Even the submarine became less threatening as the discussion went on. If it was not to be limited in number, it was in field of action—so far as a rule of war could limit. If auxiliary craft were to be built according to the “needs” of each nation, their tonnage was not to run over 10,000 tons each and their guns were to be but eight inch. Add this to the ratio in capital ships now fixed—5–5–3—1.75—1.75—and to a ten years’ naval holiday, and you had a solid something.
One grew philosophical again and reflected how childish it was to suppose that a Conference of this importance could be carried on without sharp differences of opinion, without those periods which we call “deadlocks,” without the flaring up at times of century-old feuds, such as that between Great Britain and France. All of these things, we told ourselves, were part of the problem of working out new understandings, and to overemphasize them or willfully to exploit them in order to increase ill will and obstruct a progress which was necessarily slow and difficult, was work fit only for the irresponsible and the malicious.
The naval program was certain of adoption. There were details still unsettled, but it seemed safe to assume that if the patience and good will of the delegates stood the strain, these details would be satisfactorily arranged; but, as from the start, the final success of the Conference depended upon removing the fears that England, Japan and the United States had of one another, of our securing reasonable assurance that our policies of the open door in China and of moral trusteeship for Russia and China were adopted. We had proposed a pact and it had been accepted; principles regarding China and they had been accepted; but this was by no means all of the Far Eastern problem. By Christmas we were at the heart of it—the hostile relations of China and Japan, and whether it was possible to help them to peacefully adjust these relations.
A shrewd, reflective and cynical doorman with whom I sometimes discussed affairs of state in Washington, confided to me on one of the busy days just before the opening of the Conference on the Limitation of Armament that in his judgment there was a peck of trouble about to be turned loose on the American Government.