From this point of view I discussed the matter this morning with Mr.Lansing and Mr.White.They concurred with me and requested me to draft a hasty note to you on the subject.
"Since your conference with us last Saturday, I have asked myself three or four Socratic questions the answers to which make me, personally, quite sure on which side the moral right lies.
"_First._ Japan bases certain of her claims on the right acquired by conquest.

I asked myself the following questions: Suppose Japan had not succeeded in her efforts to force the capitulation of the Germans at Tsing-Tsau; suppose that the armistice of November 11th had found her still fighting the Germans at that place, just as the armistice found the English still fighting the Germans in South-East Africa.

We would then oblige Germany to dispose of her claims in China by a clause in the Treaty of Peace.

Would it occur to any one that, as a matter of right, we should force Germany to cede her claims to Japan rather than to China?
It seems to me that it would occur to every American that we would then have the opportunity that we have long desired to force Germany to correct, in favor of China, the great wrong which she began to do to the latter in 1898.

What moral right has Japan acquired by her conquest of Shantung assisted by the British?
If Great Britain and Japan secured no moral right to sovereignty over various savages inhabiting islands in the Pacific Ocean, but, on the other hand, we held that these peoples shall be governed by mandates under the League of Nations, what moral right has Japan acquired to the suzerainty (which she would undoubtedly eventually have) over 30,000,000 Chinese in the sacred province of Shantung?
"_Second._ Japan must base her claims either on the Convention with China or on the right of conquest, or on both.