TOPICS OF THE DAY.
JAPAN AND THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE.
DURING the past few clays a wave of depression has passed over the Washington Conference. Hopes that were at first so high are drooping, if not dead, and those who were in the full tide of optimism a week ago are now beginning to see that though difficulties are few in the laying down of abstract principles, they start up in profusion so soon as specific proposals i are reached. It is always so. The subordinates in a great business will always agree with their chief that expenses must be cut down. It is when you reach the questions, What are the services that are to be cut off ? What salaries are to be reduced ? that the trouble comes.
Let us try to look as dispassionately as we can at the present situation. To put the matter quite plainly, the attitude of Japan is proving a disappointment, both to America and to Britain. Japan is perfectly willing to disavow any idea of developing her sea-power in order that she may do what she will with her own, and so is quite willing to consent in the abstract to a naval holiday. Again, she is willing to give up any theoretical claim she may have to a right to dominate China. When, however, it comes to specific performance, her tone is found to be quite different from that of the United States and Britain. With the two English-speaking Powers, we are thankful to say, there has been no thought of bargaining, but instead a real willingness to act as well as to talk, which in plain terms means a willingness to scrap ships in being as well as paper-ships and programmes, and to cut losses, however great. It is no good to pretend that the Japanese attitude is other than a very serious matter. If it is persisted in, and she cannot be brought to a change of mind, there is grave peril of the Conference proving a fiasco. We are not going too deeply into the reasons for Japan's attitude. If we did, we might say things which would give pain and annoyance to Japan, which is the very last thing we want to do. We arc bound to point out, however, that in the last resort a great deal, if not the whole of the trouble, comes from our continued alliance with Japan. It is the existence of that alliance which makes Japan so stubborn and also renders it so difficult for us to make her understand how injurious to her own interests as well as to those of the world at large it would be to wreck the Conference, as she will wreck it if she persists in her present line of conduct. The Japanese statesmen know, of course, that the alliance has been whittled away to such a point that it is no alliance at all. It has been plainly declared that it is never to have any effect so far as America is concerned, and America is the only Power now ever likely to be concerned. But the Japanese still cling to the belief that so long as the alliance is there we are bound in honour not to do anything disagreeable to her, and that we must, at whatever inconvenience, refuse to put pressure upon her in concert with the United States. We cannot, she admits, go to war with the United States to support her, but, on the other hand, we must not, as Japan's ally, join with the United States in -any policy which she (Japan) declares to involve her safety and honour.
It was the adoption of such an attitude as this that we envisaged in the early part of last summer when we did our best to induce our Government, in order that we might have an absolutely free hand at the Conference, to give Japan the necessary notices for putting an end to the alliance. Our statesmen had either not enough imagina- tion to see what was coming, were too busy, or else were too much moved by the appeals of the very able Japanese diplomatists to let the matter rest till the Washington Conference was over, to take a bold and candid, if dis- agreeable, course. Accordingly, they contented themselves with pointing out in private to the Government at Washing- ton that no possible harm could come from leaving things as they were, and that it was quite possible that the nominal maintenance of the alliance might keep Japan, as it were, in order at the Conference, and might prevent her Jingoes from exciting Japanese public opinion. . However, it is no use crying over spilt milk. The alliance is nominally in existence, and it would-be absurd not to expect Japan to use it for all it is worth. And remember, it is worth a good deal in Washington as a side issue. We are making no unfair or unfriendly accusation against Japan when we say that Japan believes it to be to her special interest, as no doubt it is, to keep America and Great Britain apart. No diplomatist holding these views would be worth bis salt if when at Washington he did not note that the more he talked about the firmness of the alliance with Britain, the more likely he would be to keep us apart. That being so we may be sure that the small, but loud-voiced section of American people who also desire to prevent the growth of friendliness between the two countries is being drawn into a kind of unholy alliance with Japan to parade the treaty of the affiance as something still of great if not, indeed, of ominous importance.
We ought, in the present circumstances, to have been able to say to the American people : " The moment we heard that the Conference was to be summoned, we gave notice to the Japanese to end the alliance in order that nobody should have even the shadow of an excuse for using the existence of that alliance for injurious purposes. We were determined to come into the Conference as the friends and supporters of America and American ideals, and we instantly cut ourselves adrift from the one foreign connexion which might appear to impede, though it could not, in fact, impede, our good relations." Since, however, we are not in a position to say this, we must now consider what we ought to do to ameliorate the position.
In our opinion, affiance or no alliance, we must tell Japan that, though we are most anxious that the three Powers—America, Britain and Japan—should take commcn and friendly action in the Pacific, the first step in that matter is a reasonable agreement in regard to naval disarmament. If Japan can see her way to meet us here, then we and America, in conjunction with her, can proceed to the settlement of the Pacific problem as a whole. If, however, Japan insists on declining to make the naval sacrifice which we and America have agreed to make, and are now asking her to make, then the United States and Great Britain must deal with the Pacific question by themselves and without the co-operation of Japan. Though to say this does not necessarily involve any hostile action or hostile intention towards Japan, it must be obvious to her statesmen that it would not be to her advantage that she should not be consulted as a principal in negotiations so momentous, but should run the risk of finding a policy distasteful to her agreed upon by the English- speaking Powers. We would go further than this. Our Govern- ment should point out to the Japanese, not in the crude way a newspaper must put it, owing to reasons of space, but with the full courtesy and consideration of the most polished and friendly diplomacy, that the English-speaking race Lai come together and that in future Japan must remember that in world affairs Great Britain and the United States will act in unison. Japan must not be misled by the fact that no formal alliance will be made between them. Though there will be no alliance by Notes, Protocols, and Pacts, there will be a very potent affiance of hearts and heads. We cannot but believe that, if we quite candidly and plainly make it clear to Japan that she must not, under any circumstances, count upon ill-feeling being created between this country and America, and that in the two matters of naval disarmament and of the settlement of the Pacific she has got to consider the interests, not of Britain and the United States separately, but of the English- speaking race as a whole, her wise and far-seeing statesmen will,Tecognize that she must make a new orientation of policy in the Pacific. Probably the best way to do that would be to agree whole-heartedly with the cutting-down of naval expen- diture. Japan, if she is as wise as she is brave, will remember that she would gain a great deal by placing the whole Eng- lish-speaking race under an obligation to her, as undoubtedly she would if she were to come to the footlights at Washing- ton and declare that, though she is being asked to make a greater sacrifice than any other nation, she is going to make it rather than seem to stand in the way of an agreement so essentially beneficent as that between the United State and Great Britain. She will not do this unless she i4 treated with firmness and frankness. But we believe that she might do it if the inevitable tendency of events were made clear to her. siad It is for the reason just given that we are very to see the line which Lord Northcliffe has been taking in his speeches on his tour in the Far East. He has spoken quite as plainly as even we have spoken in favour of a true and " unprovisoed " understanding with America. Further, ho has had the wisdom to be specific. We specially welcome his declaration that if the Americans ever were in real trouble, over the Philippines or Honolulu, owing to that want of a naval base in the Far East on which Japan is said to count, we should and would place Singapore and Hong-Kong at their disposal. What is important in this expression of opinion is its publicity. Everybody here knows in his heart that if America were engaged in a naval struggle with Japan, but could not meet her antagonist on equal terms owing to the want of a naval base, we should supply it rather than see her suffer defeat or anything approaching it at the hands of Japan. But if this is so, as unquestionably it is, why guard it as a guilty secret I Why not say so openly ? If anyone says " But perhaps we should not," let him remember a luciferous incident which occurred during the war with Spain. The Spaniards wanted to make use of the Suez Canal in order to send troops to the Philippines to fight the Americans. They had great difficulty about coaling, and they accordingly tried to get coal at Suez or Port Said.' Owing to the peculiar status of the Canal, the Spaniards probably had international law on their side when they claimed the right to fill their bunkers. Lord Cromer, however, with his strong instinct for doing the right thing in politics, brushed these legal subtleties aside and only allowed the Spaniards to take in enough coal to carry them to the next port, which was all they would have been entitled to if the Suez Canal had belonged to us de jure as well as de facto. That was a most friendly act on our part, though undoubtedly a hostile act to Spain ; and, of course, Lord Cromer's action was approved by our Government. But if this could be done in 1898, now, when our relations with America are so much more friendly than they were, does anyone in his senses imagine that we should not do as much as Lord Cromer did to help America ? Of course we should do a great deal more. Especially should we do it if America were engaged not against a weak Power like Spain but against a strong Asiatic Power. Every Englishman knows this, though every American does not. The concealing of our good will from the Americans, for some reason or other, is a great source of delight to Englishmen in general, and to our Government and Foreign Office in particular. We are not ashamed to say that we think it the height of human folly.
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