broader propositions of the Far Eastern question, attempt the somewhat difficult feat of treating Japan and her people in a rational manner; which is to say, that I will examine their actions and motives just as I would those of any other nationality, in the light of the facts. I heartily disdain the assumption which is the motif of so much that is written about Japan, that there is something mysterious, unfathomable to the Western intellect in the national character and motives; and in this I pretend to no superior perception, but only to ordinary common sense. Had America or England to-day a conflict of interest or opinion with another nation, creating serious international friction, what would be the standards applied to any reasonable discussion of the matter? Was it Germany, for instance, would we permit the fact that her peasantry still wear picturesque medieval costumes and cling to many ancient customs and ideas to obscure the circumstances involved? Was it France, would the habitual politeness of French waiters and policemen, and the chic characteristics of French women blind us to sterner issues? Does the fact that the Turk is a Mahometan and calls his prayers to Allah from a minaret prevent him from having his national entity weighed in the balance of practical international politics? How much, I wonder, of geisha girls, of cherry blossoms, of politeness of servants and 'ricksha coolies anxious for a tip or desirous of smoothly covering a pecuniary exaction, of lotus blooms, of old palaces and temples, of crude surprise and astonishment at commonplace facts and circumstances of Oriental life, of the beauty of a scenically delightful land, is included in the present Western conception of Japan and her policy? Too much; entirely too much, I think. These facts are very interesting; as is the fact that Japan is rapidly adopting many Western methods, is improving her educational system, and so on. But what have these ordinary matters of social life, common to nearly all countries in some degree, to do with great questions of international policy, dependent upon calculated human volition, and expressed in broad political action? Very little; and in my correspondence, having long ago been emancipated from my first impressions of the Orient, I intend to cut them out. Let us, then, inquire into these matters, so far as Japan is concerned, just

as we would if the nation in question was England, Germany, Austria, France ormay I say?-Russia.

Much has been written about the causes of this war; so much that there is now danger that the real causes will be entirely lost sight of in a chaos of comment and advocacy. We hear much of the rights of Japan on one hand, and the rights of Russia on the other. As a matter of fact, neither belligerent has any rights involved. Both have interests, but no rights. This constitutes a difference as well as a distinction. The chief bones of contention are Korea and Manchuria, and neither Japan nor Russia have any more rights in these countries than the United States, France, or Germany. Manchuria is a part of China, and Korea is, or was when the war began, an independent kingdom. Any rights foreign nations have are under treaties, which may be modified or rescinded at any time. This distinction should be kept clear, for it is vital to any intelligent discussion of the issues of the war and their settlement.

Since it is only by comparison with the causes of the war that the settlement can be judged, it seems necessary here briefly, even at the cost of appearing to rehash old matter, to recall some of the main propositions. Stripped of diplomatic verbiage and the pretences of special advocacy, the positions of the opposing powers amounted to about this: Russia, desiring to extend her influence in the Orient and secure an open port on the Pacific, and finding in her path territories belonging to nations too feeble to protect them, under various pretexts had seized Manchuria and was making tentative encroachments upon Korea, in both cases in disregard of the wishes of the political sovereigns of the countries and the treaty rights therein of other nations. Japan, newly awakened to a great ambition to extend her prestige and territory, and seeing in the success of Russia's policy the final closing of her only avenue to expansion, coveting for herself the disputed territories, and despairing of being able to check by diplomatic means the Russian advance, resolved upon war rather than abandon her own projects.

The fact that Russia had actually usurped authority in Manchuria, which it was occupying contrary to the wishes of China and a majority of the powers who

had treaty rights and commercial interests there, enabled Japan to assume the pose of a liberator fighting the battle of China, Korea, and the Western nations, and so posed she still stands in the limelight of propaganda. The forgetful world does not remember that only ten years ago a combination of the powers, headed by Russia, prevented Japan from doing exactly what Russia has, in a measure, since done. Most references to the settlement of the China-Japan war are based on indignant allusions to how Japan was "robbed of the legitimate fruits of her victory," purposely oblivious to the fact that the fruits of Japan's military victory over China were almost identical with the fruits of Russia's diplomatic victory since, to which such strenuous opposition, and justly I think, has arisen. Is there some moral law in international affairs which makes a thing right when gained by military force and wrong when it is accomplished by diplomacy?

That there be no misunderstanding, it may be well to say here that I consider Russia's policy in respect to Manchuria and, incidentally, Korea, to be in its main political aims entirely wrong and highly objectionable from the standpoint of not only China and Korea, but also when the interests of other nations are considered. The Western world is little concerned, except academically, as to the merits of the quarrel between Russia and Japan. The quarrel occurred, the war is being fought and will in time be finished. What, then? The interests of China, of Korea, of the United States, England, Germany, and France remain the same as before the war. The rights of all, since no fundamental rights were at issue in the conflict or could be determined by it, also remain the same. Noth ing will have been changed except the situation in the regions affected by the war. As now seems probable, instead of Russian military authority holding sway in Manchuria and Korea, there will be Japanese military authority. What will be the results upon the various interests and rights involved? This depends on the terms of the settlement; and the terms of the settlement will depend upon its issues and the forces brought into play in shaping them. The main things to be considered, then, are the questions implicated and the forces already being applied and applicable to the

situation. This will require close examination of many matters. It is now of little importance what Russia's conduct in the past has been, since it may be reasonably assumed that when hostilities terminate Japan's military situation in the locality affected will be superior. So for the time Russia may be discarded from the discussion. This helps much; for it at once emancipates us from past controversies and bitternesses and enables us to look more clearly at the present and future. And to get a reliable clew to Japan's ambitions and intentions, and their effect upon Western interests in the Orient, it will not do to depend upon the pronouncements of her diplomats or the representations of a favorable propaganda. I shall therefore attempt a solution of Japan's aims and the effects of her policy, if it succeeds, by examining not so much what she says as what she has done and is actually doing.

Since popular opinion in Japan is one of the elements certain to be injected into discussion of the peace terms, it is well to take a glance at it in passing. The propaganda has dealt profusely with this subject. The West has been deluged with accounts of the national enthusiasm which greeted the opening and progress of hostilities, manifested in innumerable striking ways, such as parental and filial homicide where domestic responsibilities hampered responses to the call to arms, popular confidence in the government shown by subscriptions to the domestic loans illustrated by pathetic examples of self-sacrifice, and the determination of the people to fight to ultimate exhaustion rather than recede a step from the position assumed. All this rests on a foundation of truth, but it is nevertheless true that the narration and discussion of such incidents in the press of the world has created, in the main, a false impression. It is true, for instance, that popular enthusiasm greeted the outbreak of the war. this by no means implies that a majority of the people of Japan approved, or even understood the reasons and objects involved. Japan is at present, and will be for many years to come, ruled by an oligarchy, which, while animated by a more intelligent and progressive spirit than that which governs Russia, differs from it in no essential aspect. The masses of the Japanese people have no better knowledge of public and for

But

eign affairs than do the masses of people in Russia, or than did the peasantry of Europe in the time when it spilled its blood upon battle-fields in obedience to the whims of kings. Under the ruling oligarchy, which includes some very brilliant and a large number of able men, is a stratum of people engaged in professional, industrial, and commercial pursuits comparing favorably with intelligent middle classes in Western countries. These elements only have the capacity for any real understanding of broader political questions, and compared with the whole population of Japan their number is utterly insignificant. If an impression to the contrary has gone abroad, it is due to the direct and indirect operation of the propaganda. Within the last year or two Japan has been flooded with promiscuous writers, who have, as a rule, hovered about the captial and treaty ports, where the most progressive side of the country is on exhibition. They have been taken in hand by the Japanese, shown the best schools, the best hospitals and factories, the best of everything ancient and modern the country has to show, and the result has been a lot of very ridiculous comment. Set a tide like this running and it is hard to check, and it is not the less misleading because it is founded upon fact.

The Japanese oligarchy rules Japan just as the Russian oligarchy rules Russia, by seeking the approval of the people only when it is compelled to, and no oftener. The people have really almost no voice in the government, and that there are fewer manifestations of popular discontent than in Russia is due to the fact that the people are more indifferent to a direct influence in public affairs and that they are better governed. But in a great war, with its consequent human and other sacrifices, it was prudent to secure popular approval, which the Government set to work to gain. One of the strongest evidences that Japanese statesmen have long been preparing for this war is the manner by which pubic opinion has been shaped to meet the emergency, while Russia's unpreparedness and lack of political unanimity show that however her Far Eastern policy may have led toward it she failed to realize that it was at hand. To say that she intentionally brought it on is sheer nonsense. The facilities at hand for the manufacture of public opinion were

practically the same in both countries, with a censored press as the convenient and natural medium. During the last few years I have visited this part of the world several times, and have kept close touch with the progress of events, particularly those bearing upon the policies of Russia and Japan. Having predicted that the war was inevitable three years before it began, and guessed at the time when it would break (as events have shown, I hit it almost to the month), I watched the drift of things more carefully, even when not in this part of the world, than I should have otherwise done. So I was able to keep pace with the manner by which the Japanese people were primed by the Government for the war, and also observed the beginning and progress of the pro-Japanese propaganda in the West which was designed to bring to the islanders allies and sympathizers where most needed. So, when the moment arrived and the war-cloud burst I was quite prepared to see the Japanese people rush to arms with enthusiasm. For years their minds had been adroitly played upon, and they threw themselves into the struggle with whole hearts. But the impulse that swayed them was sentiment, not opinion. They had nothing that can rightly be called opinion, for opinion implies a consideration of both sides of a proposition, and they had little or no impartial knowledge of the facts. That there was a wide difference of opinion concerning the war among Japanese statesmen is true, but the masses of the people knew nothing of the doings of the council chamber, for they never read the foreign press. Even the dissenters from the war policy, realizing that the nation would need a unified popular sentiment hostile to Russia if it came to war, did not think it wise to disturb existing popular impressions. As to the Japanese army, it was all for war. heard Japanese officers of high rank speak of the war five years ago as a certainty of the near future. And the military party was even then in control of the Government.

I

So much for the foundation of popular opinion in Japan. And it is not a fact to be lightly dismissed by the Western world, that here is a people formidable in arms and of ambitious temperament so constituted in their present political and social development as to be tools in the hands of a few clever and aspiring men, whose use of the

force at their command may be limited only by pressure from without. There does not to-day lie in Japan, in international affairs, any appeal to the good sense or right thinking of the people at large, as in England, America, or the greater part of Europe, from the designs or decision of the ruling class; and in my opinion persons who disseminate throughout the West the contrary view, even indirectly, are either mistakenly ignorant or false to the fundamental standards of Western civilization. We seem in danger of going widely astray in certain directions. There is nothing that I can see in the act of a father murdering his children in order to go to war, or a mother entering the Yoshiwara that her husband may fight for his country except a somewhat revolting reversion to a barbarism still latent in the race. Acts of similar selfsacrifice, differently expressed, are common to all nationalities in similar times. The plain truth is that the time is still far off when Japan can be dealt with except as an Oriental nation, and diplomatic intercourse or policy that does not keep this in view runs the risk of committing an error that may be very grave in its consequence.

When she entered upon the war Japan saw fit to publish certain utterances declaring the principal purposes which animated her in undertaking the struggle, and defining with seeming candor and explicitness her intentions in the event of success. Later in my correspondence I may find occasion to fully review some of these declarations, but at present a brief résumé of their more important terms will suffice. They disclaimed any ambition for territorial conquest, guaranteed the independence of Korea, and promised the restoration of Manchuria, should she succeed in evicting the Russians, to China. Nothing could be fairer or more disinterested. The world at large expressed its satisfaction, and the propaganda received a tremendous impulse in the West. More than a year has passed. The most sanguine anticipations of Japanese success have been realized. Victory is believed to be assured, and Japan is preparing to garner its fruits. But as the discussion of peace terms evolves from the general to the specific, indications of a change of front may be noticed, attended by some highly interesting and illuminating manifestations.

The main propositions involved in the

settlement are, obviously, the fate of Korea and Manchuria, with a general readjustment that will consider and protect the various interests involved, and give some assurance of permanent peace in the Orient. As minor, though not unimportant, propositions may be mentioned the disposition of Port Arthur and Vladivostok; of the island of Saghalien and the Usuri and Amur littorals; the eastern termini of the two branches of the Trans-Siberian Railway, and that part of it lying east of the Manchurian-Siberian border; and certain precautions imposing a check upon future Russian aggression in this part of the world. As to those matters involving only Japan and Russia, no legitimate objection can be made to Japan securing all she can get. Anything which she may be able to exact from Russia may be fairly regarded as the legitimate fruits of victory. From what I can learn here, her demands upon Russia will probably embrace something like the following:

(a) The permanent evacuation by Russia of Port Arthur and all of Manchuria.

(b) The turning over to Japanese control, for a term of years, of all the Russian railway lines lying east of the western border between Manchuria and Siberia.

(c) Cession to Japan of the island of Sagahlien and its archipelago.

(d) The turning over to Japan for a term of years of the port and littoral of Vladivostok, as a guarantee of good faith and an agreement on the part of Russia to not again fortify Vladivostok.

(e) Russia to agree to not in the future increase her naval force in Pacific waters above a maximum fixed by the peace terms, without the consent of Japan.

(The Amur River to be freely navigated by the craft of all nations.

(g) Russia to pay Japan a money indemnity.

(h) Russia to recognize the preponderating interests of Japan in Korea and Manchuria.

Beyond a suggestion or two, I will pass by, for the time, discussion of these terms. A majority of them cannot be reasonably objected to by outside powers. One or two indirectly affect general interests, particularly those of China, such as the clause concerning the railways. I have no doubt that some of these demands will be ad

vanced not with any genuine expectation of having them granted, but in order to be able to appear to concede something in favor of a compromise. For instance, I do not think that Japanese statesmen have any expectation of being able to secure a money indemnity from Russia. Certainly such a demand would have poor prospect for success at the present stage of the war. Should the war go on, and Japan get possession of Vladivostok and the Amur littoral, it might be different, for then she would have something to return for a money consideration. The matter of free navigation of the Amur is clearly a sop thrown to the public sentiment of the world, and that will not be insisted upon.

Thus it will be seen that a peace between Japan and Russia based on the above suggestions would leave practically untouched the really great matters involved in the settlement-the fate of Korea and Manchuria, and beyond that the even larger issues included in the Far Eastern question. So it becomes clear that the peace terms between Japan and Russia and the settlement of the great issues of the war are not necessarily the same thing, although closely related. It is possible that peace might come and these more important matters be left comparatively unaltered. I venture to say that it is highly probable that they will not be in any way settled by the peace terms unless steps are taken by the Western powers to see that in respect to its being a move toward a solution of this great problem the present slaughter shall not be in vain. This distinction should be kept clear in the mind during the confusing controversies destined to rage until conditions in the Far East are re-established on a firmer basis.

But, some one may suggest, assuming that Japan is victorious, has she not already declared her intentions in respect to Korea and Manchuria in a way satisfactory to a majority of the powers interested, and is this not an assurance of a satisfactory settlement? True; Japan has declared her intentions. But that was a year or so ago. Policies are amenable to the suggestion of events, even assuming that sincerity and not expediency is the key-note of their promulgation. Since those utterances were given to the public Japan has had a series of brilliant military successes. The propaganda has informed us, of course, that the quali

ties of her statesmen and people are such that they will not be influenced in their impulses or ambitions by national glory. However, I am trying to forget that we are dealing with demi-gods, and in order to keep the discussion on a rational basis will for the moment project it, hypothetically, away from Japan. Assume a people long accustomed to regard a certain part of the world as representing the highest degree of potential power as expressed in military excellence. Let it be so well convinced of this that it copies the military methods of the other civilization and bends its energies to acquire proficiency therein. Let it then encounter a power long assumed by the world to be most formidable in a military way, and easily defeat it. Such a people might be expected to feel a little "cocky," to entertain a perhaps exaggerated notion of their own prowess; and if nearly the whole of the civilized world united in indiscriminate praise of them they would not be human if their heads were not somewhat turned. With my mind somewhat cleared by this digression into the realm of rationalism, I now see plainly, as I look about me in Japan, that the people have been affected by their success just as those of any other nationality would have been. It is true that Oriental suavity, too long inbred to be readily disturbed, enables the better classes to repress, especially in the presence of foreigners, their exultation. Having visited Japan several times before the war, I am able to make my own comparisons, and I say without hesitation, omitting details, that the whole nation is feeling very "chesty," to use a slangy but very expressive word which all Americans will understand. This feeling has not, so far, manifested itself in any disposition on the part of the better classes to be offensive to foreigners, particularly Americans and English, but I can observe a subdued insolence in waiters, 'ricksha coolies, et cetera, that was not formerly noticeable. The propaganda has conveyed the impression that Japan realizes that the eyes of the Western world are on her, impelling her to be on her best behavior. But does not even this favorable representation of the national conduct in the crisis seem to imply that there is a tendency to contrary action underlying it; that there is something unreal, not genuine, perhaps hypocritical, in it all?

It is interesting, then, to note and scruti