74 J.-A. PEMBERTON
point was ably expressed by a Chinese member who stated emphatically
that the Chinese people were not interested in peaceful change where
that meant ‘recognition of a status quo set up by force in violation of all
peace machinery’: as a Canadian member observed, peaceful change pre-
supposed the renunciation of war-like change and the collective means of
ensuring that such no such change could be threatened.^229
Japanese members, echoing the position of the Japanese government,
stated that Japan would be willing to join a system of collective secu-
rity provided that Japan’s ‘special circumstances,’ by which was meant
Japan’s ‘special position in Eastern Asia as compared with other foreign
powers’ and need for ‘ample opportunities for...[peaceful] expansion,’
were ‘clearly understood.’ One Japanese member told the conference
that ‘average Japanese’ felt that the current system of collective security
was designed to maintain the status quo desired by the satisfied states.
The same member stated that the Japanese people felt that the Western
countries were acting unfairly in ‘imposing the status quo on Japan and
calling it “peace”’ and that to the extent that the world’s diplomatic
machinery and system of collective security was designed to uphold the
form of peace preferred by Western countries, the Japanese were ‘against
it.’^230
There was some understanding expressed for the Japanese outlook
in this regard in that it was pointed out that the American Immigration
Act of 1924 and the American Tariff Acts of 1928 and 1930 were con-
tributing factors to the failure of the peace machinery established by the
Washington Conference in 1921–1922. The most important piece of
this machinery was the Nine-Power Treaty which had been enacted for
the purpose of maintaining the territorial integrity of China and ensur-
ing a stable balance of power in the Pacific. It was pointed out that the
American Immigration Act of 1924, which saw Japanese immigrants as
a national group excluded from the United States for the first time, and
(^229) Holland and Mitchell, eds., Problems of the Pacific, 1936, 193, 199.
(^230) Ibid., 195 and a Japanese member, 1936, quoted ibid. A paper submitted by the
Canadian group to the conference, listed fourteen political obstacles to the formation of a
regional security pact ten of which directly concerned Japan. The tenth obstacle in the list
was as follows: ‘The “special position” of Japan as the paramount Power in Eastern Asia...
would have to be recognized, by implication at least, in any general agreement to which
Japan was expected to be a signatory.’ J. W. Pickersgill, International Machinery for the
Maintenance of Peace in the Pacific Area, Canadian Institute of International Affairs, 1936,
quoted in Holland and Mitchell, eds., Problems of the Pacific, 1936, 191.