The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening news, Morning news and The Echo. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1921 TOWARDS AGREEMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 279, 23 November 1921, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening news, Morning news and The Echo.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1921 TOWARDS AGREEMENT.

F«r the cause that licks asttstanee. For the vyfoiift that needs renittancv, For the future in the*distance, Ar.d the good tliat we niit do.

Tho principles adopted by the Committee on Far Eastern questions set up by tho Washington Conference are of the highest importance. It is ;i great step forward to get unanimity on such questions as those that formed the subject of the resolutions framed by that wise and veteran statesman Mr. Elihu Root. In adopting these resolutions the Powers attending the Conference express their "firm intention" ""to respect the sovereignty, independence, and territorial and administrative* integrity of China"; to encourage China to the fullest extent to develop and maintain a stable and effective Government; to maintain the principle of the ""open door' in China; and to refrain from taking advantage of presont conditions in order to seek special rights and privileges which would interfere with the rights of friendly States. Such is the basis of agreement to which the Powers at Washington subscribe. There has been nothing like it in history. The independence and integrity of China and the principle of the "open door" have been piously subscribed to before by Governments, but never before in such numbers and in such circumstances. If this basis boL'omcs the foundation of an agreement the effect on the development of Uie Far East will be profound. Ko Tower, Western or Eastern, will be able to extend its territory or its influence at the expense of China without displaying bad faith to the world. The "twentyone points" of Japan, which were forced on China when Europe was too much occupied by the Great War to intervene, must be thrown overboard. The claims they embody for control of Chinese affairs and special treatment for Japanese interests are utterly incompatible with such an agreement. The Shantung settlement, made under the Peace Treaty, a settlement which before the Conference Japan declared could not be discussed, must be re-opened. If the agreement is kept in the letter and the ppirit, China will for the first time since she came into serious contact with the Western world, receive a Teal charter of freedom and sympathy. It is long overdue, and fche Western world 'has much to atone for in its selfish and callous treatment of a vast population that has wanted nothing so much ac to he let alone.

As the world knows from bitter oxperi- | ence, it is one thing to state principles and another thing to apply them, and it should be borne in mind that these admirable resolutions adopted by the Kar Eastern Committee have yet to be put into eirect. We are asked to note, as illustrative of the difficulties in the ■<way, that the exact geographical boundaries of China as affected by the agreement have not yet been defined, and it is surmised that Japan may later on make claims to special rights in Manchuria. Japan is being asked to surrender much more than any other nation, and she may be going to ask a price. She may raise both the question of fields for expansion in Asia and that of racial equality in Australasia and America. Because this agreement affords such ground for hope that peace and justice •will rule in the Far East, and because of the difficulties in the way of a final settlement, its fate should 'be followed closely by New Zealandere. A reaction that concerns us deeply is its effect on the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. American opinion is strongly and almost unanimously against the Alliance, and some of the 'best-informed and most earnest opinion in England takes the same side. But even if it were not necessary to coneider American opinion, the Alliance could not continue to exist by the side of an agreement between the Powers on matters covering peace and prosperity in the Far East. The "Times' , correspondent at Washington, writing before this latest development, remarked shrewdly that if Japan's policy in China is benevolent it ca-n be carried out as well without the Alliance, but if that policy is aggressive and selfish, the Empire ac a whole could not. support Japan. One wonders how much weight these important considerations carried at the recent Imperial Conference. It looks now as if the British Government were seeking a way out of the Alliance that would not hurt Japan's feelings. There can be no question of the Alliance being maintained, so British delegates at Washington are saying, provided that some better way of keeping the peace in the Far East can be found. The principles of agreement reached by the Committee point to a better way. A Far Eastern pact embracing several nations may be more difficult to frame and to maintain than an alliance between two Powers, ibut it contains more hope for the peace of the Pacific and of the whole world.