strongly for more generous treatment of China. His
strategic position, one must admit, was not nearly so strong as in the
Fiume controversy. In the latter he was supported, at least covertly, by
France and England, whose treaty with Italy explicitly denied her claim
to Fiume. The Japanese threat of withdrawal from the Conference, if their
claims were not satisfied, carried more real danger with it than that of
the Italians; if the Japanese delegates actually departed making the
second of the big five to go, the risk of a complete debacle was by no
means slight. Even assuming that justice demanded as strong a stand for
the Chinese as Wilson had taken for the Jugoslavs, the practical
importance of the Shantung question in Europe was of much less
significance. The eyes of every small nation of Europe were upon Fiume,
which was regarded as the touchstone of Allied professions of justice. If
the Allied leaders permitted Italy to take Fiume, the small nations would
scoff at all further professions of idealism; they would take no further
interest either in the Conference or its League. Whereas, on the other
hand, the small nationalities of Europe knew and cared little about the
justice of Chinese pleas.

Such considerations may have been in the mind of the President when he
decided to yield to Japan. The decision throws interesting light upon his
character; he is less the obstinate doctrinaire, more the practical
politician than has sometimes been supposed. The pure idealist would have
remained consistent in the crisis, refused to do an injustice in the Far
East as he had refused in the settlement of the Adriatic, and would have
taken the risk of breaking up the Conference and destroying all chance of
the League of Nations. Instead, Wilson yielded to practical considerations
of the moment. The best that he could secure was the promise of the
Japanese to retire from the peninsula, a promise the fulfillment of which
obviously depended upon the outcome of the struggle between liberal and
conservative forces in Japan, and which accordingly remained uncertain. He
was willing to do what he admitted was an injustice, in order to assure
what seemed to him the larger and the more certain justice that would
follow the establishment of the League of Nations.

The settlement of the Shantung problem removed the last great difficulty
in completing the treaty with Germany, and on the 7th of May the German
delegates appeared to receive it. N