Mar. 19.
Nosopy appears to have felt any surprise at the uncompromising rejection by the Japanese Government of the Peking Government's Note of March 10 requesting the abrogation of such portions of the treaty of May 25, 1915, as Japan had not renounced at Washington. We scarcely imagine that even Peking expected any other reply than that it received. However, the original lease of Port Arthur and Dairen should expire this month, if it had not been extended under the 1915 Treaty to ninety-nine years, and no doubt the Peking Government thought the opportunity a good one, although there might be no possible chance of those towns being retroceded, to bring fresh disrepute upon Japan by reviving recollections of a treaty which is certainly open to grave question.
The treaty in question was the subject of statements by the Japanese and Chinese delegates at the Washington Conference which leave no doubt as to the attitude taken by their respective Governments. The most obnoxious clauses of the so-called Twenty-one Demands, including Japan's original reservation of right to reopen the discussion of the famous Group V. (to which China absolutely refused to subscribe) were withdrawn. But Baron Shidehara took the stand that the Chinese Government had entered voluntarily into the rest of the compact and accordingly it was impossible that the Chinese delegates could now seriously contest its validity. 5 "It is evident," he said, ''that no nation can have given ready consent to cessions of its territorial or other rights of importance. If it should once be recognized that rights solemnly granted by treaty may be revoked at any time on the ground that they were conceded against the spontaneous will of the grantor, an exceedingly dangerous precedent will be established, with far-reaching consequences upon the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.