pon. For
the shipbuilding works there had increased in number from nine before
the war to twelve in 1917, and to twenty-eight at the beginning of 1918,
with one hundred slips capable of producing six hundred thousand tons of
net register. The effect of that embargo was to shut down between 70 and
80 per cent. of the shipbuilding works of the country, and to menace
with extinction an industry which was bringing in immense profits.

It was with these antecedents and aims that Japan appeared before the
Conference in Paris and asked, not for something which she lacked
before, but merely for the confirmation of what she already possessed by
treaty. It must be admitted that she had damaged her cause by the manner
in which that treaty had been obtained. To say that she had intimidated
the Chinese, instead of coaxing them or bargaining with them, would be a
truism. The fall of Tsingtao gave her a favorable opportunity, and she
used and misused it unjustifiably. The demands in themselves were open
to discussion and, if one weighs all the circumstances, would not
deserve a classification different from some of those--the protection of
minorities or the transit proviso, for example--imposed by the greater
on the lesser nations at the Conference. But the mode in which they were
pressed irritated the susceptible Chinese and belied the professions
made by the Mikado's Ministers. The secrecy, too, with which the Tokio
Cabinet endeavored to surround them warranted the worst construction.
Yuan Shi Kai[246] regarded the procedure as a deadly insult to himself
and his country. And the circumstance that the Japanese government
failed either to foresee or to avoid this amazing psychological blunder
lent color to the objections of those who questioned Japan's
qualifications for the mission she had set herself. The wound inflicted
on China by that exhibition of insolence will not soon heal. How it
reacted may be inferred from the strenuous and well-calculated
opposition of the Chinese delegation at the Conference.

Nor was that all. In the summer of 1916 a free fight occurred between
Chinese and Japanese soldiers in Cheng-cha-tun, the rights and wrongs of
which were, as is usual in such cases, obscure. But the Okuma Cabinet,
assuming that the Chinese were to blame, pounced upon the incident and
made it the base of fresh demands to China,[247] two of which were
manifestly excessive. That China would be better off than she is or is
otherwise l