Shantung decision in the council of four.

Senator BORAH. You say this was the Chinese reply?

Mr. MILLARD. Yes. And in the fifth place, that as near as China could make out, it was only the weak nations that were asked to depend for justice upon the league, for the strong powers were taking every other outside precaution to protect their interests.

However the decision had been made, and China's pleas from that on were in the nature of doing what she could to amend or better herself in that position. She made various requests for interviews with the President and others. I remained in Paris several weeks longer and China had not seen the President up to that time, but China's representatives were subsequently received by him, and they were received by Mr. Balfour and the French representative, and they gave the information that they found they had been bound by the secret agreements and that Japan had made oral promises when they felt Japan intended to carry out.

And then this happened after I left Paris; but I have the information from a man who was attached to the Chinese delegation or who left Paris after I did. I advised in a memorandum which I wrote, a copy of which I have here somewhere on the situation-I advised the Chinese to take a certain course. One of the things that I suggestedand I showed this to Prof. Williams and Prof. Horbeck, also, and they