It should be noted that the term “limitation of armament” was used in the original invitation and in all the later official correspondence concerning the conference. The American Government was anxious not to lead the people to expect too much of this first attempt to get the powers together to listen to reason on the subject of competitive armaments, and it was necessary to show that a naval holiday agreement was a benefit that could not be gained without the assumption of definite responsibilities and pledges in regard to international questions, the method proposed for the solution of which had hitherto been force alone. The success of the Washington Conference depended upon the fulfilment of four conditions, the first of which affected all the powers participating, and the second, third, and fourth of which affected Great Britain, Japan, and the United States respectively. The conditions were: (1) that matters other than those on the agenda be rigorously excluded from the discussions; (2) that the British be willing to give up the supremacy of the sea; (3) that Japan agree to accept an agreement regulating the status quo in the Pacific in return for consenting to an inferiority in sea-power and the abrogation of the Anglo-Japanese alliance: and (4) that the United States ratify a treaty binding us to coöperate with other powers in maintaining a fixed political status quo for a period of years in Eastern Asia and the Pacific. Without these conditions, limitation of naval armament was impracticable. If they were fulfilled, nothing that France, Italy, the lesser European states, China, or Russia (for the time being) could say, would wreck the adoption and execution of the proposed program of the conference. In view of the many problems confronting Japan in world politics, discussion of which is beyond the scope of this book, it was predicted freely by Far Eastern experts that Japan would make embarrassing demands at the conference, and that the refusal to accede to them would lead to the withdrawal of Japan. But the same irresistible current of public opinion, voiced by a war-weary and tax-ridden people, forced Japanese statesmen to enter the conference with the idea that failure to arrive at an agreement was unthinkable. In October, just as the delegation was leaving, Tokio newspaper comment indicated this. For example, the “Yomiuri” said: