I realize that any subject which has to do with the Peace Conference possesses at this time a peculiar interest not only to members of the legal profession but in fact to men of every avocation and every nationality.

Second only to the proposed Covenant of the League of Nations in its claims upon the interest and attention of the American people and the Senate of the United States, and of far more importance and interest to them than the terms of the proposed treaty with Germany, outside of the section of that treaty which contains the Covenant of the League of Nations, is the proposed treaty with France.

Following the precedents of previous international conferences, including those of The Hague of 1899 and 1907, the work of preparing clauses on particular subjects for insertion in the Treaty of Peace with Germany was entrusted by the Conference of Paris to various commissions.

In the great Province of Shantung lies the little village of Chefoo, the birthplace of Confucius, to which hundreds of thousands of Chinese make an annual pilgrimage. It is what Mecca is to the Mohammedan, Jerusalem to the Christian. Shantung is the Chinese sacred province, the place to be protected from foreign intrusion.