I have seen the opening of two naval conferences, one
in Washington in 1921, one in London in 1930. At the first, incidentally, I was sitting next to William Jennings Bryan, who had descended or ascended from polities to journalism. I shall not see the opening of the third conference on Monday, nor much desire to. Memory of the dramatic challenge issued by Mr. Charles Evans Hughes at Washington, and of the striking speech. in which the King declared the London Conference open, suffices. Washington, indeed, is full of memories—for example, of an interview granted by Lord Balfour to the journalists of the world in the drawing-room of the old British Embassy in Connecticut Avenue, when he blandly assured them that " the Anglo-Japanese Treaty has nothing to do with China." One of the prime objects of the treaty, as its preamble plainly stated, was to provide for equality of opportunity in China.
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