Peacemakers—Blessed and Otherwise / Observations, Reflections and Irritations at an International Conference

by Ida M. Tarbell

Young China answered this pertinent inquiry: “It was Old China that arranged those things. You are dealing now with a new China, one that does not intend to barter its inheritance, that proposes to rule its own; a China that will no longer submit to having a carving knife applied to its heart.

“What Old China did we inherited and must make the best of, but it is our duty to see that no nation on earth ever again takes from us what we do not willingly give. You must abandon your effort to direct our policies, administer our railroads, keep your troops on our soil.”

What frightened my doorkeeper, who got his views from the press, and the press that got its views from a hundred conflicting sources, was how peacefully Japan’s right to food for her people and China’s right to her own were to be squared. Could the one inalienable right be fitted into the other inalienable right by other means than force? Of course there were many places on the earth beside China where Japan might expand, but search as they would these anxious observers did not find any available spot except in Asia.

One of the chief occupations of these friends of mine in Washington as the peace conference opened was trying to find some territory from which Japan could get her food; something the Conference could “give” her; something that would satisfy her. As things now are such a search must start with the provision that there is nothing for Japan on the Western Hemisphere. Obviously there is no place for her in Europe. Australia will not have her; we will not have her.

“If it were a question of war or restricted immigration,” I asked a Californian in the course of the Far Eastern discussion, “which would you choose?” The look of surprise at the question answered me—“War.” I received the same reply from a Canadian—from an American labor leader—and they were all “pacifists”!

The narrower the confines were drawn around Japan, the more hysterical observers grew in their search, the more they insisted the Conference must “give” Japan something. “Give it Eastern Siberia!” But what right did the Conference have to deal with any part of Siberia? The United States had finally settled her attitude to this suggestion by declaring that she would not consider any partitioning of Russian territory. She refused to countenance the carving up of Russia as she did the further carving up of China. She refused even to recognize the government that was now struggling to plant itself in Eastern Siberia. It was Russia’s problem to take care of the Far Eastern Republic. She must be free, as China must be free, to work out her own destiny.

Then “give” Japan Manchuria! She already had important recognized rights in Southern Manchuria, rights that came from old wars; the territory borders on Korea which Japan holds and governs, and undoubtedly the Conference would not dispute her claim to Korea, since that claim stands on about the same kind of a bottom as England’s claim to Hongkong and France’s to Tonkin. It was the fruit of the nation’s dealing with Old China. This being so and Japan having her established hold in Southern Manchuria and having made a remarkable record, give her the country.

But here came Young China again. “Manchuria is ours,” she said. “We will not recognize the rights that Japan claims through her treaty made in 1915. It really was a treaty with Old China, still alive in our Republic. It was wrested from us by cunning and bribery. There are twenty million Chinese in Manchuria. They have made that province grow more rapidly in wealth in recent years than any other part of the land. They are converting the wilderness, raising such a crop of soy beans as no other part of the earth has ever seen. We propose to stand by our people. We cannot give Manchuria to Japan, nor can we give her Mongolia. Here, too, our people are good, patient, hardy settlers, peacefully converting the wilderness. True, there are great tracts still untouched, but remember that we have surplus millions, and it is here that we expect them to expand.”

What set my doorman and many serious onlookers to holding their heads was that they could not find a place to put Japan; that is, a place to which she would not have to fight her way.

But what are they doing in the search of the earth for something to “give” her? Was it anything but following the old formula that has always gone with wars? Was war anything but a necessary corollary to this way of dealing with the earth’s surface? No nation or group of nations ever has or will give away without its consent the property of another nation without sowing trouble for the future.