The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1919-10-14
9 JAPAN A PERIL
TO AMERICA,
DECLARES LODGE.
Urges Amendment to Peace
Treaty
SHANTUNG QUESTION UP
Says German Rights in That Province
Should be Returned to
China
sHANTUNG QUESTION UP

building a Far Eastern Empire which
will become " a peril to America" and
threaten the safety of the world, Sen
ator Lodge of Massachusetts, the Re-
publican leader, declared today in the
Senate in urging adoption of his
amendments to the peace treaty under
which German rights in Shantung
would be returned to China instead ol
being awarded to Japan.
Steadily and relentlessly, Japan is
gaining control of China, Senator
Lodge said, and he predicted that she
would use China's vast man-power to
endanger the safety of both America
and Europe.
at is impossible to see,' said Sen
ator Lodge, how any conscientious
American can consent to any act or
treaty that will extend the power OF
such a nation as Japan over a coun-
try like China especially when the
United States deliberately drew China
into the war with at least an implied
il not an express promise to give as
sistance and protection at the peace
conference.
THE principal argument made by
those who sustained the delivery of
control of Shantung 10 Japan .
is that Japan has promised at different
times to return it to China. Whatever
promises she has made were all
marked by one vital omission. In no
instance do | find that Japan ever
fixed a time when she would actually
return the province to its rightful
owners To determine what Japan is
likely to do it is necessary to consider
what she has done for % years.
Japan was charged by Senator Lodge
with breaking innumerable pledges re-
garding her course in China and Korea
with violating the open door, policy;
destroying foreign commerce in Man
churia and Koret. Her fundamental
policy. he said had been steady, re-
lentless aiming to get ultimate con
troll of the vast population and great
territory of China"
AS it has been in the past, so it
will be in the future in regard TO
Shantung," he continued. Japan is
steeped in German ideas and regards
war as an industry She means to ex-
plot China and build herself up until
becomes power formidable to all the
world She will use ultimately the
practically unlimited man power of the
26, 900 600 Slavs, who were utterly OPP
posed to German domination, to pro-
mote their schemes of conquest. Jap
an will be enabled to construct in that
way a power which will threaten the
safety of the world. She is already ad-
vancing in Siberia and with her con
troll there and China developed as she
means to develop it she will threaten
Europe
But the country that she would
menace most would be our own, and
unless we carefully maintain very
superior navy in the Pacific the day
will come when the United States
will take the place of France in anoth-
er great war to preserve civilization.
But there is one other reason even
more decisive to my mind than this.
1t is a great wrong, this giving Shan
tung over to the control of Japan.
Morally it is indefensible, and it is no
answer to say that we failed to object
to the German seizure of Shantung
AS a matter of fact the open door poll
cy Of Mr.. Hay was the reply to the
German movement and for the time
arrested it, The President has gone
nf 10 To haf {,gt
could trade with these stolen territor-
les we are willing to let them be stol-
en-. This attack upon the dead is the
most repulsive of all those ATTACKS
which the President has seen fit to
make. If ever there was a disinter-
ested policy it was that of Mr. Hay.
We got nothing from it whatever that
all the world did not get The inten-
tion of the policy was to save China
and prevent further extension of for
eign acquisitions of Chinese territory.
But even if it had been otherwise it
would be no answer to what 1t is now
proposed to do by this treaty, to say
that we should have interfered in be-
half Of Korea in 1904 Two wrongs
never maze right.
Few realize the significance or utli-
mate effect of the Shantung award
Senator Ledge, declared, picturing, as
a parallel to Japan's economic rights,
the situation if Great Britain had SINH
lar privileges in this country. "The
comparison that most naturally
springs to ones mind" he said, "is
the assumption that Great Britain,
with her control of Canada, which is
less rigorous than Japan exerts over
Manchuria or Eastern Inner Mongol.
ia, were to hold under her control the
port of New York, all the wharves, all
railway terminals also, including our
two principal railroads, the manage
ment of our central customshouse,
post office, cable terminals, telegraph