Then “give” Japan Manchuria! She already had important recognized rights in Southern Manchuria, rights that came from old wars; the territory borders on Korea which Japan holds and governs, and undoubtedly the Conference would not dispute her claim to Korea, since that claim stands on about the same kind of a bottom as England’s claim to Hongkong and France’s to Tonkin. It was the fruit of the nation’s dealing with Old China. This being so and Japan having her established hold in Southern Manchuria and having made a remarkable record, give her the country.
But here came Young China again. “Manchuria is ours,” she said. “We will not recognize the rights that Japan claims through her treaty made in 1915. It really was a treaty with Old China, still alive in our Republic. It was wrested from us by cunning and bribery. There are twenty million Chinese in Manchuria. They have made that province grow more rapidly in wealth in recent years than any other part of the land. They are converting the wilderness, raising such a crop of soy beans as no other part of the earth has ever seen. We propose to stand by our people. We cannot give Manchuria to Japan, nor can we give her Mongolia. Here, too, our people are good, patient, hardy settlers, peacefully converting the wilderness. True, there are great tracts still untouched, but remember that we have surplus millions, and it is here that we expect them to expand.”
What set my doorman and many serious onlookers to holding their heads was that they could not find a place to _put_ Japan; that is, a place to which she would not have to fight her way.
But what are they doing in the search of the earth for something to “give” her? Was it anything but following the old formula that has always gone with wars? Was war anything but a necessary corollary to this way of dealing with the earth’s surface? No nation or group of nations ever has or will give away without its consent the property of another nation without sowing trouble for the future.
Races must settle their own destinies. Japan must settle her food problem by war or by peace, and whether it was to be by the one or by the other depended largely upon Young China. What did Young China think about it? Not a hasty, violent Young China, expecting to convert its great masses in an hour to the Republican form of government that came into being ten years ago, but a moderate Young China, that has stayed at home, that knows its people, that is conscious of the length of time, the patience, the sacrifices, the pain that adapting the mind of China to a new order requires.