166 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY, 1919-39

tories of the Four-Power Pact of December 13th, 1921 (the
United States, the British Empire, France and Japan), agreed
to respect each other's rights in the Pacific and to discuss any
controversy between them in a joint conference. The parallel
Nine-Power Treaty of February 6th, 1922 (England, the
United States, France, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Portugal,
China, Japan), pledged the signatories to respect the in-
dependence of China, and to afford unfettered opportunity to
the young Republic to work out its own salvation. At the
same time Japan restored Shantung and England Wei-hai-hei.
It was a statesmanlike scheme, placing the peace of the Far
East on broader foundations by attempting to help China
through her growing pains, and to soothe the amour-propre of
a powerful nation by merging the {Anglo-Japanese alliance in
a larger association. "At any rate you gave it a splendid
funeral," remarked a Japanese diplomatist to a British col-
league. A difficult corner had been turned at the cost of
weakening our position in the Far East; for Japanese senti-
ment could hardly be expected to remain as Anglophil as it
had been for twenty years. The temperature fell still further
with the decision to create a naval base at Singapore, which
was rightly regarded in Tokio as a token of mistrust. Hence-
forth she showed scanty consideration to the interests of her
old ally.

Of greater interest to the ordinary British citizen was a
second achievement of the Washington Conference. The
faint-hearted attempt to secure a limitation of armaments at
The Hague in 1899 had failed ; and the Tsar, smarting under
his defeat in the Far East, made no similar effort at the second
Hague Conference in 1907. Four years of a world war, how-
ever, wrought an atmospheric change. When the American
Government opened the proceedings with a bold plan for
limiting the tonnage of capital ships of the Great Powers, the
British Delegation headed by Lord Balfour promptly fell into
line. The Five-Power Treaty of February 6th, 1922, declared
that Great Britain and the United States should not exceed
525,000 tons ; Japan accepted a limit of 315,000, while France
and Italy paired at 175,000. The consent of Japan was secured
be a veto on fortification of naval bases within striking distance
of her shores. Four English battleships about to be built were
cancelled, and many ships were scrapped. The agreement,
which was to run till the end of 1936, was memorable for two
reasons. For the first time a limitation of armaments had been