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

by Ida M. Tarbell

It became clear early in the Washington Conference that we were not going to help China’s case, or encourage Japan in generous dealing by continuing to cultivate mistrust and hatred of the Japanese. A systematic effort to make one nation hate another belongs to the old way of doing things. Indeed, it has been one of the chief methods by which we have thought to progress in the world. You built up distrust, dislike, suspicion, until you had created an enemy in the minds of the mass of the people so hateful that it became an almost religious duty to overthrow it. We have had this sort of thing going on in this country in regard to Japan for years, a calculated, nation-wide, extremely able effort to make the American people fear and despise the Japanese, to bring them to a point where they would gladly, as a relief to their feelings, undertake a war against Japan. I do not know that a sterner rebuke to the American public—the sterner because unconscious—could have been given than the remarks of Prince Tokugawa in one of his little talks before he sailed for home. He was telling how surprised as well as grateful the Japanese had been at American hospitality, “Because,” he said, “when we came we feared that the Americans were so hostile to us that it might be impossible for us to go with safety on the streets.”

Those who know the Orient best all agree that its future peace, and therefore the future peace of the world, depends largely upon Japan. She is the one strong, stable, unified nation in the East. She has, it is true, a powerful militaristic party, but opposed to that is a great liberal group. Prince Tokugawa, who played so fine a part in his delegation during the Conference, is a man who has taken keen interest in labor questions, education of the people, the development of industry, and has thrown all his great interest against the military spirit. It is said by those who know much of Japan’s interior workings that the Empress herself is convinced that either the empire must have a democratic leadership, a constitutional monarchy with a responsible cabinet, an army and navy under civil control, or that it will be overthrown, and that the reason that the young Crown Prince was sent on his visit to England was that he might have a look at a democratic monarchy. There are many Japanese saying openly in the press and in public assemblies that the future of Japan depends upon an entire change of policy, that the hard dealings in Korea, the wresting of the twenty-one demands from Peking, the methods in Shantung have all been a mistake, that Japan must deny them, correct the wrongs done under them if she is to have the sympathy and enjoy the coöperation of the outside world. It is most important that the people of the United States particularly should understand these liberal leanings in Japan, should give them all the support within their power.

There was much irritation at different times in Washington because the Japanese delegation insisted on holding up the march of negotiations until it could hear from Tokyo, and between Tokyo and poor cable connections the answers were slow in coming. The delegation always insisted on waiting, however, and in this it was wise. It could go no further safely than the government at home would back it. If it attempted to do so, it would mean the final repudiation of the measures to which it had agreed. Certainly Americans should have understood this. It might take time for the Japanese to stop at every point in the negotiations to consult their government, but it was a much safer method in the long run than making such haste that a situation could arise such as that between our own delegation and the President of the United States—the difference in the interpretation of the Four Power Pact, a difference which no doubt arose from a failure to see that the busy President did have in his head just what the meaning of the short and simple document really was. It sometimes pays to make haste slowly.

If the Japanese were cautious in their dealings, haggled over details, were slow to make concessions which it was likely they intended all the time to make, gave up nothing until they were sure they would be backed by the home government, it might be exasperating but it was not necessarily a proof of intrigue or of a lack of sympathy with the larger purposes of the Conference. In spite of these methods so irritating to people whose only thought is to put things through in the shortest time possible, the Japanese made a better impression on the Conference than the Chinese, for the simple reason that the one were workers, the other talkers. More than once in the course of the negotiations it was necessary to recall the Chinese’s attention to the fact that what was under discussion was not theories, but conditions. All one’s sympathies were with the talkers, and all one’s practical sense with the workers.

The nations in adopting the principles that they did in regard to China, in insuring her a protecting ring within which they promise to see that she has the chance to develop and maintain effective and stable government, and to give all nations an equal opportunity of carrying on commerce and industry with her, are attempting something that has never before been done in this world—they are insuring a great weak, divided nation its chance. Never again under the protection adopted, if the promises made are kept, can anybody chip off a piece of Chinese territory, secure a monopoly of her resources; never again can there be in China a Shantung, a Twenty-one demands, a Port Arthur. The pacts and principles adopted establish over China that “moral trusteeship” of which Mr. Hughes talks. They put upon all nations agreeing and particularly upon this nation the obligation to see that this moral trusteeship is something more than a phrase.

Although the immediate results to China are not as sweeping and generous as many of her friends desire and many believe would have been possible and wise, they are substantial. She will control her own post offices beginning with January, 1923; the correction of the humiliating extra-territoriality is being undertaken; foreign troops will be withdrawn; a beginning at least toward tariff autonomy has been made. No future concessions and agreements will be made by China to other powers except under an international board of review, the office of which will be to see that no terms unjust to China or discriminatory in the favor of any particular outside nation are made. This leaves old commitments where they are, but it is fair to suppose, if the board does its duty, that any manifest injustice or flagrant discrimination now existing can and will be eventually cured.

The Shantung question has been settled—settled in the way that President Wilson believed at Paris that it finally would be settled—by Japan’s withdrawing. The real bone of contention between the two countries—the Tsingtau-Tsinanfu railway—will go back entirely to China within a few years—five at the shortest, fifteen at the longest—upon terms of payment and of management which, if painful to both countries—Japan feeling that she is giving up too much, China that she is getting too little—yet seemed reasonable and the best that could be done by the American and British delegation.

With the withdrawal of Japan from Shantung, will go England’s from Weihaiwei, and probably a little later, France’s from Kwangchow-wan.

As for the twenty-one demands, Japan so thoroughly realized the discredit they had brought her in the eyes of the liberal world that she began the discussion upon them by voluntarily withdrawing one whole section, that which compelled China to employ Japanese advisers in the military, financial and political departments of her government. She also declared her intention to give up her preferential rights in Southern Manchuria and to open to the international consortium the railway loans in Manchuria and Mongolia which she has been holding as her exclusive possession. This is going a long way to clear up the difficulties under the commitments. With this start and with intelligent international supervision, it ought to be possible in a reasonable time to free China entirely from whatever is oppressive in the twenty-one demands.

It is a beginning. If Young China will take hold vigorously now there is reason to believe that the thongs about her feet will in time be cut. She has work, long, slow work, before her, but she is assured sympathy and protection in carrying it on. That is a vastly more important result than to have been granted all the demands of her eager young democrats and left alone in the world.