TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE ALLIANCE WITH JAPAN.
E cannot profess anything approaching satisfaction in regard to the Alliance with Japan. Indeed, the more that Alliance is studied and the greater the number of aspects in which it is regarded, the more it seems to us fraught with danger and difficulty. What Japan gains is, of course, clear enough. What we gain is far from manifest. We object to the Treaty, not only because it is an open declaration of hostility against Russia—of course this is officially denied, but the public opinion of the world has at once accepted it as aimed at Russia—and because it places our relations with Russia and France at the mercy of Japan, but because even if we accept the view that our and Russia's interests in the Far East are necessarily antagonistic it meets the case in the wrong way. Even if we held that Russia were the enemy and could never be the friend of this country, we should protest against the form of alliance adopted in order to curb her. Finally, we hold that we have departed on insufficient grounds from our fixed policy of not making alliances, and that we should have acted far more wisely had we remained unpledged in the Far East, and so been able to hold aloof from any diplo- matic complications which did not directly and vitally concern us.
We will take our objections in order. After the pro- clamation of an Alliance with Japan, all hope of an under- standing with Russia must be abandoned. Russia will feel ccnfirmed in the conviction, already largely held by her rulers and people, that England is the enemy, and that unless and until England as a world-Power is destroyed Russia can never fulfil her national aspirations. ' We wanted to expand in the Near East and to take Constantinople ; England forbade us. We desire to reach open water in the Persian Gulf ; England tells us she cannot allow any movement in that direction. We wish in the Far East to develop our Empire in regions now misruled by China ; England meets us there also, and orders us to abandon our aspira- tions.' That is the view that Russians, rightly or wrongly, will derive from the agreement with Japan. They will regard it as a final and conclusive proof that Russia must be on the side of any and all who wish to destroy the world-power of England. Unfor- tunately, too, the evil effects of the Japanese Alliance are not confined to Russia. Anything which precludes a better understanding with Russia also precludes a better understanding with France. We do not mean to suggest that France will make every quarrel with Russia her own, but France clings so closely to Russia that we cannot be on bad terms with one Power and on good with the other.
Our next objection to the Treaty is, as we have said, that it places us at the mercy of Japan. It is pos- sible, of course—nay, we will admit that it is most likely—that Japan will use the immense power with which we haye entrusted her wisely, but at the same time it is evident that we have made her the arbiter of our fate not merely in the Far East, but throughout the whole world. Japan at any time during the next five years has it in her power to light a flame of war which will burn not merely in the Gulf of Pechili, but in the English Channel, in the Baltic, in the Mediterranean, and wherever Russia, France, and England are in contact. It may be urged that this is a very exaggerated way of stating the case, and that, as a matter of fact, Japan could not, even if she would, plunge us into war. We are not bound, we shall be told, to come to the aid of Japan unless she becomes involved with two Powers. That is true; but Japan has a perfectly free hand to prosecute her own interests in China and Korea. Now it is conceivable that in the prosecution of these interests Japan might be inclined to think that if war were to result, it would be better to make it a war with two Powers instead of only with one in order to bring in her ally. Japan, after counting ships in the Far East, might con- zeivably argue that Japan and England against Russia and France would suit her better than fighting Russia alone. But if she came to that conclusion, it would' not be difficult for her, in Korea at any rate, to in-' volve both Russia and France simultaneously. Suppose' a struggle for supremacy at the Korean' Court in which Russia and France were acting together, and that Japan, either holding that her interests were vitally involved, or else believing that the ability to launch the power of England against her enemies would bear down all oppOsi- tion, were to present an ultimatum both to Russia and France, and to tell them they must choose between yielding to Japan or war. If Japan thus succeeded in provoking a double war, we should find ourselves, as it were, automatically involved in a war with France and Russia,—a war in regard to the beginning of which we should have had nothing to say. Japan has only to get herself embroiled , in the Far East with two Powers, and we must come to her assistance whatever the merits. So tremendous is the power thus given to Japan that it would almost seem as if the eventuality of a war being declared simultaneously against two Powers had not been considered, and as if the only case contemplated were a war begun with one Power in which another Power sub- sequently joined. In that case, no doubt, the danger would be much less. If Russia became involved in war with Japan, France would naturally want to help her ally ; but she would feel obliged to say to her : We had better not come to your assistance, because that will only bring England in ; you will, under existing conditions, have a better chance against Japan alone.' In' other words, it would not be worth while for France to join in the war. She would bring as much loss as gain to her ally. Of course it may be said that if Japan sent an ultimatum to both Powers in regard to Korea, France might in agreement with Russia give way in order to avoid a double war. No doubt she might in theory ; but unfortu- nately wars seldom begin so methodically as that. In the supposed case it is far more likely that war would come as the result of a game of bluff. Each side would believe that the other side must give way, and so might force matters on till war became inevitable.
We shall be told, of course, that all this is hypothesis, and that Japan would never, in fact, do any of the rash or cynically selfish things we have conjectured. Very pos- sibly not ; but the fact remains that we are at the mercy of Japan, and have to trust to her prudence and self-restraint. Now, in our view, that is too great a trust to repose in Japan. We feel no enmity towards Japan, and admire the splendid courage and patriotism of her people. Her soldiers in the Chinese troubles showed themselves not merely brave but well-disciplined and humane, and set an admirable example to many of the white troops. But at the same time we cannot forget that the Japanese are an Oriental people, and are swayed by' different ideals, and possess different standards from those of the European and Christian nations. Their ways are not our ways, nor their hopes and aspirations ours. That need not, of course, prevent all joint action with Japan, but it does seem to us to preclude the kind of alliance which, as we have said, places our foreign relations at the mercy of Japan. A ' specific test of the leap in the dark which we are taking can be applied by asking,—What is Japan ? What do we mean by the Japanese Government ? To whom have we given trust and authority so tremendous ? All that can be said safely about Japan, from the political point of view, is that it is an Oriental nation of extraordinary cleverness and courage governed by an Emperor of great personal enlightenment, who has made the experi- ment of endowing his people with European political institutions. The experiment may prove a great success ; we incline to think it will ; but meantime it remains an experiment. As long as the present Emperor lives, it is probable that his policy will prevail; but should he die, it is impossible to say whether his successor will have the same hold over the country, or whether Japan may not become involved in a period of internal anarchy. Public opinion of a somewhat hysterical kind is at any rate a great force in Japan, and it remains to be seen whether it will always be possible to keep it in check as it has beenlield in check hitherto by the Emperor and his able advisers. In a word, Japan has too lately become a civilised Power, and has too lately been endowed with political institutions, to make it possible to say that her Government is one which can wisely be trusted so absolutely as we have trusted it. We know far too little about Japan to make it safe to commit our- selves unconditionally to her lead in the politics of the Far East.
But even if the Government had determined that we and Russia were natural enemies, and that our interests could not be reconciled in the Far East, we still hold that they met the difficulty in the wrong way. To begin with, we believe that the notion that something must be done, and at once, because China is unable to protect her- self against Russia is an entire delusion. We hold, on the contrary—and we believe that the most instructed opinion on the subject is with us—that China is far stronger than she appears, and that there is not the slightest reason for us to show anxiety in regard to the integrity and indepen- dence of the Chinese Empire. We need not, that is, fuss about China Therefore, we were under no desperate necessity to search about for an ally who would help us to maintain the tottering structure. But even supposing that there was this necessity, it seems to us that the Treaty of Affiance should have been drawn up in a very different way. It should have stipulated not merely that the allied Powers should communicate freely with each other, but that neither Power should take any action calculated to lead to war in the Far East without first obtaining the consent of the other Power to that action, and that if such consent were not obtained the help promised in the Treaty could not be required. Such a stipulation would have protected us from the consequences of any unwise action by Japan, and we should not have placed ourselves so completely at her mercy in the Far East. We should always have known where we were going, and at any rate could not have been plunged without knowing it into any serious complications. So obvious is the soundness of this view that we cannot help thinking that our Govern- ment must have concluded with Japan some undisclosed supplementary agreement which interprets the communi- cation clause to mean that Japan must obtain our previous consent to any steps she may contemplate for asserting what she holds to be her rights and interests in the Far East. Lord Salisbury, it seems to us, is too cautious a statesman to have committed himself to any agreement which was not guarded in some such way as we have suggested. If such a supplementary agreement exists, it would not, of course, by any means answer all our objections to the Affiance with Japan, but it would, we admit, do away with its chief danger,—that of placing our relations with Russia and France at the mercy of Japan.
We have only one more word to say on the subject. That is to express the regret, which is, we believe, shared by thousands of Englishmen, that we should have abandoned our old policy of doing without alliances, and the splendid freedom of action which that policy secured to us, and have adopted the contrary course. Even those who think that the step was inevitable cannot but regret the perfect freedom of the time when no other Power could involve us in war, and when we could always choose our own time for action. How, indeed, any other policy but one of freedom will prove possible in the case of an Empire so vast as ours, and affected by so many conflicting interests, we find it very difficult to see. When we had no ally we could always choose between two interests, and take the more important. Now if the Korean question arises at the same time as some phase of the Egyptian question, or of the Newfound- land question, or the question of the New Hebrides, it will not be we who shall decide which question must be sub- ordinated to the other, but Japan. Japan and any two other Powers can call a tune to which we must dance. If they cannot agree in the Far East, no matter what the merits of the case may be, we are automatically plunged into war. We admit, of course, that, on the other hand, we can summon Japan to our side if and when we come to blows with two Powers in the Far East, but we cannot agree that to gain such an end it was worth while to run dangers so great. In our view, the risk of our getting involved in war with two Powers over the integrity and independence of the Chinese Empire is extremely small, and for the very good reason that China is quite strong enough to protect her own interests.
Previous page
