Page:The Truth about China and Japan - Weale - 1919.djvu/165

 with agents of the Ministry of Communications, is so far-reaching that it is not yet properly mapped. In defiance of the precise terms of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance Treaty, which calls upon her to communicate fully and frankly with her ally, Japan's watchword in Peking has been obscurantism and nothing but obscurantism, with disastrous results for the future well-being of the Chinese people.

And here it is necessary specially to note that until Viscount Ishii made his historic pilgrimage to Washington in 1917, and induced the United States to write the indiscreet Lansing-Ishii Notes, she was forced to hold her horses; no sooner were the Notes in her archives than she began to act in an imperious way. China had created a so-called War Par-