The Japanese and Chinese delegates at Washington are still discussing
the- question of Shantung in private. Mr. Hughes and Mr. Balfour have not yet been invited to mediate between them, so that it would be premature to regard the question as insoluble. The American public has from the first attached extraordinary importance to the Shantung problem, although it is probable that British traders suffer much more than the Americans from Japan's exercise of .special commercial privileges in that part of China. If Japan desires to abate the hostility of a section of American opinion, especially in the West, she will make haste to• strike a bargain with China over the Shantung railway and the trading rights in Kiao-Chow. One difficulty in the way is that the Chinese delegation does not represent the whole of. China but only the provinces which recognize the. Peking Government, itself the mere creation of two or three powerful military governors.
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