New-York tribune., 1921-11-13
ms Up as the Towering Problem of the Conference
Mongolia and Manchuria Will
Furnish Most Complex Issues
Delegates Must Agree Upon Extent of China and Set
Borders Within Which Decisions Of the
Farley Should Apply


mean that the United States was pre-
pared to concede that when it talked
about the open door and the integrity
OF China it was referring to the
eighteen provinces within the Great
Wall. Il would mean that the United
States, in fact If not in phrase, rccor-
.nized the right of Japan to special
privilege and a special position in
Manchuria and Mongolia. 1t would
mean that Japan was prepared to ac-
cept the American view of equal on
portunlty save in Manchuria and Mon.
golla. It would mean that Japan would
agree TO get out of Shantung. But It
would also mean that we recopnized
Japanese rights and necessities in the
matter OF raw materials found in Man
churia
Enthusiastically the first stem in Tho
negotiations must be the definition OF
emma, and venture the prediction
tnat the extreme of Japanese conces-
SION IS dlscoverable in the formula
that China consists of the territories
south of the Great Wall. It is prob
ably true that there will be necessary
some effort to bring Japan to the
point of agreeing to such q formula.
but at the least it is certain that
beyond this point she cannot be
brought either by American argument
or British pressure.
Will United States Concede
Japan's Sphere of Interest?
"Wi!l the United States accept the
definition and consent to see Man
churia and Mongolia become Japanese
spheres Of INTEREST,"" This is the
first hurdle. We shall get nowhere
until we get over that. No one will
argue that such an agreement would
be anything more or less than a COM
promise of principle to avoid i'm
mediate failure of the conference and
eventual war. But will the American
people support an Administration
which prefers a Japanese war to a
surrender to Japan of Manchuria and
Mongolia? Or, to put the thing little
more exactly, since we confront an
accomplished fact, will the American
people back their government in war
to expel the Japanese from Manchuria,
where they are now established?
Assume that Japan and the United
States in private conversation in the
opening days of the conference agree
that China consists of the eighteen
provinces within the Great Wall, what
| next? Obviously something must be
done to create such Chinese fact.
1t will not do to draw a line on the
| map and say: "South of this is China
north, not China" For if that chaos
which exists in China to-day be not
to some measure Of order and unity,
no power under heaven can prevent
Japan and, perhaps, others beside
Japan, from going in. The doom Of
Morocco was always sealed, despite all
1.-THE declarations of Algeciras, because
empire the elements out of which to
reconstruct q viable state and there
was no possibility of common action
by Britain, France and Germany to
restore Moroccan unity.
Once the conference at Washington
has defined China, it must agree upon
common policy to be pursued by all
three nations Immediately concerned to
the end that China may be consti-
tuted or reconstructed within the area
described as such on the new map.
And the beginning Of this reconstitu-
tion must be a self-denying ordinance
which pledges all three nations to seek
no political or economic advantages of
an exclusive sort in that territory.
This would amount to giving meaning
alike to the terms "open door" and
"the integrity OF China"
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