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300 NATIONAL POLITICS I 9 I 0 I 9 2 2
by 1922, utilized the time of the voyage in the preparation of mail for dispatch or delivery.
For the most part, foreign mail service in 1921 represented an adjustment to peacetime conditions. There were, however, two accomplishments of note which were not settled directlv through the Universal Postal Union. One of these was accomplished through the Pan-American Postal Congress, which met at Buenos Aires in July. The other was an agreement with China to which the United States, along with other foreign powers, became a party at the Washington Disarmament Conference, which opened in the fall of 1921.
The Pan-American Postal Congresses grew out of repeated complaints from South American countries that business firms in the United States were making a practice of sending postage-short letters to firms south of the border and ultimately ruining good business relations between us and them. The parcel post agreement, the second of the two concluded, provided one uniform, simple system for all Pan-American countries in place of nineteen separate and varying systems which had been in force with the United States. Both agreements growing out of that Postal Congress offered concrete evidence of the desire of the nineteen participating countries to bring about closer co-operation among themselves and to improve their commercial relations through simplification and improvement of their postal services. I saw bv these concrete examples that whatever improves the means of communication between peoples and nations makes for the advancement of international commerce and our common civilization.
Another agreement aimed at fostering a better basis for communications was signed at the Washington Disarmament Conference in 1921. Four-power treaties, five-power treaties, nine-power agreements, naval ratios, and other military conventions necessarily overshadowed an agreement made with China regarding postal service. This resolution, calling for the closing not later than January 1, 1923, of all foreign postal agencies in China was another step in recognizing sovereignty and receiving that country into the family of nations. In leased territory and by special treaty, certain foreign postal services could be maintained in the Far East, but as soon as the resolution was adopted the United States commenced arrangements to close her postal station at Shanghai by the appointed date. This agreement represented a definite step toward China's achievement of territorial and administrative integrity.
The Washington Conference has already gone down in history as the most successful disarmament conference of modern times, and while I as Postmaster General had little to do with the actual arrangements, as a Cabinet member I was an official host of my government to delegates from foreign countries. The actual programming, developments, and execution of the conference arrangements were done bv the State De