of the actual situation. So long as the censorship continues to function as at present, this knowledge will not be generally available in England; this makes it the more necessary that all possible publicity should be brought to bear on the subject in America. In view of the misunderstandings and mutual suspicions which have been created between Tokio and Washington on more than one occasion by the reckless sensationalism of yellow-press writers on the one hand and, on the other, by the American public's indifference to foreign affairs, it is a matter of no little importance to the future of the world's peace that the far-Eastern question should be carefully studied and widely discussed by leading publicists in the United States. The creation of an enlightened public opinion, based on accurate knowledge, is essential to the conclusion of a general agreement between the powers interested in the future of China and the trade routes of the Pacific.

In the formation and education of such a body of opinion certain venerable shibboleths of diplomacy and catchwords long current will need to be gently, but firmly, relegated to the limbo of creeds outworn. All the political ideas underlying the opendoor conventions and the international guarantees for the maintenance of China's territorial integrity must be frankly recognized as obsolete, for the simple reason that they have been abrogated by Russia and Japan with the tacit consent of all concerned. The resultant grouping of rival forces and interests at Peking, both before and after the Russo-Japanese War, conferred on China the protective benefits of a period of equilibrium; but this period came to an end with the definite conclusion of the Russo-Japanese entente. Optimistic belief in the possibility of China's effectively setting her own house in order must also be abandoned. It is a belief that gained many sentimental adherents in America as the result of Young China's so-called Republicanism in 1911, but the prospect of organizing honesty and efficiency out of any class of officialdom in China is just as remote to-day as it was

under the Manchus. Eloquent platform enthusiasm for representative government, and the profession of high moral ideas by political adventurers and place-seekers, can no more make for good government in China than in Mexico. The men and machinery are completely lacking for the production of honest administration and military efficiency from the official corruption and ignorance of China's rulers. All our instincts of justice and respect for the rights of nations, all our sympathy for the misfortunes of the Chinese people, patient victims of misgovernment from time immemorial, are powerless to avert from them the destiny which sooner or later overtakes a passive, non-resisting race menaced by the necessities of earth-hungry neighbors in arms.

Deeply as we may sympathize with the Chinese, we should not hastily criticize or condemn the expansionist policy of Japan. In considering the causes and possible results of that expansion, certain fundamental truths are often overlooked by writers who approach the far-Eastern question from a sentimental point of view. In the first place, it must be borne in mind that the Japanese nation differs radically from the typically passive Oriental races of India and China. It is, in the words of John Stuart Hill, an "active, self-helping" people, a people inspired not only by ideals of imperialism, but possessed of strong martial instincts. When in India or China the pressure of population upon food supplies becomes acute, the patient toiling millions accept death with fatalistic resignation. By thousands and tens of thousands, almost uncomplaining, they go to their graves as to beds, accepting plague, pestilence, and famine as part of the inevitable burden of humanity. Only in the southern maritime provinces the more virile inhabitants in China have endeavored to lessen this burden by emigration, by seeking work and wealth overseas; but individually and collectively the race is lacking in the "self-helping" instinct which solves such problems of expansion by warfare and the survival of the fittest.

In the second place, it must be remembered that Japan's vital need of wider frontiers, new sources of food supply, and new markets for her industries has been in very great measure forced upon her by the policies and example of the AngloSaxon peoples. In self-defense they have learned from us the organization of machine labor in cities; following our example, they have passed swiftly from the condition of an agricultural to that of an industrial nation. With these economic changes came the modern science of sanitation, the immediate result being an increase of population far greater than that which had taken place when the country lived by and for agriculture. In 1875, before industrialism had set in, the population of Japan's 150,000 square miles was thirty-four millions; last year it was fiftyfour millions, and the average annual excess of births over deaths is roughly seven hundred thousand. The Elder Statesmen of Japan anticipated long ago, as all their unswerving policy has proved, the consequences to their country of the ever-increasing fierceness of industrial competition. They realized that, as the number of countries that depend for their very existence upon the exchange of manufactured goods for food-stuffs and raw materials increases, and as the countries with surplus food supplies become fewer and fewer, Japan must face the alternative either of emigration on a large scale or of finding in territorial expansion new sources of supply and an outlet for her surplus population. The Anglo-Saxon peoples, by their Asiatic exclusion acts, have shut the door on emigration to those parts of the world where Japanese labor might have reaped a rich harvest. Small wonder, then, that the eyes of Japan's wise rulers became fixed upon Korea and the fertile, unpeopled regions of Manchuria and Mongolia, that the possession of these lands became the be-all and end-all of Japanese policy, the goal toward which all the hopes and energies of the nation have been unswervingly directed. "Eastern Asia," said Count Komura in the Diet three years ago, "is the only safe field for

Japanese emigration." Like Prince Ito and other makers of modern Japan, Count Okuma has never had any illusions on this subject. If at times the Japanese have seemed to be desirous of testing the resistant strength of the Monroe Doctrine in California and in Mexico; if they have displayed activity in Vancouver and Honolulu, and cast their eyes toward island outposts in the southern seas, these have been political side issues, deliberately planned and pursued in order to create opportunities for application of the principle of do ut des.

Long before the Russian invasion had been swept back from the shores of the Yellow Sea, while still the Japanese people were working patiently and with undivided patriotism to master the mechanical and military sciences of the Western world, the whole nation knew that its destinies depended upon the struggle for Korea and the Manchurian hinterland. Eastern Asia could not become a safe field for Japanese immigration so long as Russia remained undefeated and in possession of Port Arthur, but it was always the only possible field in sight. Every page of Japanese history since the Treaty of Shimonoseki reveals the conscious purpose of the nation's rulers to make that field both safe and fruitful at the earliest possible moment. Their policy of expansion, unlike that of Russia, has been from first to last dictated by recognition of the supreme law of self-preservation. We may deplore the fact that Japanese emigration to eastern Asia can be carried out only by inflicting grave injustice and suffering upon millions of defenseless Chinese. We may assume that debarred from colonizing Mongolia, gradually reduced in Manchuria to the position of a subject race, prevented from developing the resources of their country for their own profit by the vested rights and monopolies of the predominant power, the Chinese must find the struggle for life greatly intensified. Nevertheless, the Anglo-Saxon, whose whole history has been one of expansion in anticipation of the actual and future needs of the race, can assume no moral

grounds for criticizing or condemning the policy of the Japanese. The law of selfpreservation, as applied between nations, recognizes no scope for altruism; red men, and yellow and brown, being unfit to survive in the struggle for places in the sun, have been eliminated by the European. To oppose Japan's actions and intentions. on grounds of self-interest, as by treaties. and conventions has been done in the past, may be justifiable; but to oppose them on high moral grounds is hypocritical and futile. British interests in this far-Eastern question are partly commercial, partly political; Japan's are national and vital.

In taking advantage of the present situation in Europe to exact from China concessions and privileges far greater than she could ever have hoped to obtain at Peking under normal conditions of diplomatic procedure, the Japanese Government has ignored certain of its obligations recorded in the treaty of alliance with Great Britain, but the attitude and offcial statements of the British Foreign Office for the last four years have been of a nature to suggest that, so long as existing trading rights and railway concessions are not seriously menaced, Japan has a free hand. As far as the special rights and interests claimed in Manchuria and Mongolia are concerned, this vast region was definitely recognized as coming under Japanese influence four years ago; in other words, the open door is there closed, and the principle of equal opportunities abandoned. As for the "contingent" demands of the Japanese protocol, it would be unwise to speculate too closely as to their real intentions. Allowance must be made for Count Okuma's vote-catching program at election-time, and the prudence of the Elder Statesmen may be relied upon to look carefully before they leap into an untenable position in central or southern China. Even though neither England, France, Germany, nor the United States is at present likely to oppose Japanese infringement of treaty rights in China by anything more than diplomatic protests, there are obviously many powerful obstacles, financial and political, to limit the

ambitions and check the activities of the military party and the jingoes in Tokio. It is to be expected that for some time to come these activities will be concentrated on the colonizing of Manchuria and on the development of points d'appui in Shantung and Fu-kien.

Assuming the Japanese to be capable of organizing and enforcing good government in China, the cause of civilization and the welfare of the Chinese people would alike have much to gain from the establishment of a Japanese protectorate over the eighteen provinces. History proves clearly that the Chinese are prepared to accept alien rulers so long as they rule with wisdom and justice. It is certain that China's intelligentia is utterly incapable of ruling wisely, and that the people are unfit for self-government; it is equally certain that no European power or group of powers could now undertake the stupendous work of reorganization and education which the country requires. Realizing this fact, millions of Japanese undoubtedly believe in the possibility of a great Asiatic empire under the flag of the rising sun, but there is no evidence that the sober sense of their responsible statesmen entertains any such ambitions. If they did, it would remain to be demonstrated that the ruling class in Japan possesses the moral qualities and administrative genius requisite to secure the loyalty. and good-will of the Chinese people.

To sum up, recent events at Peking mark clearly the beginning of a period in the history of the far East in which Japanese predominance will be the central factor, and I have endeavored to show that the expansion of Japan into Manchuria and Mongolia, obviously preliminary to formal annexation, is the result of urgent economic necessity, the inevitable response to instincts of self-preservation. I have assumed that neither on political nor high moral grounds can exception rightly be taken to this expansion into the unpopulous regions north of the Great Wall; on the contrary, that it should advance the cause of civilization by developing great sources of wealth which Chinese

and Mongolian inefficiency have allowed to lie fallow.

But a clear line should be drawn between this justifiable expansion into thinly peopled fertile lands and the contingent claims to assert special rights of a semiadministrative character in China proper. Except with the clear consent of the Chinese, and for their ultimate benefit, any such political ascendancy might prove to be destructive of the world's peace and a cause of fresh calamities to the Chinese people. On the other hand, unless the present chaos and corruption in China can be checked internally and anarchy prevented, something will have to be done by agreement of the powers to impose upon

ID

the elements of disorder some form of forceful authority.

The problem is a vast one and intricate: upon its solution depend the peace and prosperity of countless millions. Upon it also must depend the future balance of power in the region of the Pacific, a matter of no small concern to the United States. Clearly the first thing needful is that the leaders and exponents of public opinion in England and America should carefully study and discuss the problem in all its bearings, so that when, with the restoration of peace, the time comes for consideration of the facts accomplished at Peking, that opinion may be clear visioned and firmly rooted in accurate knowledge.

verdurous shadows by the Nile We wandered eons long ago; You teased a lazy crocodile,

I scanned a scroll by Manetho; You looked at me; I looked at you.

One moment more our lips had met, But mad Cambyses shot me through, And, sweetheart, I've not kissed you yet.

Again, where Baia's opal tide

Sobs round the painted porch of dreams, We walked o'er flowers, side by side,

Discoursing of Catullian themes. The honey from his golden lyre

Your lips had taught me to forget When red Vesuvius rained his fire,

And, sweetheart, I 've not kissed you yet.

Next in some park at Fontainebleau

We sipped Burgundian wine, and heard Villon across the dead years' snow,

Chénier reprove the happy bird. Above your chair I came to lean,

Your eager lips with wine still wet, Then tumbril of the guillotine!

And, sweetheart, I 've not kissed you yet.

How can you walk unmoved and cold

Beside me, knowing this be truth, What ancient mortgage still I hold

Upon your beauty and your youth? With usury you shall now repay

The debt of twenty centuries past; 'T was worth the pain and long delay: I've kissed you, sweetheart, now at last!