(It was relinquished in 1922 following the Washington Conference.)  It was partly on account of this settlement that the Congress of the United States failed to ratify the Treaty of Versailles or join the League of Nations, which had been suggested by the President.  On her part Japan was aggrieved at the outcome of the Treaty because she felt she deserved more recognition for the support that she had given the Allies.  Japan was merely given the mandate for the Pacific Islands that she had taken from the Germans in the First World War, despite the fact that she wanted permanent sovereignty.  Japan failed to have a clause inserted into conditions of the League of Nations declaring the principle of racial equality.  Further indignities were piled on this sensitive nation.  In 1922 at the Washington Disarmament Conference she was only given the smaller quota of a 3-5-5 proportion of capital ships and the United States persuaded Great Britain to end the Anglo-Japanese Alliance.  In the following years America became very anti-Japanese and denied the immigration to the U.S.A. of Japanese workers because in their opinion the Japanese émigrés did not assimilate into the American way of life.  In 1930, while Gareth was working for David Lloyd George, the London Naval Disarmament Conference was held.  He mentioned having seen some of the delegates in one of his diaries and records his and Lloyd George’s unfavourable comments.  The ratification of the Treaty by Prime Minister Hamaguchi and his cabinet had far reaching repercussions, because it was considered by the Japanese that he had conceded to the Americans to accepting a below the minimum number of warships.  They agreed to a lower ratio for auxiliary warships than the 10-10-7, which had been laid down as the accepted minimum.  This issue caused a bitter protest and, with the Nationalists demanding action in Manchuria, culminated in the attempted assassination of Hamaguchi.

 Following the ‘Mukden Incident’ in September of the next year Japan felt that the Imperialist nations supported China and were excluding Japanese merchandise through tariff barriers and the restriction of free trade.  An article in Gareth’s possession by Ishihara Koichiro expressed the opinion that the world was dominated by the white nations and that Japan had long put up with insults by them.  “Japan’s present solitary position, international, economic and racial, in the nature of things stimulates Japan to greater activity and advance.