The Department cabled on May 11th an identical note to both governments, which I delivered to the Minister for Foreign Affairs on the 13th. It was published in the Peking papers on the 24th, together with a telegram from Tokyo asserting "on the highest authority" that the report of the existence of such a note was only another instance of machinations designed to cause political friction.
When he received the note Minister Lu said that he had tried throughout to safeguard the treaty rights of other nations, with which China's own rights were bound up. To a question from him I replied that the American Government was not now protesting against any special proposal, but insisted that the rights referred to in the note be given complete protection in the definitive provisions of the Treaty. The newly acquired privileges of the Japanese in Manchuria were touched on in the conversation; I pointed out that any rights of residence granted to the Japanese, by operation of the most-favoured-nation clause, would accrue in like terms to all other nations having treaties with China; they ought to be informed, therefore, of all the terms of the agreement affecting such rights. On May 15th the Department confirmed this view by cabled instructions, which I followed with a formal note to the Minister for Foreign Affairs.
It appeared that the Chinese Government was comforted by an expression in which the United States in clear terms reasserted its adhesion to the fundamental principles of American policy in the Far East.
So ended the famous negotiations of the Twenty-one Demands. Japan had gained from the unrepresentative authorities at Peking certain far-reaching concessions. But in China the people, as an anciently organized society, are vastly more important than any political government. The people of China had not consented.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] For instance, Putnam Weale wrote: "Though Englishmen believe that the gallant Japanese are entitled to a recompense just as much now as they were in 1905 for what they have done, Englishmen do not and cannot subscribe to the doctrine that Japan is to dominate China by extorting a whole ring-fence of industrial concessions and administrative privileges which will ultimately shut out even allies from obtaining equal opportunities.... In China, though they are willing to be reduced to second place and even driven out by fair competition, they will fight in a way your correspondents do not yet dream of to secure that no diplomacy of the jiujitsu order injures them or their Chinese friends."
GETTING TOGETHER