TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE DANGER FROM JAPAN.
IT is perfectly useless to discuss events in China until we know a little more accurately what has actually happened. At present the public mind is bemused by rumours, and, as we cusp-ct, by deliberate and artistic lying. All that is certain is that no Ambassador in Pekin is allowed to send one word to his Government, and that the Chinese are continuing the siege of Tientsin. There are, however, some questions involved which are permanent, and first among them is the relation of this country to Japan. As we are convinced, our people are making a grave mistake. They are disposed to leave the work of vindicating civilisation, at least in its earlier stages, to the Japanese, and angrily denounce any Power, or indeed any person, who questions the wisdom of that policy. They fancy that the Japanese Government was ready from the first out of humanity to make a great effort to save the Legations, that it was checked by Russia, and that if the Legations are destroyed the blame will rest mainly upon St. Petersburg. That is an illusion. The Japanese Government behaved at least as selfishly as any Government of Europe, much more selfishly than the British, which obviously obeyed an uninstructed emotion. It is quite possible, though in our judgment improbable, that if the Japanese authorities had acted with the humane vigour which was manifested by the British Government when it sanctioned Admiral Seymour's rush, had landed at once a complete corps d'armee, with orders to cut its way to Pekin or perish in the attempt, the Legations might have been saved, and Pekin be to-day awaiting the decisions of the Powers. Japan, however, did nothing of the kind. On the contrary, she saw in the world's disaster an opportunity for aggrandisement, and refused to move until she had a guarantee from the Powers that some of her own projects should be realised, and against the financial losses that such an expedition would entail. This fact, though now denied, is proved by the earlier German accounts of the negotiations. That, in view of the transactions which followed her victory over China, such a hesitation was natural we entirely admit ; but, nevertheless, it showed that Japan, like the majority of European States, is governed by selfish policy and not by humane emotion. That being so, she has no claim whatever to be more prominent in the restoration of order in China than any other Power, and there are grave reasons why no such claim should be allowed, more especially by Great Britain.
In the first place, the prominence which our country. men wish Japan, under the protection of Great Britain, to assume would inevitably shatter the Concert of Europe. The interests of Russia and Japan are too irreconcilably opposed to allow us to be the ally of both. Russia cannot give up her claim to Manchuria, and will not suffer Korea to become Japanese, and any alliance of Great Britain tending to make those two results more probable will find in Russia a determined opponent. She may be wrong or right in her view of her own interests, but that this is her unalterable view, and that the view is shared by her whole people, there can be no doubt what- ever. To put the matter in plain English, we have to choose between Russia and Japan, between the white Power and the yellow Power, and, as it seems to us, between such alternatives there is no real choice. To choose Japan is to defy Europe. France is certain to follow Russia, not only because the Russian alliance is now ber mainstay in the politics of the world, but because ',Russia can and will give her, Yunnan if the Chinese Empire falls to pieces, and no other Power will spend one life in giving her anything. Our people imagine that in that case we shall have compensation in a German alliance, but unless, indeed, we cede islands that hope is quite illusory. The German people. and still more the Austrian people, will refuse to fight Russia and France for any colonial gain whatever ; and unless they will fight, what is the value of their alliance ? The German Emperor has large views in China perhaps, but he does not want to carry them out at the price of Russian hostility when he can further those views just as easily by adhering to the other side. He took the side of Russia when Japan was coerced before, and his natural impulse, while his Empire lies, as it must lie always, between the anvil and the hammer, must be to side with Russia. Do the politicians who in their ignorance are so eagerly pressing a warm alliance with Japan really wish to see this country left at the end of a great expedition and. many sacrifices with all Europe ranged against her and only Japan for an effective friend ? America ? • We have always admitted that if America and Great Britain act together heartily their force is irresistible, but it is very doubtful if America is prepared to fight heartily for any question in the Far East except full lib.rtv to trade —which Russia would no more refuse in the Yellow Sea than in the Black—and quite certain that she will not go heartily into any war for the benefit of a coloured Power. We should be left alone to fight with both hands for what,—except the security and aggrandisement of Japan ?
Even this, however, is not the strongest argument against the proposed course. If the Powers of Europe master China they will, at worst, partition her, and so place her as a nationality outside the field of politics. But if Japan masters China she will almost instinctively endeavour to protect her against Europe, will rule her, and will organise the Chinese' official hierarchy with the strange ability she has already displayed in managing her own affairs. Do our contemporaries understand what that means ? It means that a pagan Power of the highest efficiency in utilising modern science, and capable of a massacre like that of Port Arthur, has obtained the control of the whole yellow race,—that is, of at least four hundred millions of men, all capaile of discipline, all penetrated with hatred of the insolent white, with re- sources probably as great as those of Europe, and with an ambition as limitless as that of any previous Great Power. What is to stop their rolling over any as Jenghiz Khan did, rending India—which they can enter at will from Thibet or through Nepal—from our grasp, or planting themselves in Constantinople, thence to threaten the European world. Everybody laughed when Charles Pearson in a pessimistic mood wrote of " the Yellow Peril," but great statesmen have adopted his views since, and no one who now looks around will deny that they had at least some basis in fact. Imagine only the irregular forces now swarming in Pekin, round Tientsin, and in Shantung to be guided by Japanese officers, organised by Japanese discipline, and supplied with Japanese artillery ; and those forces are not a tenth of what China can produce. What Chance would Europe have of even reaching ?akin without an effort such as she has not made triode the crusades, an effort which, we may rely upon it, she will never make ? Is Europe going to preserve India for us, or Northern Asia for Russia ? She will retire and leave the two Powers that are immediately interested, the master of the North and the mistress of the South, to defend themselves as they best may. We cannot imagine folly greater than that which would give to the yellow peoples so magnificent an opportunity.
Europe ought to do her own work, admitting Japan as one only of the six Powers; to march to Pekin, and once there either to make an endurable arrangement with a new and wiser Government of China, or, if that dread necessity must be faced, to settle a partition which will at least allow each Power to exert its special faculties unhampered by the cumbrous, unmanageable, originality- destroying Concert of Europe. In that partition Japan, if she does her share of the work, must have her share of the burden or the reward, and even that share may make the only pagan Power left with brain to devise and patience to execute great designs unendurably strong.
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