(1) The four resolutions which will go down in history as the Root resolutions; they are, as Mr. Hughes pointed out eloquently, a charter given China by the eight powers at this Conference, protecting her sovereignty and independence and guaranteeing that no one hereafter shall seek within China special advantages at the expense of the rights of others.
(2) The agreement between powers not to conclude between themselves any treaty affecting China without previously notifying China and giving her an opportunity to participate.
(3) A pledge given by all the members of the Conference not to enter into any treaty or understanding either with one another or with any power which would infringe the principles laid down in the Root resolutions.
This business done, Mr. Hughes sprang the second surprise of the day:
“I shall now ask Senator Lodge to make a communication to the Conference with respect to a matter which is not strictly within the agenda, but which should be made known to the Conference at this first opportunity.”
It was the treaty that had been lurking so long behind the fog. A simple enough treaty in form, brief, only 196 words, but how portentous for us, the United States. Those few words bind us to Great Britain, the French Republic, the Empire of Japan in a contract to respect one another’s rights in relation to all insular possessions and dominions in the region of the Pacific Ocean. We agree to settle quarrels, if any there should be, by conference, when it cannot be done by diplomacy. We agree also if the rights of any one of the four associates are threatened from the outside “to communicate with one another fully and frankly as to the most efficient measures to be taken jointly and separately to meet the exigencies of the particular situation.”
Article X of the League of Nations! I pinched myself to be sure I was not asleep. Swift glances right and left reassured me, for I could see sly little smiles—and some looks of disgust—on near-by faces. And then I fixed my eyes on the American delegation. They were taking it like gentlemen, though it did seem to me that Mr. Hughes was not sitting quite so straight and looking quite so proud as usual. Article X read by Henry Cabot Lodge! Was the dramatist for the Conference for the Limitation of Armament also a great satirist? Surely you must search far in American history to find another scene so full of irony.