also have to import over two dozen kinds of materials essential for the conduct of modern warfare. It is but natural, therefore, that such dependence on overseas matters has led those familiar with the conditions merely indicated here to look on America more as a great island than as a self-sufficient continent.

Nowadays our transatlantic trade has dropped to about half of our total overseas commerce, whereas our traffic with Latin America and that with all the transpacific regions each amounts to a quarter; and, needless to say, that with the nine hundred million across the Pacific is growing more rapidly than that with the eighty-five million Latin Americans. But it is in these transpacific and transcaribbean markets that we buy, in competition with Europe, most of the materials and foodstuffs we must import; and it is to these markets that we sell most of our export manufactures, again in competition with Europe, whereas our exports to Europe are mainly materials and foodstuffs for its industrial machine.

In short, North America and Europe may be considered as the two great industrial regions of the world, more or less equal to each other, buying materials and selling manufactures in competition with each other in the non-industrial countries. Nor should we forget that Japan aims to become the industrialist of Asia.

Although the central position of North America in the world of maritime trade is a potential advantage, the maintenance of our standard of living rests on our being assured of necessary imports, of markets open to our products, and of reliable means of collecting our imports and distributing our exports. If there is anything in President Coolidge's fixed stars of the record of the past and the constancy of human nature, we should not rely on our competitors to collect our imports and deliver our exports for us.

And we should not rely on sources of imports and markets for exports that are, in effect, under the shadow of our overseas competitors-unless, in turn, the latter can be controlled. With these considerations in mind we can now turn, first, to the Washington Conference and then to the major conditions underlying the prospective conference at Geneva.

IV

It may be recalled that, in addition to there being the usual post-bellum outcry for the reduction of armaments regardless of underlying conditions, the United States and some of the British Dominions looked with disfavor on the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and that Japanese activities seemed to threaten our Open Door Doctrine in Asia. The Washington Conference was therefore called, in the official words used, "with a view to reaching a common understanding with respect to principles and policies in the Far East" such as to warrant the great naval Powers in limiting their armaments by mutual agreement. It seemed as though this politico-naval problem had been happily solved by the three principal treaties produced, namely, the Four-Power Treaty that superseded the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, the Nine-Power Treaty in which subscription to the Open Door Doctrine was secured, and the Treaty Limiting Naval Armament. In diplomatic circles it was clearly realized that the Nine-Power Treaty was the basic accomplishment of the Conference, that it gave whatever real warrant there was for the consequent Naval Treaty, and that these two treaties and the Four-Power Treaty together constituted what really was one transaction, the Pacific, Far Eastern and naval elements of which it was convenient to treat in three separate but substantially interrelated instruments.

These treaties were promptly ratified by all the signatory Powers except France which, however, ratified the Four-Power Treaty and the Naval Treaty in August of 1923. Thus we were put under obligation to consult the British, French and Japanese in the event of trouble with any of them, or with others, over our insular possessions in the Pacific, and the ability of our navy to uphold our policies in Eastern Asia was seriously curtailed. Yet as France still withheld her ratification from the Nine-Power Treaty, it remained without validity-and we were left without any treaty support of our Open Door Doctrine. But as these three treaties together were the essential elements of what was really one transaction, it was thus made evident that the four learned lawyers who had been the American delegates at the Conference had fallen into a grave omission in failing to insert a clause

in each one of these three treaties making the validity of each dependent on the complete ratification of the others-especially as it can be said on competent advice that there was no reason why such an interlocking clause should not have been inserted. But the omission is understandable, if not excusable, to those who know in detail how the American delegates disregarded the counsels of their technical advisers before and during the Conference. And it was but natural that one of the main objects of the visit of our then Secretary of State to Europe in 1924 is said to have been to urge the ratification of the Nine-Power Treaty by France, an effort in which, unfortunately, he was not successful. It so happened that circumstances led to my reviewing this situation in a letter published in The New York Times on April 1, 1925, in which I said:

There is nothing surprising in the fact that France is witholding her ratification of the Nine-Power Treaty in an effort to obtain from China especial preferential treatment in another matter in no way related to the Conference. But the further fact that these would-be exactions of France from China are entirely beyond the latter's capacity adds especial interest to the growing Franco-Japanese entente. For while the Japanese Empire is on record as having promptly ratified the Nine-Power Treaty, the trend of events in China would make it equally patent that the Japanese may find it very convenient to point to the fact that, in spite of their having ratified it, nevertheless the NinePower Treaty is as invalid as a check that lacks one of several signatures required.

This indication of there being some realization in the United States of possible Franco-Chinese and Franco-Japanese understandings bearing on the non-ratification of the Nine-Power Treaty by France naturally meant much more in informed French and Japanese circles than those not conversant with Asiatic diplomacy might infer. It was nevertheless somewhat surprising that apparently precipitate action in Paris and Peking resulted in the final ratification of the treaty within the next few weeks. But the matter has been rehearsed here, first, to recall some of the diplomatic background of the naval limitation brought about at the Washington Conference and, second, to submit some of the consequent occurences from which the real spirit that prevailed among some participants may be appraised.

V

The naval aspect of the Conference was at least as complex as was its diplomatic side. For the problem was to prepare an equitable limitation of naval armaments, yet one that would leave the United States in a position to maintain its sovereign powers and international policies, to safeguard all of its territories and the peoples thereof, to protect its world-wide commerce, and to support the rights of its citizens in all foreign parts. But naval capacity to discharge such extensive duties rests on matters of strategy, logistics and tactics so exceedingly complex that comparatively few naval officers have a sufficiently comprehensive grasp of them to be able to judge soundly as to what fleets may be necessary for their peaceful performance; for the real criterion of the adequacy of a navy is not merely that it shall be able to win in war, but rather that it shall so support policies and interests that war will not occur. In view of the abstruse professional problems involved in devising an equitable limitation that would satisfy such requirements for all the naval Powers concerned, the question was evidently outside the capacity of even the most intelligent of laymen.

So it was of good augury that, soon after the first call for the Conference was issued, the General Board of the Navy was made responsible for the preparation of the naval programme and that a little later a Special Advisory Committee, composed of some members of the Board and others, was formed to supplement it.

Although all the plans produced by these two bodies provided for a comprehensive limitation of virtually all types of combatant vessels and proposed more or less sweeping reductions, none of them met with the approval of our then Secretary of State who thereupon outlined his own plan, securing the statistical data for the consequent fleet make-ups from the General Board, and also the official opinion of the Board as to the bearing of his plan on the interests of the United States and on the international outlook. And as is well known, his plan, though somewhat modified in favor of the British and Japanese, he introduced as chairman of the American delegates at the first plenary session of the

Conference with the following opening sentences, the italics being mine:

The United States proposes the following plan for a limitation of the naval armament of the conferring nations. The United States believes that this plan safely guards the interests of all concerned.

While the chairman of our delegates was generally accredited with the authorship of the plan proposed, it may be recalled that the impression was then given out that this plan had received the approval of the most competent naval officers in the service of the United States. Indeed, in view of the exceedingly technical naval factors involved, none but such officers could say with any weight that such a plan would or would not "safely guard the interests of all concerned." But in what light will the American delegates stand as guardians of the interests of the United States and putative promoters of peace if history reveals that not long before they proposed this plan, the General Board had officially transmitted its opinion that such a plan, in effect, would be fraught with probable dangerous results to our interests, to the peace of the Pacific and Far East, and to the safety of China?

Whatever the unrevealed record may show, here it need only be recalled that whereas the American proposal was for the comprehensive limitation of virtually all types of combatant vessels, yet the limitation of the aggregate tonnages of only capital ships and aircraft carriers was secured-and this at the price of our agreeing to the stipulation, made by the Japanese and supported by the British, that no further development be allowed of insular fortifications and naval bases in the critical area of the Pacific. Both a geographical mind and considerable knowledge of strategy and logistics are essential to appreciate the effects of this base restriction and why it was so particularly repugnant to our naval advisers. But conversance with such martial matters is not necessary to understand that a fleet limitation that leaves all parties to it free to build as many war vessels other than capital ships and aircraft carriers as each may choose, is like a dam only part way across a river and merely concentrates the flow in the open channel remaining. So there is nothing surprising in the fact that, in the four years since the Conference, the Japanese have laid down