The Japanese claim they fear, and doubtless in many instances they sincerely do fear, that the United States is aggressively attempting to gain control of the Pacific. Any one conversant with the facts knows that it wishes simply the promotion of the welfare of the people concerned, including the welfare of its own citizens, by fair, peaceful, industrial methods, in accord with the spirit of self-determination of the peoples themselves just so rapidly as they are able to assume that power. XI. OUR GOVERNMENT IN THE CONFERENCE What is the position that our government should take in the conference? While exercising all due courtesy and exhibiting every care possible for the feelings of those in attendance, it should still have the Christian courage to face the facts as they have been and as they are, and to insist upon it that all the nations present see those facts and, basing their actions upon those facts, adopt so far as possible the Christian methods that will promote the welfare of all the peoples of the Far East, including Japan, so far as these problems of the Conference are concerned. If this is done, it does not mean that Japan's future or China's future is endangered. It means that every militaristic policy must be abandoned, but that the industrial, social, and even political future of all the nations, including Japan, will be better secured than can be possible in any other way. It will mean that the welfare of the inhabitants of China, including Manchuria and Shantung, of Siberia and of the islands of the Pacific, will be promoted by encouraging in every way possible their industrial development, by protecting them if necessary by joint international influence against aggression from without, and so far as possible by encouraging within those countries policies which will secure order, peace, and the development of the individuals toward acquiring a capacity for self-government which they seem to have been attaining so far only to a most unsatisfactory degree. Above all, the guiding spirit, with its clear-sightedness and rigid adherence to practical conditions as they are, should be the spirit of peace and righteousness. THE BROSS LECTURES