By this Treaty, the Chinese recover everything in Shantung, except the private property of Japanese subjects, and certain restrictions as regards the railway.  The railway was the great difficulty in the negotiations, since, so long as the Japanese could control that, they would have the province at their mercy.  The Chinese offered to buy back the railway at once, having raised about half the money as a result of a patriotic movement among their merchants.  This, however, the Japanese refused to agree to.  What was finally done was that the Chinese were compelled to borrow the money from the Japanese Government to be repaid in fifteen years, with an option of repayment in five years.  The railway was valued at 53,400,000 gold marks, plus the costs involved in repairs or improvements incurred by Japan, less deterioration; and it was to be handed over to China within nine months of the signature of the treaty.  Until the purchase price, borrowed from Japan, is repaid, the Japanese retain a certain degree of control over the railway:  a Japanese traffic manager is to be appointed, and two accountants, one Chinese and the other Japanese, under the control of a Chinese President.

It is clear that, on paper, this gives the Chinese everything five years hence.  Whether things will work out so depends upon whether, five years hence, any Power is prepared to force Japan to keep her word.  As both Mr. Hughes and Sir Arthur Balfour strongly urged the Chinese to agree to this compromise, it must be assumed that America and Great Britain have some responsibility for seeing that it is properly carried out.  In that case, we may perhaps expect that in the end China will acquire complete control of the Shantung railway.

On the whole, it must be said that China did better at Washington than might have been expected.  As regards the larger aspects of the new international situation arising out of the Conference, I shall deal with them in the next chapter.  But in our present connection it is necessary to consider certain Far Eastern questions not discussed at Washington, since the mere fact that they were not discussed gave them a new form.

The question of Manchuria and Inner Mongolia was not raised at Washington.  It may therefore be assumed that Japan’s position there is secure until such time as the Chinese, or the Russians, or both together, are strong enough to challenge it.  America, at any rate, will not raise the question unless friction occurs on some other issue. (See Appendix.)

The Siberian question also was not settled.  Therefore Japan’s ambitions in Vladivostok and the Maritime Provinces will presumably remain unchecked except in so far as the Russians unaided are able to check them.  There is a chronic state of semi-war between the Japanese and the Far Eastern Republic, and there seems no reason why it should end in any near future.  The Japanese from time to time announce that they have decided to withdraw, but they simultaneously send fresh