already been reached in committee.
The real work of the Conference was carried on by committees, and from
the meetings of these committees the public and press representatives
were as a matter of course excluded. There were two principal
committees, one on the Limitation of Armament, and the other on Pacific
and Far Eastern Questions. There were various sub-committees, in the
work of which technical delegates participated. Minutes were kept of
the meetings of the two principal committees, and after each meeting a
communique was prepared for the press. In fact, the demand for
publicity defeated to a large extent its own ends. So much matter was
given to the press that when it was published in full very few people
had time to read it. As a general rule, the less real information
there was to give out, the longer were the communiques. Experienced
correspondents maintained that decisions on delicate questions were
made with as much secrecy in Washington as at Paris.

The plan of the United States for the limitation of armament presented
by Secretary Hughes at the first session proposed (1) that all programs
for the construction of capital ships, either actual or projected, be
abandoned; (2) that a large number of battleships of older types still
in commission be scrapped; and (3) that the allowance of auxiliary
combatant craft, such as cruisers, destroyers, submarines, and airplane
carriers, be in proportion to the tonnage of capital ships. These
proposals, it was claimed, would leave the powers under consideration
in the same relative positions. Under this plan the United States
would be allowed 500,000 tons of capital ships, Great Britain 500,000
tons, and Japan 300,000 tons.

Japan objected to the 5-5-3 ratio proposed by Secretary Hughes, and
urged a 10-10-7 ratio as more in accord with existing strength. The
American proposal included the scrapping of the _Mutsu_, the pride of
the Japanese navy, which had been launched but not quite completed.
The sacrifices voluntarily proposed by the United States for its navy
were much greater than those which England or Japan were called upon to
make, and in this lay the strength of the American position. The
Japanese refused, however, to give up the _Mutsu_, and they were
finally permitted to retain it, but in order to preserve the 5-5-3
ratio, it was necessary to increase the tonnage allowance of the United
States and Great Britain. In the treaty as finally agreed up