first"; its duty is far-sighted preparedness-such preparedness as the action of other agencies of the Government may make possible. In advice or action, naval officers have a life-long responsibility for the security of the nation, in which respect they, in common with their brothers of the Army, are in quite a different position from that of any other persons in the Government. Questions of immediate expediency do not have much weight with them, and they are not perhaps so inclined to take chances with national security as those having a shorter tenure of office. Upon them is bound to fall the brunt of an underestimate of the necessity for defensive measures. That they are conservative is the natural consequence. Their conservatism did not, however, go so far as to lead them into opposition to the principle of limitation of armaments.

Your attention is now invited to one feature of the treaty which is approached with considerable embarrassment in this presence, but which cannot be avoided if my professional opinion of the treaty is to be given with honest fulness. I manifestly cannot speak for the Navy Department; and, while I believe that my sentiments in what follows are generally shared by experienced brother officers, I do not venture to speak for them, but speak for myself alone.

The opening sentence of Article XIX of the treaty reads:

The United States, the British Empire and Japan agree that the status quo at the time of the signing of the present Treaty, with regard to fortifications and naval bases, shall be maintained in their respective territories and possessions specified hereunder.

When the specifications are read all the territories and possessions to which they refer are seen to be insular. The agreement includes everything insular that Japan holds now or may acquire outside of the islands of Japan proper; it includes our Aleutian Islands and everything insular, present or future, under our flag west of the Hawaiian Islands; and it includes Hong Kong and present or future insular holdings of the British Empire east of 110 degrees east longitude, excepting the Canadian islands, Australia and its territories and New Zealand. It will be noted that the language of the article is "fortifications and naval bases," not "fortifications of naval bases," which latter would have been much less sweeping. Status quo is defined in the last paragraph as follows:

The maintenance of the status quo under the foregoing provisions implies that no new fortifications or naval bases shall be established in the territories and possessions specified, that no measures shall be taken to increase the existing naval facilities for the repair and maintenance of naval forces, and that no increase shall be made in the coast defenses of the territories and possessions above specified.

An examination will now be made of the equities of this remarkable graft upon the proposal of the Government that called the Conference. The proposal made no mention of naval bases, or naval facilities of bases,

or fortifications or coast defenses, and it must be presumed that the omission was deliberately intended after the months of preparation for the Conference.

Mahan gives position, strength and resources as subjects for examination in determining the availability of a situation for a naval base. Actual strength and existing naval facilities will first be considered, in doing which it must be remembered that the details of foreign fortifications are rarely known accurately; their general scope is, however, usually known or believed to be known.

The United States has in Guam a location for a naval base that is wonderfully situated strategically. To state that its fortifications and equipment are derisible now is to disclose no secret. This is no fault of the Navy which for years has sought in vain for the appropriations to make Guam a secure base. In the Philippines there is another great site for a naval base in the Manila region. The entrance to Manila Bay is fortified, but the fortifications need modernizing and the naval facilities are far from being what would be necessary to support the operations of a fleet in war. To meet a menace to the territories under our flag in the Western Pacific, we need a secure naval base in the Philippines and another intermediate between them and the Hawaiian Islands. While neither Guam nor Manila is in efficient condition to support a fleet in war, up to February sixth last the United States possessed the sovereign right to make them so.

The British have at Hong Kong a naval base now strongly fortified and well provided with supplies and equipment, including drydocks, either on the island or in the leased territory of Kowloon on the mainland just across a narrow channel. Hong Kong is ceded territory; Kowloon is leased only. Yet the two are really a whole for British purposes, and Kowloon does not fall under the inhibition of Article XIX, for it is not insular. In the convention of June 9, 1898, between Great Britain and China, for the extension for 99 years of what was therein designated as the "Hong Kong territory" although the extension was entirely on the Kowloon (mainland) side, the right to erect fortifications is recognized. As far as Article XIX under consideration goes, the right is not denied to the British to fortify and increase naval facilities on the Kowloon side at Hong Kong. It is evident that the British exercised no self-denial in subscribing to Article XIX.

Japan has fortified Kelung in the northern end of Formosa; and in the Pescadores Islands west of Formosa she is believed to have a strongly fortified and well-equipped base, for light vessels at least, and probably for all classes of ships. And, what is most important, these bases are only about one thousand miles from all the support of the homeland, while, by comparison, Guam is 5500 and Manila 7000 miles from our Pacific coast.

Reviewing this phase, it is difficult to discover any trace of equity for the United States in Article XIX.

Next, considering resources, those for naval purposes in the islands themselves may be regarded fairly enough as roughly equal for all three na

tions. Practically all resources must come from the home territories to the existing insular bases. Here distance, a function of position, counts heavily for Japan as compared with either the United States or Great Britain; in time of war this advantage would weigh less heavily against Great Britain than against the United States because Japan flanks our route to the Far East but meets that of Great Britain end on. Regarding the equities in the light of resources the United States again appears to be a loser by Article XIX.

It is, however, in respect of position considered from all sides that the discomfiture of the United States resulting from the status quo is completed. In the unfortunate event of hostilities with Japan, our Philippines are 7000 miles from our home coast while only 1500 miles from her home islands; her outlying islands are at furthest about 1000 miles from her home islands while 7500 miles from our continental coast. Japan's possibilities of attack upon. our outlying islands, or of defense of her own outlying islands against attack by us, are immeasurably superior to those of similar action by the United States. No fortifications, no provision of naval facilities, can altogether overcome that handicap; and it was precisely for that reason that a disparity of floating force was an essential feature of the proposal. Naval opinion, in accepting the 5-3 ratio of floating strength between the United States and Japan did so on the basis of the status quo of sovereign right-not the status quo of insular fortifications, naval bases and naval facilities. It had no idea that the latter, if proposed, would be entertained, or the former be yielded. With naval bases in our western islands of the Pacific fully fortified and provided, the 5-3 ratio of floating force would with difficulty enable the United States to maintain parity at sea in those waters; much less would it enable the United States to undertake a policy of aggression, which has never been the aim of the Navy any more than it has been the aim of the general Government. For the defense of our Pacific islands, and with no idea of aggression whatever, secure and well-provided naval bases are necessary. To surrender the right to go beyond the status quo is to make the defense of our western possessions their retention-well-nigh hopeless in case of need. Should they fall, their recapture would only be possible at the cost of great treasure and of very tedious and lengthy operations.

As between Great Britain and the United States no such inequality exists between themselves in respect of distance to the Far East as both countries have with Japan.

Regarded from the viewpoint of position-comparative distancesArticle XIX is glaringly inequitable to the United States.

The Japanese doubtless made a sacrifice of national pride in accepting the 5-5-3 ratio of floating strength, which definitely placed them in third position as a naval Power. But whatever they sacrificed in that respect they have more than made up by their success in securing the inclusion of Article XIX in the treaty. I say their success, because I have never heard

of the suggestion coming from any other source, and all the world knows that the Japanese did make it. At practically no cost to themselves they have secured all that they were actually straining, and were prepared still further to strain, their financial resources to obtain by their ambitious building programme, now no longer necessary.

Article XIX fatally impairs for the United States the 5-3 ratio of floating strength with Japan in so far as the Western Pacific is concerned. The United States has yielded the possibility of naval equality in that region; control she has never sought. It is beside the mark to say that we are as well off as we were before the treaty. That is a half-truth-true only in the material sense; in the sense of sovereignty we have given up the right to better our situation, and that without adequate return-certainly without return in kind. Our military prestige has received a blow; and with the waning of military prestige political prestige is likely to wane also. The treaty may very well mark the beginning of a decreased influence in the Far East, with attendant loss to our proper, if selfish, trade interests, and to our altruistic purposes for China and Siberia.

In closing, permit me to remind you again of what was said at the beginning, that this paper has been prepared from a purely military standpoint. I am not without full appreciation of other considerations, which did not appear, however, to come within the purview of my invitation to address you. This has been a material estimate of a part of the work of the Conference, aside from whatever its spiritual and imponderable achievements as a whole may prove to be.

The PRESIDENT. I have the pleasure of introducing to you Professor W. W. Willoughby, who will speak on the Far Eastern settlements of the Conference of Washington. Mr. Willoughby was the legal adviser to the Chinese Republic, 1916-1917.

PRINCIPLES OF INTERNATIONAL LAW AND JUSTICE RAISED BY CHINA AT THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE

ADDRESS BY W. W. WILLOUGHBY

Professor of Political Science at the Johns Hopkins University

In this paper it will be my purpose neither to plead the justice of China's case as presented at the Washington Conference, nor to deal specifically with the determinations of that Conference. Rather it will be my effort to present certain of the abstract principles of international law and of international right which were advanced by the Chinese Delegation or which were implicit in the propositions presented to the Conference by that delegation, and which, it may be assumed, will continue to be held by the Chinese Government. The time allotted to this paper will not permit a full discussion

of these principles, but their character and importance can be indicated, and thus, if I do nothing more, I shall be able, I hope, to point out the more significant respects in which the relations of China with the other Powers furnish material for discussion by international lawyers, as well as for consideration by statesmen and by others interested in international politics.

First of all there is the question as to the circumstances under which, or the principles in accordance with which, the validity of existing agreements between sovereign nations may be attacked. This inquiry, it will be remembered, was raised by the Chinese in connection with the Sino-Japanese treaties and agreements of May 25, 1915, which resulted from the so-called TwentyOne Demands which Japan presented to China in January of that year. These treaties and agreements were presented to the Conference with a view to their reconsideration and cancellation.

The circumstances under which these agreements were obtained are well enough known to make it unnecessary to review them here. It is sufficient to say that the demands upon which they were predicated were made at a time when China and Japan were in full friendly relations; that they were not in adjustment of pending controversies; that Japan made no pretense of offering a quid pro quo for the valuable concessions she insisted upon; that the demand for these rights was in violation of engagements which Japan had with the other Powers; that they equally called upon China to enter into undertakings that were in violation of treaties between herself and the other Powers; that they were in serious derogation of China's administrative integrity; and, finally, that China's signature to them was compelled by an ultimatum upon Japan's part which threatened immediate war if it was not given.

In the Conference Japan made no attempt to defend the equitable character of these agreements, but contended herself with asserting that "if it should once be recognized that rights solemnly granted by treaty may be revoked at any time on the ground that they were conceded against the spontaneous will of the grantor, an exceedingly dangerous precedent would be established with far-reaching consequences upon the stability of the existing international relations in Asia, in Europe and everywhere."

The issue was thus gravely joined, though not decided by the Conference, whether, under the circumstances that have been mentioned, international law furnishes any principles in accordance with which a nation, so grievously wronged as China had admittedly been, could herself rightfully correct that wrong, or, in accordance with which other nations might rightfully take remedial action. It must be confessed that, if such international principles do not exist there is a want that must be supplied before international jurisprudence can claim to furnish an adequate set of doctrines or a procedure in accordance with which the essential rights of the members of the society of nations may be recognized and applied. The proposition advanced by China thus raised a question which is well worthy of careful consideration by such a body as the American Society of International Law.