Slit,—Are not the apprehensions you express in your article on
" The Battle of the Yalu " in the Spectator of May 7th largely discounted by the thoughtful review of Captain Brinkley's great work on Japan which you publish in the same issue under the title of " The Real Japan " P If, as your reviewer admirably puts it, " the Japanese are rather the extreme Westerners of the world than its farthest Orientals," need we assume that the rise of a great Japanese Power is a phenomenon which the West can watch only with anxiety and dread? The antagonism which has hitherto existed between Europe and Asia, and to which you make significant reference in the last sentence of your leading article, has been due to fundamental divergencies of civilisation. But is that antagonism bound to be reproduced in the case of the Japanese if, to quote once more your reviewer, " distant as their civilisation seems to be from ours in its external aspects, it is really much nearer to it in spirit than the superficial observer, hampered by the appearances of things, can readily
understand " P To those who, like myself, have some per- sonal knowledge of the Japanese, and believe that the evolu- tion of Japan represents a new factor in the world's history of which we can only realise the meaning by discarding a priori conceptions based upon racial differences, it must seem evident that the consequences of Japan's victory to the world at large—assuming that she emerges victorious from the struggle—will depend very much upon the attitude of the Western, and especially of the Anglo-Saxon, nations towards her. If we maintain towards her an attitude of invincible suspicion, and base our relations with her on the assumption that an absolute gulf is fixed, and can never be bridged over, between her and the white races, we shall have ourselves largely to blame for the reaction which may take place in her attitude towards Western civilisation.
Let us remember also that the bacillus of the "yellow peril" has been chiefly cultivated in Berlin,—for reasons which I need hardly dilate upon in your columns. That alone should place us on our guard against it. Another bacillus of a similar kind was cultivated a few years ago in the same quarters—namely, the bacillus of the "American peril"—with much the same purpose. You, Sir, did much to stamp it out in this country. Verbum sap.-1 am, Sir, &c., FAR EAST.
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