FTER more than a year of almost uninterrupted success and with what they believe, rightly or not, to be the closing phase of the war entered upon, the Japanese people are permitting themselves to consider the fruits of victory. Since the tendencies of Japanese energies and ambitions and the political questions involved in the settlement seriously affect the desires and interests of a number of the great Western powers, particularly America, they are worthy of something more than passing consideration. Indeed, it is not too much to say that some of the gravest problems influencing the destiny of the human race are included within the scope of events now so rapidly culminating in this part of the world, and it would be a blind statesmanship that would regard them with indifference.

However, in discussing these matters in so far as they are influenced by Japanese ambitions and tendencies, one encounters a serious difficulty at the very outset. This has its roots in the immense amount of misinformation which has in the last year or two, under various disguises, been disseminated concerning Japan and her people, and the popular misconceptions based thereon now prevalent among Westerners. So, in order to give any adequate portrayal of the elements and issues involved, it seems necessary to first clear away this mass of rubbish. The chief agency in creating this misconception has been, naturally, the press; and to make clear the method by which this extraordinary result was accomplished some elucidation is required, the pertinency of which will appear. It has long been the boast of American journalism that our press is to a great degree free, in the delineation and discussion of foreign news, from the prejudices and influences which so often mar the efforts of our British and Continental contemporaries; and, it must be with a feeling of mortification that it now begins to realize how all these years it has in many things been led by a string held in

London. And yet the explanation of this seemingly singular condition is simple enough. During the first century of our national existence our chief concern was about our internal affairs, and we were quite content to take ordinary news about events transpiring outside our boundaries from outside sources, since the effect upon our progress was so slight as to seem insignificant. The causes which made London the news centre of the world are obvious. Before the day of the telegraph British ships sailed all the seas and penetrated to the remotest parts of the earth. British interests grew up everywhere, making communication frequent and easy. Then came the telegraph, and the laying of marine cables. Here England was again the pioneer, and for many years cables controlled by British interests were almost the only avenues of news transmission between Europe and America and remoter regions, while chartered concessions for a long time did, and in many instances still, forestall competition. So far as America was concerned, practically all of the foreign news which reached our press came through London, and still does, although the laying of a Pacific cable now gives us ready and direct access to the Orient. Other practical reasons applicable to journalistic conditions, such as the differences in time caused by the rotation of the earth, added to the forces which established the route of the world's news movement from east to west. Thus London became the news centre of the world, and the American press found it not only convenient, but practically necessary to depend upon the London press for the great bulk of its foreign news. It is only of late years since my work has taken me to various parts of the world and brought me face to face with the actual method used in the gathering and transmission of such news services, that I have come to realize what an mmense power they have exercised in enabling England to advance her policies and interests, and my annoyance at the discovery is lost in admira

tion of the results achieved. That historians of the rise of the British Empire should have, in their analyses of the forces which have produced the result, ignored this corner on information of a certain class and what it has involved shows that appreciation of the function of publicity in civilization is still in a nebulous state.

Interesting as this question is, and well worthy of exhaustive elucidation, I only refer to it here because it affords the principal clue to matters directly pertinent to a discussion of Japanese ambitions and designs in the Orient, which are soon to find expression, as far as circumstances will permit, in the terms which will end the present war. The reader need not expect to be able to reach any intelligent understanding of the great Far Eastern question without an investigation that must at least consider the fundamental propositions involved. The ingenious and pithy epigram may dazzle, but it leaves the mind ignorant and unconvinced. And the relations of publicity to the present situation and its results cannot be ignored, since it has been, and is being, utilized to call into play and influence forces directly bearing upon the settlement. Recently, in discussing the present situation in the Orient with a foreigner long distinguished by his association with events in this part of the world, I asked him what, in his opinion, is the greatest force applicable in the readjustment which must follow the war.

"Public opinion in America and England," he answered without hesitation.

Striking as this statement may seem at first thought, it is essentially true in the last analysis, and in his reply I found a longgrowing conviction of my own somewhat unexpectedly confirmed. But to say that the greatest force applicable to the forthcoming problems is public opinion in America and England is not to say that such opinion will necessarily dictate their settlement. It merely indicates that it may do so. I venture to go further, and assert that it should do so. Whether it will or not depends upon what that public opinion is and how it is exercised in influencing the actions of the American and British governments.

In this connection it is worth while to review, briefly, the manner in which this public opinion has been shaped into its existing state, and the underlying motives which

have given it direction. For, as any observant person must have noticed, there is at present a truly remarkable coincidence in the general trend of British and American popular opinion about the present war. When previous divergence of national thought and prejudices is remembered, the present agreement can scarcely be set down as the result of merely incidental forces. It is, in fact, the result of manipulation, aided by certain incidental forces tending to bring English and American national policies and interests into harmony in the Far East. This result, extremely desirable in itself, and founded upon just grounds, already shows signs of creating a counterbalancing force which may conceivably be used to defeat the objects the Anglo-American harmony was designed to secure. With such a possibility inherent in it, the subject, in all its details, cannot be regarded as other than very important.

British antipathy to Russia is a matter of such common knowledge that it is unnecessary to review here its causes and growth. One of its results has been to assist materially in bringing about the present war and the critical situation consequent upon it. It created the Anglo-Japanese alliance, and the alliance was the immediate forerunner of the war. From the moment it was concluded the war was a foregone conclusion, fully determined upon by Japan, no matter what may be asserted to the contrary, and any opinions formed out of other views lead up a blind trail. This statement is fully borne out by a close study of the facts, and does not necessarily bear upon the right or wrong of the dispute between Japan and Russia. To say that Russia was wrong does not mean that Japan was right, and arguments based on this assumption are destined to come some severe croppers in the near future. From the moment that England determined upon an alliance with Japan as the most promising means of checking Russian ambitions on the Pacific, there began a propaganda through the press to create a sympathy with the purpose of the alliance in the two countries where it was absolutely necessary to secure support— England and America. The time was peculiarly favorable for carrying out this project. It required, of course, little effort to set the tide of English opinion flowing strongly against Russia, but in America more deli

any great preponderance of news forwarded from these sources was false, or even improperly colored; but I do think that the general result was, in matters that could be given a political bearing, calculated to represent England and Japan, so far as Far Eastern events were concerned, in a generally favorable light, and Russia in a generally unfavorable light.

At that time the gathering and distribution of news from the Far East was entirely in the hands of a British news agency, long dependent in a measure upon governmental favors, whose policy was and is, consequently, amenable to reserved governmental suggestion. The Pacific cable was not laid, and all news that reached America from the Orient, except that from the Philippines, came via London with the usual British coloring. There has always been, and justly, I think, latent in the breast of the average American a feeling of hostility toward the anachronisms of the Russian Government, even while feeling the most lively liking for the Russian people, which gave to clever adverse pictures of Russia's Far Eastern policy a ready acceptance. And, indeed, this view is in my opinion entirely justified by the facts. The cleverness of the manipulation consisted in that the adverse delineation of Russian doings in the Orient was made to also serve to represent Japan's aims and acts in a favorable light, and the two impressions thus became coexistent in the popular mind. British manipulation of the Oriental news service during this period did not confine itself to insidiously attacking Russia. It dealt blows also at France and Germany whenever opportunity offered. This led, naturally, to the establishment of news bureaus conducted in the German and French interests, but little from these sources reach America. The foreign press published in China and Japan has, until very recently, been almost exclusively in British hands, which was also a great advantage to the favorable presentation of the British point of view. As a rule, editors and reporters on these papers are employed as correspondents for the English and American press, and their correspondence naturally has reflected the interests in which their respective papers were published. Mind, I

During this period, which may be said to embrace the interval between the "boxer" disturbances in China and the negotiations which precipitated the present war, the principal Oriental news service distributed to papers published in America came from the Associated Press, by virtue of an arrangement between it and the leading British agency; so that while the service was outwardly American, it was in reality British in its essential aspects, subject to a process of "straining" in the offices of the American organization. This is no reflection upon either the enterprise or integrity of the Associated Press. I have reason to think that its managers have long realized the desirability of maintaining its own correspondents abroad, and decided steps in that direction have been made in quite recent times.

But financial and other prac

tical reasons have made the process a gradual one, which still falls short of what the management wishes and hopes to accomplish. The press of America gets no financial assistance, either direct or indirect, from the Government, as is common elsewhere, which, while being one of its greatest sources of strength and value, sometimes puts it at a temporary disadvantage and prevents it for a time from doing what it would like to do. Most governments not only subsidize news agencies permanently or upon occasion, but go so far as to purchase or establish newspapers outright for the purpose of carrying forward a propaganda in support of their policies. It is to call attention to these methods, particularly to their past and present influence upon the future of the nations in the Orient, and not to reflect upon the fundamental excellence of the American press, that I discuss the subject here.

When the present war began the Associated Press at once realized the importance of having its own representatives on the scene, and a number of experienced and

capable men were sent. A large number of special correspondents also hastened to the Far East, although the American press was generally disposed to depend for its special service upon its English contemporaries. As a consequence, by far the larger proportion of the special correspondents were of British nationality or employed by British publications. Owing to the impression that correspondents would be more welcome with the Japanese and the foundation of interest and sympathy for them which had already been laid, a great majority went to Japan, where, in the beginning, they received every attention calculated to confirm their friendly predisposition. Many were seeing Japan for the first time, and for the moment its peculiar glamor fell upon them. Moreover, there is no doubt that many of the correspondents for London newspapers had explicit instructions to adopt a pro-Japanese attitude. A few of them, men of sufficient reputation to have some weight, went even so far as to advise with Japanese officials and offer suggestions with a view to disseminating the pro-Japanese propaganda. Thus for several months a large number of correspondents remained in Japan, royally entertained by the Japanese, and writing articles of fulsome praise about the country and people, which were eagerly printed by English and American newspapers.

Taking a leaf out of England's book, perhaps acting upon friendly suggestion, the Japanese Government set to work to organize a definite plan to hold what it had gained popular sympathy in America and England. There is no doubt that the more astute Japanese statesman fully realized that useful as this sympathy was for the moment, particularly in bolstering her somewhat weak finances, it would become of far greater importance after the war had been fought and the day for the settlement came. Japan had carefully calculated the chances of the war and expected to be successful, else she would not have entered upon it. But military success did not necessarily mean the full accomplishment of her political policy. This policy was destined, as her leaders well knew, to bring her into contact, even friction, with Western powers other than Russia. There loomed ahead a possible congress of the powers, in which Japan would be unable to accom

plish her desires without powerful allies, or at least a passive sympathy which would give her a free hand in certain directions. So a Japanese press bureau was established. in London, with branches in Europe and indirect connections in America, for the purpose of keeping the Japanese point of view conspicuously to the fore. This bureau supplies special articles for publication to various news-distributing concerns which operate in England, Europe, and America. It also supplies a special telegraph news service free to all newspapers published in the Orient that will print it, and most of them do. A number of newspapers and publications are directly, though surreptitiously, subsidized, especially papers printed in the Far East. Even the Chinese native press is not neglected, but is said to print news telegrams and special articles supplied by the Japanese. Practically the whole of the British press in the Far East continues to be rabidly and unreasonably pro-Japanese, although there is a decided drift of contrary sentiment already noticeable among Britishers residing in the Orient. The resident Japan correspondent for a prominent London newspaper, whose special service is widely used and opinion much quoted in America, is the publisher of a paper subsidized by the Japanese Government. Naturally, Russia has made some effort to counteract this carefully planned propaganda. Two newspapers have been established in the Far East by the Russian Government, printed in English, which are supplied with a telegraphic service and are edited in the Russian interest. But no attempt is made to conceal the fact that these publications are subsidized, with the consequence that their utterances are discounted in advance. Besides, their tone is, on the whole, very mild and reasonable compared to the pro-Japanese publications, and they are in a hopeless minority. No long-established and influential publication anywhere in the world outsideof Russia is swayed by Russian influence, which places the empire at a great disadvantage in this game of stimulating publicity.

It may be that these methods are in a way legitimate under the circumstances. But I think that the British and American people, who stand, next to the Japanese, to have their material welfare most affected by them, have an interest in knowing the facts. And

the American press, also, which is undoubtedly disposed to be fair in its presentation of and judgment upon events in the Far East, should scrutinize its news sources more closely. Much that is printed in the pro-Japanese Far Eastern press is reproduced in American newspapers, and often editorial comment is based upon it, though I think that this is decreasing as the war progresses. Although the scene of hostilities is far away from Japan, a strict censorship is still maintained on press despatches sent out of the country, and this censorship is by no means confined to purely military matters. Yet so prejudiced is a very large section of the English press that it is not uncommon to see the Russian censorship bitterly condemned and the Japanese censorship praised in the same column. It should be clear to even commonplace intelligence that both censorships are maintained for the same purpose, and with the same justification (or lack of it), and my knowledge of both leads me to believe that the Russian is the more liberal, notwithstanding strong reasons why the opposite should be true. As the war has dragged on its weary way, the pressure of enormous expense, together with causes tending to destroy much of their utility, has led to the withdrawal of a majority of special correspondents. This has again left the news services largely in the hands of the regular agencies. Even the Associated Press has withdrawn all its special correspondents except one, by a reciprocal division of the field with its British contemporary. It may be a result of accidental circumstance, but it happens that at present the only Associated Press staff man in the part of the world directly affected by the war and its issues is stationed in Tokyo, the one spot where any inclination toward criticism of Japanese conduct and policies would in the nature of things find scant material, and where the tendency to suppression of such inclination, for diplomatic and practical reasons, is strongest. Lest this statement should be distorted into a reflection upon the representative of the Associated Press in Japan, I desire to say that in Mr. Martin Egan it has a correspondent singularly fitted for his position.

Thus it occurs that, with the war entering upon what seems likely to be its final stage, and the settlement which is to be its tangible result rapidly nearing, conditions attending

publicity concerning matters pertaining thereto have reverted to the situation I have outlined; a situation in every way most favorable for keeping to the front the Japanese point of view, and most unfavorable for the dissemination of information likely to show the contrary side.

If, then, the average person in America and England now finds himself imbued with an impression that Japan is a miracle among the nations; that her national purposes and ambitions point straight along the path of universal altruism pure and undefiled; that she is generously sacrificing the blood and substance of her people in the cause of right and the broad interests of humanity and civilization, in a war unjustly and unexpectedly forced upon her; that the Japanese people are the most patriotic, the most agreeable and the "cutest" ever known; that the Japanese soldier is the bravest the world has ever seen, and his standard of military excellence unattainable by Westerners; if he has somehow gathered all this, and much more of the same sort, it is not at all surprising. Here is the rubbish pile which must be cleared away before any intelligent grasp of the immediate issues of the Far Eastern question may be had. It is none the less a mass of rubbish though much of its fundamental structure consists of incongruous and unrelated facts, with no real bearing upon the larger propositions involved. In fact, there is probably no parallel (although I am familiar with the methods and success of the British Government in its manipulation of news from South Africa prior to and during the Boer war), in the absence of direct use of money or application of special and pressing interest, to the manner by which the press of America (I assume that a majority of the British press was complaisant) has been "worked" by the Japanese Government in regard to this war. However, its effects need not necessarily be bad for Western civilization and interests, since it has given us much that is true and illuminating about Japan, unless it should result in mistaken action or no action at all by Western governments in the crisis that is coming. And it should be remembered that in this crisis inaction on the part of England and America will be positive in its effects.

I shall, in reporting and discussing matters concerning the relation of Japanese ambitions and policy, past and present, to the