The Birmingham age-herald., 1922-02-05
EVERY DELEGATION
 SAYS CONFERENCE
 ISH|STORY MAKING
What Negotiations Have Done for Peace in Pacific Key note of Most of Con-
 cluding Speeches
By Associated Press

Washington, February 4.-The arms conference made the last entry |. on it's record of achievements today and prepared for sine die adjourn mept Monday.
 i, At four-hour plenary session two more treaties and a half-dozen sepa- rate resolutions were passed through the final stage of conference ap- proval and then the delegates ex- changed farewell courtesies in a se- ries of speeches expressing universal satisfaction over the results of the history making 12 weeks of negotia- tions just ended. Mondays session will be devoted entirely to formal signature of the conference treaties and to an address by President Hard ing, voicinG his appraisement Of the work accomplished by the conference he called into being. Most of the for eign delegates plaE to leave Wash ington on Monday night or Tuesday. The two treaties accepted formally at today's session both relate to China. one providing for a revision of the Chinese customs system and the other embodying Elihu Roots -four points, and the amplified open
 
 tions put on the record deal with col later Chinese questions, but included in the lot was a supplement to the fourpower Pacific treaty, excluding from the scope of the agreement the principal islands of the Japanese em- gpire.
 Chinese and Japs Sign A few hours after the plenary ses- sion adjourned the Japanese and Chinese met and affixed their sig natures to the treaty by which shan tung is to be returned to Chinese con trol. Although the long debated Shantung question occupied key position in the conference program, the negotiations by which 1t was set tied proceeded outside the conference proper and only the two oriental powers were made parties to the re- sulting treaty.
 Every delegation had a voice in the final session of oratory that really brought the work of the conference to close today and every spokesman predicted that the negotiations of Washington would loom large In the history of the world Secretary Hughes, for the United States, and Arthur ]. Balfour, for Great Britain, hailed the conference accomplish ments as ushering in new era" of international understanding and All bert Sarraut for France eulogized the record of achievement as constituting the 'loftiest precedent of mankind" Similar expressions came from all the other national groups.
 Far East Keynote
 What the negotiations had done for China and for peace in the crucial area of the Pacific and the far east was the keynote of nearly all the concluding addresses. Japan renewed her pledges of fair treatment for Ghina through Baron Shidehara, who solemnly declared his government wanted only to aid in bringing the Chinese nations to it's proper place in the world, and Minister Sze of the Chinese delegation asserted that his people would look upon the decisions reached here as the animus of new inspiration to go forward to orderly development
 Dwelling on the Chinese situation as q cornerstone of the work of the conference, Mir. Balfour gave warn ing that no nation in the future could violate the principles laid down in Washington without sacrificing the confidence of the powers. Hereafter, he said, selfish aggressions al China's expense could not be excused upon a plea of ignorance or of private "mis- understandings" with minor Chinese officials.
 Hopes U. S. Will Attend
 Embodied in Italy's last message to the conference, voiced by Senator Schanzer, was reference to the com ing economic conference to be held at Genoa, coupled with an expre- sion of hope that the United States would not now withdraw from the councils of the powers. The economic situation. Senator Schanzer said, pre- sented a problem which naturally must come more and more to the front as the world attempted to scale down armaments and return to the ! ways of peace.
 The utterances of the statesmen of the powers during the final period of oratory were addressed, strangely V Renough, to a hall almost empty of spectators. The plenary session had lapped far over the lunch hour be- fore 1t had completed the tedious formalities of approving treaties and
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