es, having declined to join the League of
Nations, had no voice in the matter. On this point Secretary Colby
took sharp issue in the following statement: "Such powers as the Allied
and Associated nations may enjoy or wield, in the determination of the
governmental status of the mandated areas, accrued to them as a direct
result of the war against the Central Powers. The United States, as a
participant in that conflict and as a contributor to its successful
issue, cannot consider any of the Associated Powers, the smallest not
less than herself, debarred from the discussion of any of its
consequences, or from participation in the rights and privileges
secured under the mandates provided for in the treaties of peace."

Japan likewise assumed that we had nothing to do with the disposition
of the former German islands in the Pacific. When the Supreme Council
at Paris decided to give Japan a mandate over the islands north of the
equator, President Wilson reserved for future consideration the final
disposition of the island of Yap, which lies between Guam and the
Philippines, and is one of the most important cable stations in the
Pacific. The entire question of cable communications was reserved for
a special conference which met at Washington in the autumn of 1920, but
this conference adjourned about the middle of December without having
reached any final conclusions, and the status of Yap became the subject
of a very sharp correspondence between the American and Japanese
governments. When Hughes became Secretary of State, he restated the
American position in a note of April 2, 1921, as follows:

"It will not be questioned that the right to dispose of the overseas
possessions of Germany was acquired only through the victory of the
Allied and Associated Powers, and it is also believed that there is no
disposition on the part of the Japanese Government to deny the
participation of the United States in that victory. It would seem to
follow necessarily that the right accruing to the Allied and Associated
Powers through the common victory is shared by the United States and
that there could be no valid or effective disposition of the overseas
possessions of Germany, now under consideration, without the assent of
the United States."

The discussion between the two governments was still in progress when
the Washington Conference convened, and at the close of the Conference
it was announced that an agreement had been reached wh