ABSTRACT
On the 1st December in the presence of Secretary Hughes and Mr. Balfour, the Japanese and Chinese Delegates met and began their Shantung conversations, which lasted nearly two months, and required in the end the personal intervention of President Harding in the one matter of importance (the ownership and control of the Shantung railway). The Chinese Delegates, on leaving their official quarters, were greeted with angry cries from fellow-countrymen who were enraged by what they deemed was a surrender. Conversations with Japan meant what had been utterly opposed—direct negotiations. It seemed to these bystanders, who represented a patriotic emotion which had been boiling and bubbling for years, that for their officials to go into a room and privately discuss the matter with Japanese officials, instead of declaring the truth publicly, was a dreadful piece of blacksliding. Yet it was a sound and sensible procedure. Direct negotiations between China and Japan, with American and British observers present, was what the Far East needed to solve most of its difficulties. There were indeed only four factors of importance in the Far East and they were all in the room when Japan met China, and England and America were present. In any case the time for heroics was over: it was a question of making up as quickly as possible for the loss of time and the decline in public interest which had been brought about by the initial incompetence. Throughout these separate negotiations Japan showed herself meticulous but reasonable as she naturally is once she is convinced that unfair advantage is not being taken of her, the Shantung railway impasse being solely due to the wrong-headed policy which postponed considering the essential matter until the end. Regarding all matters Japan was indeed breathing more easily. If she still delayed, bargained and sometimes showed stubbornness, it was largely due to the manner in which the conference had gone to work and the necessity to secure that no one should afterwards say that a public reckoning had been called and that she had been found wanting.
