THE WHIP HAND

The center of the diplomatic stage has of late been occupied by the tiny island of Yap. Formerly a German possession, it was allotted to Japan, together with the other German islands in the Pacific north of the equator, by the Supreme Council of the League of Nations under the mandate system. Secretary Colby's note on the question --rightly styled the last dramatic act of the Wilson regime--finds confirmation in the attitude of the Harding administration.

The dispute over Yap lies not in the ownership of some eighty square miles of territory, but in the fact that the island is the key to telegraphic communication with the Far East. "All messages for the Dutch Indies," President Mackay of the Commercial Cable Company has testified, "were sent via Yap under normal conditions; and during interruptions of our cable between Guam and Manila, which cut off all communication with the Philippines and China by our route, we diverted traffic via Yap to Shanghai over the German-Dutch system." American commercial expansion demands communications with Asia that will not be under the control of a competing power. The United States disputes the award of Yap to Japan because the mandate would give that country exclusive control over a strategic center of communication.

The failure of the International Cable Commission thus far to arrive at any final agreement lends credence to the belief that the other powers are trying to prevent the United States from sharing in the control of the former German communications system. The Allies seem to have adopted the view that American rights have been impaired by the Senate's failure to ratify the Treaty of Versailles. They forget that our rights as one of the "principal and Allied Powers" have never been resigned by us, nor left to be disposed of as the Council of the League sees fit.

It has been intimated further that Japan is clinging to Yap for purposes of negotiation: ownership of land in California, the occupation of Siberia, the Shantung question, and various other phases of Japanese policy would be accorded settlement more favorable to Nippon if she held the whip hand over us by virtue of the Yap dispute. With this in mind, the Japanese stand firm upon the question. But mature consideration of the place which the United States now holds in the financial and commercial world, and the keystone position she maintains with reference to German reparations would seem to indicate that, if anything, the whip is in the other hand.