exists between China and the United States if you consider the fact that we have in the United States over 270,000 miles of road. Imagine what this country would be with no railway communication west of the Mississippi, with lines connecting only New Orleans, St. Louis and Chicago with the Atlantic coast, and you will realize that calling China a republic does not make her exactly like the United States.

The Conference at Washington, as Senator Underwood said, has given China a magna charta. The nations have renewed their pledges to respect her sovereignty, and it will be very difficult for any of them to go seriously behind their agreements, even if any should want to do so. That coöperation of the Powers in China, as provided by the Conference treaties, will greatly benefit China, and next to China, Japan; and for that reason those Japanese leaders who understand, welcome the work of the Washington Conference. Understanding and coöperating mean peace among the Powers in the Far East, and must aid the prosperity of both China and Japan.

It is now for the Chinese to unify their country, create a condition of security for life and property within it, and establish their responsibility to others. When they have done that, as the Japanese did with conspicuously fewer resources and advantages, they will find equal facility in getting rid of the humiliation of extraterritoriality and the presence of foreign troops at their capital and elsewhere. (These troops include Americans; and American gunboats, as well as those of other countries, ply the waters of the Yangtze River for the purpose of protecting business men and missionaries.)

When the Chinese unify China and establish law and order in their provinces, their country will no longer be the subject of potential aggressions and counter activities for the thwarting of such aggressions.

In this connection, please permit me again to point out that the so-called infringements of China's sovereignty have not always been detrimental to China's interests. Here is a conspicuous case: The British infringements,if you wish to call them that,-have been notably beneficial. Indeed, without the British it is doubtful if China proper would be intact today. To say nothing of the manner in which Great Britain assisted in the thwarting of Russian and German projects in China, here are two present cases to consider: An Englishman, supported by his government, organized China's customs service; and today that service, still controlled by an Englishman under treaty with the British Government, is one of the two stabilizing factors that maintain China's credit in the world, and that, at the same time, help materially to keep the country unified. The other factor is the Salt Gabelle, or bureau, also controlled by a British subject under arrangement with several Consortium Powers. These two sources of revenue are the most important and most dependable that the Central Government possesses, because no other tax is administered with complete honesty and modern efficiency. If these two departments of the government were

relieved of foreign supervision, it is safe to say that China's foreign bonds, guaranteed by them, would immediately and seriously decline, they stand at fifty today, and I should not be surprised if they went down to five in case of such a removal,-while her rival military factions would promptly take control of the sources of these revenues in their particular districts, with the result of further decentralization, if not actual disunion.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Conference at Washington has done much, much for China, much for Japan, and much for the peace of the world. As Mr. Balfour said, it has done more than the most experienced statesmen believed possible prior to November 12.

When we proposed, after the conclusion of the Great War, to go ahead with our famous 1916 naval programme, we had to have justification for that project, the creation of the greatest navy the world had ever known, the outbuilding by 1924 in capital ships of Great Britain and Japan combined. That project opened the way for abundant and misleading speculation about "the next war," whether or not we should have to fight Japan, and whether Great Britain would be on the side of Japan when we did. Both foreigners and Americans campaigned among us to develop our suspicions. I do not mean to impute insincere motives to anyone, but I do emphatically declare that the result was bad-bad for the peace and welfare of the world and bad for the United States. What would have been the result had we gone on with that sort of thing? Either we should have spent millions upon millions, probably billions of dollars, needlessly, or we should have had a war which would have justified the expense. Then let us consider what would have happened had we achieved victory. We should have had these two alternatives; either to remain in the Far East, where we do not want to be and where we should not be welcome, or to withdraw after having done considerable damage and having benefitted nobody. War between this country and Japan would not benefit China, unless, subsequently, we remained in China in an attempt to reorganize that country; and if we should do that, we should find that the Chinese would attempt to influence other nations to get rid of us. We have the case of the Philippines, and there are the cases of India, Egypt and Korea as examples.

But I am putting a hypothetical case too bluntly. There was never danger of war. As a whole, the United States is too sane for any such distant and unnecessary adventure; and the Japanese would not accept a challenge from us short of definite menace. They sincerely want peace. But, nevertheless, I deplored the attitude that we Americans were developing among us up to the memorable day of November 12, when Mr. Hughes made America's remarkable naval proposals.

As Admiral Kato said, those proposals were a stroke of genius. They were the work primarily of five practical men, Mr. Harding and the four American delegates, who had considered the naval and Pacific situation from a broad, wise point of view and who made a direct and practical proposal,

a proposal to cut down the three greater navies of the world in equal proportions, leaving the security of the respective countries exactly where they That was simple, comprehensible, and, as we have seen, splendidly

' were.

successful.

The PRESIDENT. Before separating, I am requested to announce that all the members of the four sub-committees of the General Committee for the Advancement of International Law will meet in this room at ten o'clock tomorrow morning. The meeting is now closed.

Whereupon the session adjourned at 10.44 o'clock P.M.

SECOND SESSION

Friday, April 28, 1922, at 10.30 o'clock a.m.

The Committee for the Advancement of International Law was called to order by the Honorable Elihu Root, President.

The PRESIDENT. Gentlemen of the Committee: This is a preliminary canter merely to bring the general committee together in order that it may start even before separation into the separate subcommittees. The design of this particular meeting is not to act as a committee, but to secure the beginning of the work of the separate committees in considering the specific subjects that have been assigned to them.

Now just a word about the general situation that we have to deal with. Of course there are certain fields of international law which have been so roughly dealt with during the war that there is great confusion in the public mind, and not merely in the mind of the man on the street, but of highly educated, cultivated men, men pretty familiar with the field, as to whether there is any law. Take the subject of visit and search, the subject of blockade, of contraband, and a great variety of kindred subjects; nobody really knows what the law is now, nobody knows how far the change in conditions has virtually effected a change in the law. When you apply rules to living conditions you get a resultant force, and it is quite certain that, if you apply the rules, for example, of the Declaration of Paris to the conditions in the world following the World War, you will have a result different from the resultant of the application of those rules before the war. Now, of course, that is a condition which is quite intolerable. It ought not to continue.

Then there are many directions or a number of directions in which things in the way of formulating rules of law and securing their general acceptance may be practicable now when they were not practicable before the war. That ought to be ascertained, whether people have learned something by this war. Perhaps they have; sometimes I doubt it. But we ought to find out whether they have learned anything.

Then there are new fields quite uncovered by rules of law. Life has traveled more rapidly than the development of law, and the law is left behind. It ought to be pulled up to a level with the conditions which need it.

Now I think that must be the feeling of everybody who believes in a world regulated by public law, who believes that the same force of world public opinion behind international rules of conduct which really make the municipal law of a state, ought to be operating effectively and systematically and practically again.

It is apparent, however, that the condition of things in the world is not

yet such as to make it practicable for the representatives of the states whose assent must make additional or amendatory rules to act in a general conference. The assent of the civilized states cannot be obtained, for their representatives cannot sit down quietly to consider the subject of the law. Everything is too much disturbed. The storm has left the waves too high for that condition of partial detachment.

The commission which met at The Hague two years ago on the invitation of the Council of the League of Nations, composed of gentlemen from all over the world stigmatized as international jurists,—that commission went beyond the function which was charged upon it and made its recommendation to the League of Nations that a conference should be called for the consideration of the subject of international law, specifying a series of specific points, and those specific points are distributed under the program of this Society among the committees or commissions into which you are about to separate. The Council passed that on to the Assembly of the League of Nations, and the Assembly declined to act. Some inquiry on the subject has led to the conclusion that while they did not state it very clearly, they felt that the time had not come to act upon recommendations of that kind. So I do not think it was a negative to the proposition, but it was a negative to action at that time. But unquestionably the time has come when the preparation ought to be going on. No conference that is called together can act without preparation. Suppose that five years hence the world is in a sufficiently chastened and sober mood to sit down and think about such a thing as law, if they got together without material they would not be able to do anything. The Hague Conferences would not have been able to do anything if the work had not been done beforehand. They had well matured and thought out plans to consider and say yes or no to them, and to make suggestions and criticisms about them. That process ought to be going on now. If everybody waits, they will wait until too late. Somebody ought to begin, get the thing going, get people to think about it, get people to make and formulate propositions. That is the only way to avoid a very disastrous result, when the political bodies ruling the states are ready to act.

As I tried to tell you last night, the necessities of policy of the Arms Conference here this winter required them to do a number of things which really were a beginning, a beginning towards formulation, towards determining where some action was needed. That process ought to be carried on, and I know of nobody anywhere that is better fitted to do it than this Society. The point will presently be reached when conference or communication with other societies, other organizations, looking to the advancement of international law will be appropriate. But it is of no use to approach other societies, other organizations, with empty hands. Have something— have something to propose, some grist for the mill, before you undertake to grind in the mill. There is a great tendency always in human nature to get rid of doing something by organizing a little more! And we