It was not until President Wilson sent out his Peace offering of the 19th December, 1916, that a distant change came. On this document being formally communicated to the Chinese Government great interest was aroused, and the old hopes were revived that it would be somehow possible for China to gain entry at the definitive Peace Congress which would settle beyond repeal the question of the disposal of Kiaochow and the whole of German interests in Shantung Provinces,--a subject of burning interest to the country not only because of the harsh treatment which had been experienced at the hands of Japan, but because the precedent established in 1905 at the Portsmouth Treaty was one which it was felt must be utterly shattered if China was not to abandon her claim of being considered a sovereign international State. On that occasion Japan had simply negotiated direct with Russia concerning all matters affecting Manchuria, dispatching a Plenipotentiary to Peking, after the Treaty of Peace had been signed, to secure China's adhesion to all clauses EN BLOC without discussion. True enough, by filing the Twenty-one Demands on China in 1915--when the war was hardly half-a-year old--and by forcing China's assent to all Shantung questions under the threat of an Ultimatum, Japan had reversed the Portsmouth Treaty procedure and apparently settled the issues at stake for all time; nevertheless the Chinese hoped when the facts were properly known to the world that this species of diplomacy would not be endorsed, and that indeed the Shantung question could be reopened. Consequently great pains were taken at the Chinese Foreign Office to draft a reply to the Wilson Note which would tell its own story. The authorized translation of the document handed to the American Legation on the 8th January has therefore a peculiar political interest. It runs as follows:-- "I have examined with the care which the gravity of the question demands the note concerning peace which President Wilson has addressed to the Governments of the Allies and the Central Powers now at war and the text of which Your Excellency has been good enough to transmit to me under instructions of your Government. "China, a nation traditionally pacific, has recently again manifested her sentiments in concluding treaties concerning the pacific settlement of international disputes, responding thus to the voeux of the Peace Conference held at the Hague. "On the other hand, the present war, by its prolongation, has seriously affected the interests of China, more so perhaps than those of other Powers which have remained neutral. She is at present at a time of reorganization which demands economically and industrially the co-operation of foreign countries, a co-operation which a large number of them are unable to accord on account of the war in which they are engaged.