Wilson in his note published March 31, 1920, said: "justice and fair dealing demand that the cities of Adrianople and Kirk Kilisse and the surrounding territory should become part of Bulgaria." Again, the Nationalist Turks, having obtained by resistance and delay so large a part of their demands, are not likely to recede easily from their insistence upon the retention of Adrianople. They might conceivably be left this city also if the Powers would yield to the Greeks Rhodes and Cyprus, which are Greek by race and preference, and in no sense except possession Italian or British. The present plan has behind it, however, an agreement for the time being between England and France, and these will no doubt press acceptance strongly upon Greece and Turkey.

It appears that the representatives of the two Powers could not see alike as regards the future of Armenia, and have passed over to the League of Nations the task of finding a "homeland" for that distressed people. Since Turkish sovereignty is apparently to be maintained as far as the eastern frontier of 1914, the Armenian "homeland" can hardly include effectively any considerable portion of Turkish Armenia. What the League of Nations can do in Bolshevized Russian Armenia is equally problematical. It is unfortunate that sufficient energy could not have been generated to establish and protect an Armenian state of practicable size. That having been arranged, so universal an interest as the control of the Straits might well have been entrusted permanently to the League of Nations, provided with adequate means.

In general, the success of the current plan or of any plan for the renewal of political and economic life in the Near East depends wholly upon first, the justice, and after that the sincerity and reality of agreement among the controlling Powers of the world. Particularly deplorable in the efforts toward a real and right solution is the abstinence of America from direct participation.

THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE AND THE FOREIGN POLICIES OF JAPAN

By Frederick Moore, Foreign Counsellor to the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs

It is only in an indirect way that I am able to comply with the request of the Journal of International Relations for an estimate of the success of the Washington Conference from a Japanese point of view, for while I am an official of the Japanese Foreign Office I cannot speak in that capacity. But, as an American who has had an opportunity to obtain the Japanese viewpoint, what I say may be of some interest.

I was much struck with a simple statement appearing in the New York World at the conclusion of the Conference. The World said:

The way to measure the importance of the Naval Treaty is to remember what would have happened had there been no agitation for disarmament, no Washington Conference, no Hughes proposal, and no agréement.

We should have gone ahead with a programme for the greatest navy in the world. Japan would have gone ahead with her programme to prevent us from building too far ahead of her. Great Britain would have had to increase her naval programme to prevent Japan and America from outdistancing her. Then about 1924 or so we should have had to make a new programme to keep Japan and Great Britain from catching up to us. And they would have had to have more programmes in order to catch up with us. .In order to make people pay the taxes, people in each country would have had to be kept in a state of palpitating excitement about the sinister plots, the hidden spies, and the tremendous ambitions of the other two nations.

The Japanese are as glad to be relieved of all this as we are. That is their foremost reason for regarding the Conference as an overwhelming success and for hoping that a new era has been established in the world.

It is a remarkable change that has suddenly taken place. Up to the memorable day of the opening of the Conference,

we Americans, many of us, seemed to be losing our perspective in the outlook towards the Orient. We did not seem to realize that the Great War left the United States absolutely secure from dangers of attack by any other Power. We heard talk of war with Japan, and some of us looked with suspicion on the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, questioning Great Britain's commitments. In this respect the Conference was remarkably valuable: even if nothing more should have come out of it than the education it gave us in Far Eastern and Pacific matters, and the demonstration of our own comparative might, it would have achieved much.

The lesson came to us on the first day of the Conference, when President Harding stated that we harbored no fears and Mr. Hughes bore out this declaration with the significant proposal of a 5-5-3 naval limitation, based on existing navies. Suddenly and definitely we were pulled up and set right by a group of five practical men-the President and the four American delegates-who had studied the matter of sea-power and knew that, however several groups of men may have tried to mislead us, we as a nation are without actual or even potential danger on any side. To the north, to the south, to the east, or to the west there is not a single nation that can assault us with any chance of success. This unparalleled geographical position, coupled with our wealth of man-power, extent of territory, and natural resources, gave us that prestige which was necessary for the summoning of the Conference; and it was a practical lesson to us to see how other naval powers readily acceded to our proposals.

The World War left only three great navies upon the seas-one belonging to Europe, one to America, and one to Asia. At the conclusion of the war, the Japanese navy was a little over half the size of ours, but, 7000 miles away and supported by no such supply of resources as we possess, it was never designed to be a menace to us and could not be. The British navy was approximately double the size of ours; but that navy, with the exception of one brief period during our Civil War, had always been greater than ours and had

not endangered us for a hundred years. And for both moral and practical reasons it has been a cornerstone of British foreign policy for half a century to keep the peace with us at practically any price.

But in spite of this splendid situation we proceeded with our 1916 naval project after the conclusion of the war, and many enthusiastic spirits among us hailed the advantage we were taking to make evident our ability to outbuild the rest of the world. Our program provided for the completion of sixteen capital post-Jutland ships in 1924, which was a larger number than Great Britain and Japan together would complete. Each of these ships, to say nothing of the rest of the navy or its upkeep, was to cost, in initial construction, $40,000,000 or more-sufficient money, the cost of one ship alone, to save all the child life of Europe that has suffered and died of cold and starvation this winter.

If such a project was to be carried to completion, it had to be justified in the eyes of the American people or they would not stand for it; and the effort was made by some men to explain it by developing distrust of the motives and intentions of Japan, and in a minor degree, of Great Britain. The Anglo-Japanese Alliance, to which we had never before objected, became a thing of possible menace to us, although the Japanese government had understood for years that in case of conflict with the United States Great Britain would not participate on their side.

It may have been natural for a nation like ours, so remote in fact as well as in spirit from the affairs of Europe and of Asia, to go through a disturbed period for a year or two after such a ghastly catastrophe as the war that recently ended; but it was fortunate for us and for the world that this Conference came and cleared the air. For our lack of knowledge made us the prey to suspicion that was needless.

When the World War ended it left the nations of Europe, all of them, so heavily in debt and so thoroughly exhausted that by comparison this country of ours became a superstate. It is such now and will remain such for many years to come-in fact, as far as can be seen into the future. We are still progressing materially as no other nation is,

and we still have space and territory for millions upon millions of people. Our population per square mile is approximately 35 persons; while that of England is 370, and that of Japan is 396—which means eleven and twelve to our one.

Sometimes when I listen to fellow Americans talking about our international righteousness and generosity, I am reminded of Mr. Rockefeller and the munificent manner in which he gives away millions while the average citizen is careful in bestowing his hundreds upon charity. The United States can afford to be lavish as no other country in the world can. We can outbuild the other navies of the world at any time that we want to; we can and do distribute more charity than any other country. But our basic wage in the United States is three dollars a day, while that of England is about a half and that of Japan about a fifth. Nor is that all: In England a man with an income of $4000 pays, I believe, $1000 of it in income tax; and the Japanese are also very heavily taxed. Here in the United States a man with an income of $4000 pays annually, if he is a single man, $120, and less if he is married. We are generous with our money-no one can dispute that; but it seems to me we could afford more generosity of spirit and less inclination to criticize those countries which are eminent in doing the work of the world, even though they may not be at all times idealistic in their methods.

But let me draw your attention to the fact that Japan, as has been stated by the Japanese delegates, has cost China very few lives, while it cannot be disputed that once at least, in the war against Russia, she protected China from a most menacing aggression and that among her foremost objectives for many years has been provision for the security of China against any further encroachments from Occidental nations. That is also a first principle in her Siberian program today-anticipation of a possibly formidable return of Russia to the East. With assurance of protection given China, it is probable that no Japanese advocates of an aggressive policy on the part of their country will again be able to catch the ear of the Japanese people