tion, but were
finally ratified. The Republican leaders, particularly Senator Lodge,
were twitted with charges of inconsistency in advocating certain
features of these treaties when they had violently opposed the League
of Nations. The Four-Power Treaty is much more of an entangling
alliance than the Covenant of the League, and the Naval Treaty deprives
Congress for a period of fifteen years of its constitutional right to
determine the size of the navy and to provide for the defense of Guam
and the Philippines. In fact, there were very few objections raised to
the League of Nations which could not with equal force be applied to
the Four-Power and Naval Treaties. The Four-Power Treaty was the main
object of attack, and Senators Lodge and Underwood were greatly
embarrassed in attempting to explain its meaning. Its "baffling
brevity" demanded explanations, but no satisfactory explanations were
forthcoming. They talked in general terms about the tremendous
importance of the treaty, but they dared not state the real fact that
the treaty was drafted by Mr. Balfour and Baron Kato as the most
convenient method of terminating the Anglo-Japanese Alliance without
making it appear to the Japanese public that their government had
surrendered the alliance without due compensation. According to an
Associated Press Dispatch from Tokio, January 31, 1922, Baron Uchida,
the Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs, replying to interpolations in
the House of Peers, said: "The Four-Power Treaty was not intended to
abrogate the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, but rather to widen and extend
it." The real _quid pro quo_ for the termination of the Anglo-Japanese
Alliance was the agreement of the United States not to construct naval
bases or new fortifications in Guam and the Philippines, and the clause
terminating the Anglo-Japanese Alliance might just as well have been
attached to the Naval Treaty, but this would not have satisfied
Japanese public opinion. Great Britain and Japan were permitted to
terminate their alliance in any way that they might deem best. After
the Four-Power Treaty was accepted by the American delegates, they
feared that it would look too much as if the United States had merely
been drawn into the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. It was decided,
therefore, at the eleventh hour to give the agreement a more general
character by inviting France to adhere to it. France agreed to sign,
although she resented not having been consulted d