PUT YOURSELF IN THEIR PLACES
A shrewd, reflective and cynical doorman with whom I sometimes discussed
affairs of state in Washington, confided to me on one of the busy days
just before the opening of the Conference on the Limitation of Armament
that in his judgment there was a peck of trouble about to be turned
loose on the American Government.
“Take them Japs and Chinamen,” he said, “they’re coming with bags of
problems, and they’re going to dump them on us to sort and solve! And to
think we brought it on ourselves!”
There were people nearer to the administration than this anxious
observer who said the same thing. “The Far East is a veritable Pandora’s
box, and why did we open it?”
I don’t remember ever to have seen in Washington, even in war times, so
many responsible people who gave me the impression of wanting to hold
their heads to keep them from splitting.
Of one thing there was no doubt—if the troubles that were to be loosed
on the Conference were as serious as these serious observers feared, it
was better that they be _out_ than _in_ the box, for they were of a
nature that, confined, would be sure to explode, but give them time and
they might dissolve under the healing touch of light, sun and air.
But why were there people close to things in Washington aghast at the
program of the Conference, people who two months before had looked
forward to it with confidence and even exultation? No doubt this was
explained partly by the realization that cutting down armaments did not
necessarily mean long-continued peace; that there must be settlements.
When they looked over the problems to be settled, attempted to put
themselves in the place of the people concerned, find solutions through
agreements which did not require force behind them, they were appalled
at the difficulties in the way.
Put the problems which disturbed them into their simplest terms:—Japan
could not get enough food on her six big and her 600 little islands for
her 60,000,000 people. She was spilling over into China and its
dependencies—not merely as a settler, content to till the soil, to work
the mines, to sell in the market place, but as an aggressive conqueror,
aspiring to military and political control as well as economic
opportunity.
China—that is, Young China, the founder of the Republic—said she would
not have it, that she must govern and administer her own, and we,
China’s friend, were backing the integrity she demanded. But Japan was
“in China”—“in” as was Great Britain and France. She had an army and
navy to back her pretensions and she could very well say—and did—“Why
should Great Britain and France be allowed to hold their political and
military control in Hongkong and in Tonkin, raise and train troops, not
of their own people but of natives, collect taxes, run post offices, and
we be forbidden? If they do these things, and they do, why should Japan
not have equal privileges?”
Young China answered this pertinent inquiry: “It was Old China that
arranged those things. You are dealing now with a new China, one that
does not intend to barter its inheritance, that proposes to rule its
own; a China that will no longer submit to having a carving knife
applied to its heart.
“What Old China did we inherited and must make the best of, but it is
our duty to see that no nation on earth ever again takes from us what we
do not willingly give. You must abandon your effort to direct our
policies, administer our railroads, keep your troops on our soil.”
What frightened my doorkeeper, who got his views from the press, and the
press that got its views from a hundred conflicting sources, was how
peacefully Japan’s right to food for her people and China’s right to her
own were to be squared. Could the one inalienable right be fitted into
the other inalienable right by other means than force? Of course there
were many places on the earth beside China where Japan might expand, but
search as they would these anxious observers did not find any available
spot except in Asia.
One of the chief occupations of these friends of mine in Washington as
the peace conference opened was trying to find some territory from which
Japan could get her food; something the Conference could “give” her;
something that would satisfy her. As things now are such a search must
start with the provision that there is nothing for Japan on the Western
Hemisphere. Obviously there is no place for her in Europe. Australia
will not have her; we will not have her.
“If it were a question of war or restricted immigration,” I asked a
Californian in the course of the Far Eastern discussion, “which would
you choose?” The look of surprise at the question answered me—“War.” I
received the same reply from a Canadian—from an American labor
leader—and they were all “pacifists”!
The narrower the confines were drawn around Japan, the more hysterical
observers grew in their search, the more they insisted the Conference
must “give” Japan something. “Give it Eastern Siberia!” But what right
did the Conference have to deal with any part of Siberia? The United
States had finally settled her attitude to this suggestion by declaring
that she would not consider any partitioning of Russian territory. She
refused to countenance the carving up of Russia as she did the further
carving up of China. She refused even to recognize the government that
was now struggling to plant itself in Eastern Siberia. It was Russia’s
problem to take care of the Far Eastern Republic. She must be free, as
China must be free, to work out her own destiny.
Then “give” Japan Manchuria! She already had important recognized rights
in Southern Manchuria, rights that came from old wars; the territory
borders on Korea which Japan holds and governs, and undoubtedly the
Conference would not dispute her claim to Korea, since that claim stands
on about the same kind of a bottom as England’s claim to Hongkong and
France’s to Tonkin. It was the fruit of the nation’s dealing with Old
China. This being so and Japan having her established hold in Southern
Manchuria and having made a remarkable record, give her the country.
But here came Young China again. “Manchuria is ours,” she said. “We will
not recognize the rights that Japan claims through her treaty made in
1915. It really was a treaty with Old China, still alive in our
Republic. It was wrested from us by cunning and bribery. There are
twenty million Chinese in Manchuria. They have made that province grow
more rapidly in wealth in recent years than any other part of the land.
They are converting the wilderness, raising such a crop of soy beans as
no other part of the earth has ever seen. We propose to stand by our
people. We cannot give Manchuria to Japan, nor can we give her Mongolia.
Here, too, our people are good, patient, hardy settlers, peacefully
converting the wilderness. True, there are great tracts still untouched,
but remember that we have surplus millions, and it is here that we
expect them to expand.”
What set my doorman and many serious onlookers to holding their heads
was that they could not find a place to _put_ Japan; that is, a place to
which she would not have to fight her way.
But what are they doing in the search of the earth for something to
“give” her? Was it anything but following the old formula that has
always gone with wars? Was war anything but a necessary corollary to
this way of dealing with the earth’s surface? No nation or group of
nations ever has or will give away without its consent the property of
another nation without sowing trouble for the future.
Races must settle their own destinies. Japan must settle her food
problem by war or by peace, and whether it was to be by the one or by
the other depended largely upon Young China. What did Young China think
about it? Not a hasty, violent Young China, expecting to convert its
great masses in an hour to the Republican form of government that came
into being ten years ago, but a moderate Young China, that has stayed at
home, that knows its people, that is conscious of the length of time,
the patience, the sacrifices, the pain that adapting the mind of China
to a new order requires.
What did this moderate Young China think about the relation of Japan to
itself? I looked him up and asked.
He made it quite clear that the Republic had come to stay. He did not
attempt to minimize its difficulties. He did claim, however, that
whatever the surface indications, the whole Yangtze Valley, which is the
very heart of the country, is committed to the Republic, and is
coöperating with it. He gave a hundred indications of how from this
great central artery running east and west democratic influences are
surely and steadily spreading north and south. He showed how in the
northern provinces the progress was slowest, most difficult, because
here conservatism was strongest, most corrupt. He pointed out how Old
China is concentrating in the Peking government all its cunning, its
wisdom, its appeal to the old thing, but he claimed, and unquestionably
believed, that Young China was going to be too much for it. He went over
the southern provinces and showed how in all of them, except Canton,
there was a steadily improving coöperation with the Peking government.
Moderate Young China thinks Canton is wrong in its haste. He does not
believe that the people can assimilate the new ideas as rapidly as
Canton claims. He believes that its hurry to make over a great country
is one of the most dangerous factors in the nation’s present problem. To
sustain, guard, and develop the struggling Peking government is his
program.
“We are quarreling, to be sure,” moderate Young China said, “but it is
_our_ quarrel. We are like brothers who have fallen to beating one
another—let a neighbor interfere and both turn on him. China will turn
on any nation or nations that attempt to coerce her. She alone can work
out her difficulties. She can work out best her disputes with Japan, and
if let alone, will do so.”
“Of course,” continued Young China, “Japan must resign control of
Shantung, and particularly of the Shantung railroad. Look at the map and
you will understand why. If Japan controls the Shantung railroad she can
at any moment cut our main rail communication between Peking and
Shanghai, destroy the main artery of our circulatory system. She can do
more than that. By that control she will be able to cut off the two
arteries across the mainland, the Yellow River and the Yangtze. No
government in its senses could permit that.
“Nor can we consent to her political and military control, either, in
Shantung or Manchuria. But that does not mean, as some people pretend,
that we want to drive Japan from our country. No intelligent Chinaman
does. We need the Japanese to help us open and develop our resources, to
buy our raw material; and Japan needs our market in which to sell. We
are willing she should have the fullest economic privileges if she will
cease to interfere with our policies and will withdraw her troops.
“If she will coöperate with us on an economic basis purely and simply
Young China will welcome Japan and there are liberal Japanese that will
do that. It is only Military Japan, believing in progress by force, that
threatens us.”
“How are you going to carry out your program? How enforce it?”
“The economic boycott,” he said. “It has been successful so far. We’ll
neither buy of Japan nor sell to her until she gives up her
pretensions.”
There is something tremendous in the idea of that great passive three
hundred and twenty-five million or more, the greatest single market on
earth, and Japan’s natural market, passing by on the other side, leaving
the goods untouched on docks and warehouses—but they do it. There are
children of China who will refuse a toy to-day if told it was made in
Japan, will go hungry rather than eat Japanese food, so they told me,
these ardent young Chinamen.
“But if Japan insists on her demands, turns her navy on you?” I asked.
“Ah, then,” said trustful Young China, “our great friend the United
States will take a hand. She will not permit Japan to force us.”
This confidence in America’s friendship was China’s strongest card at
the peace table. For over sixty years we have been her avowed
protector—ever since in 1858 we signed the quaintly worded compact:
“They (the United States and China) shall not insult or oppress each
other for any trifling cause so as to produce an estrangement between
them, and if any other nation should act unjustly or oppressively, the
United States will exert their good offices on being informed of the
case to bring about an amicable arrangement of the question, thus
showing their friendly feeling.”
Faith in the protection of the United States has worked its way far
inland, to the very sources of the Yellow and the Yangtze rivers. I am
told that many Chinamen in those distant places who never have looked on
a white face will point to the Stars and Stripes and say “our friend.”
According to moderate Young China’s view of the case, the work of the
Conference on the Limitation of Armament was to persuade Japan that her
real economic progress lay in giving up the political and military
privileges in China which she believes are fairly hers, as spoils of the
late war, and to accept full opportunities of “peaceful
penetration”—persuade if possible, force if not!
There was no question of where sympathy lay at the opening of the
Conference—it was with moderate Young China. Sympathy for her and
suspicion for Japan—this showed in a catlike watchfulness of Japan’s
every move, particularly by the newspaper correspondents.
As a rule, newspaper people are instinctively suspicious. It seems
sometimes to be the pride of the profession, and a smart
characterization of a suspicion has almost the value of a scoop. There
was an instance at the opening of the Conference, just after the naval
program was announced, when Ambassador Shidehara fell ill of intestinal
trouble. It had been announced that Japan could make no reply to the
naval program until she had communicated with Tokyo, and somebody
remarked brilliantly that the Baron’s illness was probably a “congestion
of the cables.” As a matter of fact it turned out that the poor Baron
was seriously ill, but the phrase stuck.
At the first press conference given by Admiral Baron Kato there was
another evidence of this instinct. An interpreter translated the
questions of the correspondent to the Admiral who replied in his native
tongue, a delightfully musical voice; you could hardly believe you did
not understand him, so understandable did his words sound. Once or twice
Baron Kato did not wait for the interpreter to repeat the English
question to him, but gave his answer at once in Japanese.
Instantaneously there ran around the big circle of men the signal “He
understands English.” Any one who has had any experience with a foreign
language knows that often one does understand, but cannot speak;
moreover, one understands when the question is simple but cannot follow
it when involved. The point is simply here, that the moment Baron Kato
showed he understood any English, the guards of the men were up. He was
a Jap and must be watched. That is, Japan came to the Washington
Conference handicapped by the suspicion of the American press and
public, while China came strong in our good will.
Was there anything to be said for Japan? I had believed so a long time,
but felt that my impressions were treasonable, so contrary were they to
the expressed judgment of practically all of my liberal and radical
friends—many of them knew vastly more than I did about the Far East—and
to the feeling of the general public as I caught it in the press and in
conversation. My treason consisted in thinking that although, as a
matter of fact, Japan had been doing a variety of outrageous things, if
you compared her operations with those of most of us, there was little
reason to make a scapegoat of her. I have been impressed often in the
last three years that there were a good many people trying to help China
by crying down Japan—a practice that has played a mischievous part in
history. I felt that we were not giving Japan the fair deal we should,
even if we had no other object than aiding China. The books I read, the
observers from the Far East with whom I talked, almost invariably were
partisan in their attack. They liked one and did not like the other.
Everything that one did was understandable and excusable; everything
that the other did was oppressive and inexcusable.
The Japanese had not been long at the Washington Conference, however,
before their stock began to rise. The delegation was the most diligent,
serious, modest body at the Conference, and so very grateful for every
kind word! The contrast between the Chinese and Japanese delegations was
striking. Nothing more modernized in manner and appearance, democratized
in speech, gathered in Washington than the Chinese. They looked, talked,
acted like the most sophisticated and delightful of cultivated
Europeans. They understood and practiced every social amenity—suave, at
home, frank, gay—I have never encountered anything more socially
superior than some of the young Chinese. The two delegations were
perfectly characterized by a woman friend of mine familiar with both
peoples—“The Chinese look down on everybody; the Japanese look up to
everybody.” That was the impression. But when it came to diplomacy, the
Chinaman was the aristocrat begging favors, the Japanese the plebeian
fighting for his rights.
The Japanese seemed to have felt that possibly there might be some
intent on the part of their Western brothers to throw them out of China
and go in themselves. We cannot blame Japan for such a thought if we
review her experience with the West in the last twenty-five years. She
was forced into Korea, after China had agreed with her to jointly
suppress disorders if they broke out and both of them to withdraw when
there was no longer need for their work. It was China’s refusal to abide
by the treaty of 1885 that led Japan into war and that brought her, as a
result of that war, Formosa, the Pescadores, Liaotung, with Port Arthur
and Dalny. We all remember—that is, those of us living then—how only a
few days after the treaty with China which gave Japan these territories
the Czar stepped in and told Japan that he would “give her a new proof
of his sincere friendship” by taking over Liaotung. There was nothing
for Japan to do but accept the offer.
Pretty nearly all Europe at once proceeded, as everybody remembers, to
give China and Japan further “proofs of sincere friendship.” Germany
took over Kiaochow; England, Weihaiwei; France, Kwang chowwan. This is
only a little over twenty years ago.
It was Russia’s obvious effort to get Japan out of Korea that caused the
Russo-Japanese war, a war which amazed the world by its result, put
Japan on the map, very possibly turned her head a bit. She had been
studying the West, and the remarkable thing about this country which we
call imitative, in studying it she had learned not only its power but
its weakness. She had accepted its militarism at its full face value,
but she had quickly put her finger on the weak spots in the militarism
of different nations. She had seen how corruption, bribery,
self-indulgence had weakened the militarism of Russia; she saw how the
half-heartedness of France and England in war weakened them, how
liberalism and pacifism undermined militarism; she saw how Germany had
the pure science and undivided devotion, and she took Germany as her
model. And then in 1914 her great chance came. She did exactly what the
Prussian would have done if he had been in her place. She joined the
strong, her great ally, England, against Germany, for Germany had
possessions in China which Japan coveted. She out-Prussianized Prussia
in the demands she made upon the corrupt and unstable Peking crowd.
There is no shadow of defense for the twenty-one demands, except the
defense that she was applying the lessons that she had learned from
Russia, from Germany—lessons which she had seen applied, in a modified
form, it is true, but still in a form by England and by the United
States in the Philippines.
I could never forget all this in Paris. Japan came to the Conference
peace table with her treaties—read them in that invaluable compilation
of treaties which John McMurray has made and the Carnegie Peace
Foundation published. England there sets down her approval; France sets
down her approval; they promise the German rights in Shantung to Japan
when the treaty shall be made; they promise her the Caroline Islands and
the other island possessions of Germany north of the equator. This is
all written down in the books, and this was what faced President Wilson
when the matter of Shantung was taken up. What were England and France
to do? England had gone into a war and we had followed her, largely, so
we both claimed, because a treaty had been regarded as a scrap of paper.
Were you now to treat other treaties as scraps of paper?
Italy would not have it so. She held France and England to their war
promises. And when President Wilson balked, she left the peace table.
One of the things that interested me most in Paris was that Japan never
left the peace table. She was apparently willing to trade anything to
get that recognition of racial equality denied her, so far as one can
make out, because she is so able, not at all because she is an inferior.
She hung on, and by the sheer strength of her position, her refusal,
whatever she got or did not get to quit the game, came out with a
recognition, partial at least, of what may be correctly called her
nefarious demands.
And then she found herself with a whole world jumping on her back. She
had played the Western game and the West despised her. I could not help
feeling in Paris that Japan must have been bewildered a little by the
contradictions of the Occident she had tried so faithfully to follow.
She saw the doctrine of force she had accepted grappling with the gospel
of the brotherhood of man. There are many who think that the brotherhood
got the worst of it in Paris. That gospel was driven into the world as
never before there. More people were committed to it than ever before.
More people realized that it is a power that you must count with in the
affairs of nations as well as of individuals. More people accepted it
and tried to get together to make it a practical reality. Japan herself
bowed before the power of this spirit before she left Paris. She never
gave up more because of it than she felt she must, but she gave up
rather than quit the game. She was learning. She has been learning ever
since. She has never stayed away from any international attempt to bring
order to the world. She has had a bevy of her people at every meeting of
the League of Nations. She has taken an active part in the work of all
of its commissions. In 1919 Japan had eighty-seven delegates at the
International Labor Conference held in Washington, and those delegates
accepted the radical program there adopted. Japan means to understand
the Occident; and she is making the same valiant attempt to ally herself
with the best of the Occident that before the war she made to ally
herself with the worst.
What we have to remember is that Japan is, like all nations to a degree,
a dual nation; there are two Japans—the one clinging to the old
militaristic, autocratic notion of government, the other struggling to
understand and realize the meaning of a united, coöperating world in
which each man and each nation shall have a chance at peaceful,
prosperous living.