Japan: Its History, Arts, and Literature/Volume 5/Chapter 2
Chapter II
JAPAN'S FOREIGN POLITICS
One of the most memorable incidents of Japan's modern career was her recovery of judicial autonomy; in other words, the removal of disabilities which had excluded her from the comity of Western States.
It has always been considered expedient that the subjects and citizens of Occidental Christian countries, when they visit or reside in non-Christian Oriental lands, should be exempted from the penalties and procedure prescribed by the latter's criminal law; that they should continue, in short, to enjoy, even within the territories of such countries, the privilege of being arraigned before tribunals of their own nationality and tried by judges of their own race. In civil cases a division of jurisdiction is effected, the question at issue being always adjudicated by a tribunal of the defendant's nationality; but in criminal cases jurisdiction is wholly reserved. In pursuance of that principle the various Powers having treaties with Oriental nations establish Consular Courts within the latter's borders, and the jurisdiction exercised by these Courts is called "extra-territorial" to distinguish it from the jurisdiction exercised by native, or territorial, tribunals. The system was applied to Japan's case, as a matter of course, in 1858. It had been similarly applied in the sixteenth century, in the days of her first foreign intercourse; and just as it had then been one cause of the Dutch traders' imprisonment within the narrow limits of the island of Deshima at Nagasaki, so, in the nineteenth century, it necessitated the confinement of the foreign residents in settlements grouped around the sites of their consular courts; for plain principles of prudence forbade that these residents should have free access to provincial districts far remote from the only tribunals competent to control them. The Japanese negotiators in Yedo raised no objection to the embodiment of this system in the treaties. But it was one of the features most vehemently condemned by the conservative statesmen and politicians in Kōytō, and no sooner had the administration been restored to the Emperor than an embassy was despatched to Europe and America with the object of inducing Occidental Governments to revise the treaties in the sense of abolishing consular jurisdiction and changing the tariff so as to enable Japan to obtain a larger revenue from customs duties.[1]
This embassy sailed in 1871. It had a specific right to raise the question, for the treaties contained a provision declaring them to be subject to revision in that year. As a matter of course, the embassy failed. The conditions originally necessitating consular jurisdiction had not undergone any change justifying its abolition. Neither the character of Japan's laws nor the methods of her judicial procedure were such as to warrant foreign Governments in entrusting to her care the lives and properties of their subjects and citizens.
It must be confessed, on the other hand, that the consular courts themselves were not beyond reproach. A few of the Great Powers, notably England and the United States, organised competent tribunals and appointed expert judicial officials to preside over them. But a majority of the treaty States were content to delegate consular duties to merchants, who not only lacked legal training of any kind, but were themselves engaged in the commercial transactions upon which they might at any moment be required to adjudicate in a magisterial capacity. Thus it happened, sometimes, that a Japanese subject desiring to invoke the aid of the law against a foreigner who seemed to have wronged him, found that the defendant in the case would also be the judge. Under any circumstances, the dual functions of consul and judge could not be discharged by the same official without anomaly, for the rôle of consul compelled him to act as advocate in the initiatory stages of complications about which his rôle of judge might ultimately require him to deliver an impartial ruling. It would be an error to suppose, however, that the course of consular jurisdiction in Japan was disfigured by many abuses. On the whole the system worked satisfactorily, and if it hurt the feelings of patriotic Japanese, it also saved them from innumerable complications into which they would have blundered inevitably had they been entrusted with a jurisdiction which they were not prepared to exercise satisfactorily.
Nevertheless, they determined from the first that no effort should be spared to qualify for the exercise of a right which is among the fundamental attributes of every sovereign State, the right of judicial autonomy. Under any circumstances, the recasting of their laws and the reorganisation of their law courts would have occupied a prominent place in the programme of general reform suggested by contact with the Western world; but the "extra-territorial" question certainly stirred them to special legislative efforts. With the aid of foreign experts they set themselves to elaborate codes of criminal and civil law, excerpting the best features of European jurisprudence and adapting them to the conditions and usages of Japan. They also remodelled their law courts, and took steps, slower but not less earnest, to educate a judiciary competent to administer the new codes.
After twelve years devoted, with partial success, to these great works, Japan, in 1883, renewed her request for the abolition of consular jurisdiction. She asked that all foreigners within her borders, without distinction of nationality, should be subject to her laws and judicable by her law courts as foreigners found within the borders of every sovereign State in the Occident are subject to its laws and judicable by its tribunals of justice, and she supplemented her application by promising that its favourable reception should be followed by complete opening of the country and removal of all restrictions hitherto imposed on foreign trade, travel, and residence in her realm. From the first it had been the habit of Occidental peoples to upbraid Japan on account of the barriers opposed by her to full and free international intercourse, and she was now able to claim that the barriers were no longer created by her intention or maintained by her desire, but that they existed because of a system which theoretically proclaimed her unfitness for free association with Western nations and practically made it impossible for her to throw open her territories completely for the ingress of strangers.
A large volume might be filled with the details of the negotiations that followed Japan's proposal. Never before had an Oriental State sought such recognition, and there was extreme reluctance on the part of Western Powers to try the unprecedented experiment of entrusting the lives and properties of their subjects and citizens to the keeping of a "pagan" people. Only the outlines of the story can be sketched here, though several 
Raking a Rice Field.
There is one page of the history that calls for special notice, since it supplies a key to much which would otherwise be inexplicable. The respect entertained by a nation for its own laws, and the confidence it reposes in their administrators are in direct proportion to the efforts it has expended upon the development of the former and the education of the latter. Foreigners residing in Japan naturally clung to consular jurisdiction as a privilege of inestimable value. They saw, indeed, that such a system could not be permanently imposed on a country where the conditions justifying it had nominally disappeared. But they saw, also, that the legal and judicial reforms effected by Japan had been crowded into an extraordinarily brief period, and that, as tyros experimenting with alien systems, the Japanese might be betrayed into many errors. A struggle thus ensued between foreign distrust on the one side and Japanese aspirations on the other, — a struggle often developing painful phases. For whereas the case for the foreign resident stood solid and rational so long as it rested on the basis of his proper attachment to the laws and the judiciary which the efforts of his nationals, through long generations, had rendered worthy of trust and reverence, and on the equally intelligible and reasonable ground that he wanted convincing proofs of Japan's competence to discharge her novel functions with discretion and impartiality before submitting himself to her jurisdiction, it ceased to be a solid and rational case when its champions undertook, not merely to exaggerate the risks of trusting Japan implicitly, but also to demonstrate her radical unworthiness of any trust whatever, and to depict her under aspects so deterrent that submission to her jurisdiction assumed the character of a catastrophe. The struggle lasted eleven years, but its gist is contained in this brief statement. The foreign resident, whose affection for his own systems was measured by the struggle their evolution had cost, and whose practical instincts forbade him to take anything on trust where security of person and property was concerned, would have stood out a wholesomely conservative and justly cautious figure, had not his attitude been disfigured by local journalists, who, in order to justify his conservatism, allowed themselves to be betrayed into the constant rôle of blackening Japan's character and suggesting harshly prejudiced interpretations of her acts and motives. It is one thing to hesitate before entering a new house until its habitable qualifications have been ascertained. It is another thing to condemn it without trial as radically and necessarily deficient in such qualifications. The latter was, in effect, the line often taken by the noisiest opponents of Japan's claims, and, of course, no little resentment and indignation were aroused on the side of the Japanese, who, chafing against the obvious antipathies of their foreign critics, and growing constantly more impatient of the humiliation to which their country was internationally condemned, were sometimes prompted to displays of resentment which became new weapons in the hands of their critics. Throughout this struggle the Government and citizens of the United States always showed conspicuous sympathy with Japanese aspirations, and it should also be recorded that, with exceptions so rare as to establish the rule, foreign tourists and publicists discussed the problem liberally and fairly, perhaps because, unlike the foreign communities resident in Japan, they had no direct interest in its solution.
It would be erroneous to suppose that responsibility for the singularly protracted character of the negotiations for revision rested entirely on the foreign side. More than once an agreement had reached the verge of conclusion, when Japanese public opinion, partly incited by political intrigues, rebelled vehemently against the guarantees demanded of Japan, and the negotiations were interrupted in consequence, not to be again resumed until a considerable interval had elapsed. This point is easily understood by recalling that whereas, at the outset of the discussion, Japanese officialdom had the matter entirely in its own hands and might have settled it on any basis, however liberal to foreigners, without provoking, for the moment at all events, seriously hostile criticism on the part of the nation, there gradually grew up among the people, pari passu, with journalistic development, with the study of international law, and with the organisation of political parties, a strong sense of what an independent State has a right to expect; and thus the longer the negotiations were protracted, the keener became the popular scrutiny to which they were subjected and the greater the general reluctance to endorse any irksome concessions. Had foreign diplomacy recognised the growth of that sentiment and been content to take moderate advantage of the Japanese negotiators' mood, the issue might have been comparatively satisfactory to foreigners. But by asking too much and haggling too long. Western statesmen lost their opportunity of obtaining any substantial guarantees, and had ultimately to hand over their nationals to Japanese jurisdiction virtually on trust.
The end was reached in 1894, when Great Britain agreed that after an interval of five years, ending in July, 1899, Japanese tribunals should assume jurisdiction over all British subjects within the confines of Japan, the only condition imposed being that the new Japanese codes of law — some of which had not yet emerged from the hands of the compilers — must have been in operation for a period of at least one year before the abolition of British Consular jurisdiction. Japan, on her side, undertook that, simultaneously with the recovery of her judicial autonomy, the whole country should be thrown open, and all limitations upon the trade, travel, and residence of foreigners should be removed throughout the length and breadth of the land. As to tariff autonomy, it was arranged that Japan should recover it after a period of twelve years, and that in the interval a greatly increased scale of import duties should be applied.
Thus Great Britain took the lead in releasing Japan from the fetters of the old system. The initiative came from her with special grace, for the system and all its irksome consequences had been imposed on Japan originally by a combination of Powers with England in the van. As a matter of historical sequence, the United States dictated the terms of the first treaty providing for consular jurisdiction. But from a very early period the Washington Government showed its willingness to remove all limitations of Japan's sovereignty, whereas Europe, headed by England, whose preponderating interest entitled her to the place of leader, resolutely refused to make any substantial concession. In Japan's eyes, therefore, British conservatism seemed to be the one serious obstacle to her international enfranchisement, and since the British residents in the Settlements far outnumbered all other nationalities, alone had newspaper organs to ventilate their grievances, and exhibited all a Briton's proverbial indifference to the suavities and courtesies of speech and method that count for so much in disarming resentment, it was certainly fortunate for the popularity of her subjects in the Far East that England saw her way finally to set a liberal example.
Nearly five years were required to bring the other Occidental Powers into line with Great Britain and America. It should be stated, however, that neither reluctance to make the necessary concessions nor want of sympathy with Japan caused the delay. The explanation is that each set of negotiators sought to improve either the terms or the terminology of the treaties already concluded, and that the tariff arrangements for the different countries required elaborate discussion.
Until the last of the revised treaties was ratified, voices of protest against revision continued to be vehemently raised by a large section of the foreign community in the Settlements. Some were honestly apprehensive as to the issue of the experiment. Others were swayed by racial prejudice, pure and simple. A few had fallen into an incurable habit of grumbling, or found their account in professing to champion so-called "foreign interests;" and all were naturally reluctant to forfeit the immunity from taxation hitherto enjoyed. It seemed as though the inauguration of the new system would find the foreign community in a mood which must greatly diminish the chances of a happy result, for where a captious and aggrieved disposition exists, opportunities to discover causes of complaint cannot be wanting. But at the eleventh hour this unfavourable demeanour underwent a change. So soon as it became evident that the old system was hopelessly doomed, the sound common-sense of the European and American business-man asserted itself. The foreign residents let it be seen that they intended to bow cheerfully to the inevitable, and that no obstacles would be willingly placed by them in the path of Japanese jurisdiction. The Japanese, on their side, took some striking steps. An Imperial rescript declared in unequivocal terms that it was the sovereign's policy and desire to abolish all distinctions between natives and foreigners, and that by fully carrying out the friendly purpose of the treaties his people would best consult his wishes, maintain the character of the nation, and promote its prestige. The Premier and other Ministers of State issued instructions to the effect that the responsibility now devolved on the Government, and the duty on the people, of enabling foreigners to reside confidently and contentedly in every part of the country. Even the chief Buddhist prelates addressed to the priests and parishioners in their dioceses injunctions pointing out that freedom of conscience being now guaranteed by the Constitution, men professing alien creeds must be treated as courteously as the disciples of Buddhism, and must enjoy the same rights and privileges.
Thus the great change was effected under circumstances of happy augury. Its results have been successful thus far. Difficulties, it is true, have not been altogether absent. The Japanese have made some mistakes, and the mere novelty of the experiment predisposes the conservative foreigner to be hypercritical of its working. Never before, since the crown of civilisation was placed upon the head of the Occident, have Western Christians passed under the jurisdiction of Oriental "pagans." This unprecedented act of trust on the part of Occidental Governments did not signify a corresponding access of confidence on the part of Occidental subjects and citizens. It is a hard but a true saying that the average European or American looks down upon the Japanese people, approaches the contemplation of all their acts with a spirit of condemnation or condescension, and considers that he practises praiseworthy self-denial when he pays to Japanese laws or their guardians even a moiety of the deference that he would intuitively render under like circumstances in a Western country. Administration can never achieve more than a success of sufferance when the ruled stand upon a plane higher than that conceded to the rulers. But it has been shown, at all events, that the measure of tolerance which foreigners are prepared to display is sufficient for the working of the novel system, and that all the sinister predictions once so freely uttered about the vindictive advantage which the Japanese would certainly take of their newly acquired power, were baseless. Foreigners residing in Japan now enjoy immunity of domicile, personal and religious liberty, freedom from official interference, and security of life and property as fully as though they were living in their respective fatherlands.
From the point of view of Japan's position among the nations, her war with China in 1894-1895 perhaps even more important than her recovery of judicial and tariff economy, and by a singular coincidence the former event happened at sach a time as materially to reinforce the influence of the latter.
Friction between the two empires commenced in 1873, when, the crew of a Riukiuan junk having been barbarously treated by the inhabitants of northern Formosa, Japan applied to China for redress, and, failing to obtain it, took the law into her own hands. Double offence was thus given to the Middle Kingdom, for its rulers held not only that their territory had been invaded when Japan's forces landed in Formosa, but also that her assumption of protective responsibilities with regard to the Riukiu Islands was a direct infringement of Chinese sovereignty, the inhabitants of Riukiu being Chinese subjects. The latter point, however, was not raised by the statesmen in Peking. They confined their remonstrances to the invasion of Formosa, and they finally agreed to recoup Japan's expenses provided that she withdrew her troops from that island. Had Japan needed any confirmation of her title to the ownership of Riukiu, she might have derived it from this incident, since the Chinese Government, by agreeing to indemnify her outlays incurred in protecting Riukiuans, constructively admitted her right to protect them. But the fact is that Japan entertained no misgivings as to the validity of her title. The Riukiu Islands, having been conquered by Satsuma, had for centuries been regarded as an appanage of that fief, and the language and customs of their inhabitants showed unmistakable traces of Japanese affinities. Therefore in 1876 the Tōkyō Government did not hesitate to extend the newly organised administrative system to Riukiu, which thenceforth became "Okinawa Prefecture," the former ruler of the islands being pensioned after the manner of the other feudatories. China entered an objection. She claimed that Riukiu had always been a tributary of the Middle Kingdom, and she was doubtless perfectly sincere in the contention. But China's interpretation of tribute did not seem reducible to a working theory. So long as her own advantage could be promoted, she regarded as a token of vassalage the presents periodically carried to her Court from neighbouring States. So soon, however, as there arose any question of discharging a suzerain's duties, she classed those offerings as insignificant interchanges of neighbourly courtesy. It was true that Riukiu had followed the custom of despatching gift-bearing envoys to China from time to time, just as Japan herself had done, though with less regularity. But it was also true that Riukiu had been subdued by Satsuma without China's stretching out a hand to help her; that for two centuries the islands had been included in the Satsuma fief, and that China had recently made a practical acknowledgment of Japan's superior title to protect the islanders. Each empire asserted its claims positively, but whereas Japan put hers into practice, China confined herself to remonstrances. Things remained in that state until 1880, when General Grant, visiting the East, suggested the advisability of a compromise. A conference met in Peking, and the plenipotentiaries agreed that the islands should be divided, Japan, taking the northern group, China the southern. But on the eve of signature the Chinese plenipotentiary drew back, pleading that he had no authority to conclude an agreement without previously referring it to certain other dignitaries. Japan, sensible that she had been flouted, withdrew from the discussion and retained the islands, China's share in them being reduced to a grievance.
This incident illustrated China's methods and their results. From time immemorial her policy towards the petty States on her frontiers had been to utilise them as buffers for softening the shock of foreign contact, while contriving, at the same time, that her relations with them should involve no inconvenient responsibilities to herself. The aggressive impulses of the outside world were to be checked by an unproclaimed understanding that the territories of these States partook of the inviolability of the Middle Kingdom itself, while the States, on their side, must never expect their Suzerain to bear the consequences of their acts. This arrangement, depending largely on sentiment and prestige, retained its validity in the atmosphere of Oriental seclusion, but quickly failed to endure the test of modern Occidental practicality. Tonquin, Annam, Siam, and Burmah were withdrawn, one by one, from the circle of buffers, and from the fiction of dependence on China and independence towards all other countries. With regard to Korea, however, China proved more tenacious. The possession of the peninsula by a foreign Power would have threatened the maritime route to the Gulf of Pechili, and would have given easy access to Manchuria, the cradle of the dynasty now ruling China. Therefore the Peking statesmen endeavoured to preserve the old-time relations with the little kingdom. But they never could persuade themselves to modify the indirect methods sanctioned by tradition. Instead of boldly declaring the peninsula a dependency of the Middle Kingdom, they sought to keep up the romance of ultimate dependency and intermediate sovereignty. Thus, in 1877, Korea was suffered to conclude with Japan a treaty of which the first article declared her "an independent State enjoying the same rights as Japan," and subsequently to make with the United States (1882), Great Britain (1883), and other Powers treaties in which her independence was constructively admitted. China, however, did not intend that Korea should exercise the independence thus conventionally recognised. A Chinese Resident was placed in Söul, and a system of steady though covert interference in Korea's domestic and foreign affairs was inaugurated.
Japan suffered chiefly by these anomalous conditions. In all her dealings with Korea, in all complications that arose out of her comparatively large trade with the peninsula, in all questions connected with her numerous settlers there, she found herself negotiating with a dependency of China, and with officials who took their orders from the Chinese Representative. China had long entertained a rooted apprehension of Japanese aggression in the peninsula — an apprehension not unwarranted by history — and that distrust tinged all the influence exerted by her agents there. Much space would be required to recapitulate the occasions upon which Japan was made sensible of the discrimination thus exercised against her. It is enough to say that such occasions were numerous, and that by degrees her indignation was roused. No single instance, indeed, constituted a ground for strong international protest, but the Japanese people gradually acquired a consciousness of being perpetually baffled, thwarted, and humiliated by China's interference in the peninsular kingdom's affairs.
To appreciate the bitterness of such conditions, it has to be remembered that for the previous thirty years China had treated Japan as a contemptible deserter from the Oriental standard, and had regarded her progressive efforts with openly disdainful aversion; while Japan, on her side, had chafed more and more to furnish some striking evidence of the wisdom of her preference for Western civilisation. In the breast of each nation there had been smouldering a sentiment of umbrage which could scarcely fail to be translated into hostile action sooner or later, unless either Japan reverted to conservatism or China became progressive.
Even more serious were the consequences of Chinese interference when considered from the point of view of Korean administration. The rulers of the little State lost all sense of national responsibility and gave unrestrained sway to selfish ambition. The functions of the judiciary and of the executive alike came to be discharged by bribery only. Family interests predominated over those of the State. Taxes were imposed in proportion to the greed of local officials. No thought whatever was taken for the welfare of the people or for the development of the country's resources. Among the upper classes faction struggles, among the lower, insurrections, began to be more and more frequent. Personal responsibility was unknown among officials, family influence overshadowing everything. To be a member of the Bin family, to which the Queen belonged, was to possess a passport to office and an indemnity against the consequences of abuse of power, however flagrant. From time to time the advocates of progress or the victims of oppression rose in arms. They effected nothing except to recall to the world's recollection the miserable condition into which the peninsula had fallen. Chinese military aid was always furnished readily for the suppression of these émeutes, and thus the Bin family learned to base its tenure of power on ability to conciliate the Middle Kingdom and on readiness to obey Chinese dictation, while the people at large fell into the apathetic condition of men that possess neither the blessing of security of property nor the incentive of national ambition.
As a matter of State policy the Korean problem caused much anxiety to Japan. Her own security being deeply concerned in preserving Korea from the grasp of Western Powers, she could not suffer the little kingdom to drift into a condition of such administrative incompetence and national debility that a strong aggressor might find at any moment a pretext for interference. On two occasions, namely in 1882 and 1884, when China's armed intervention was employed in the interests of the Bin to suppress movements of reform, the partisans of the victors, regarding Japan as the fountain of progressive tendencies, attacked and destroyed her legation in Söul and compelled its inmates to fly from the city. Japan behaved with forbearance at these crises, but in the consequent negotiations she acquired conventional titles that touched the core of China's alleged suzerainty. For in 1882 her right to maintain troops in Söul for the protection of her legation was admitted, and in 1885 she concluded with China a convention by which each Power pledged itself not to send troops to Korea without notifying the other, the two empires being thus placed on an equal military footing with regard to the peninsular kingdom.
In the spring of 1894 a serious insurrection broke out in Korea, and the insurgents proving themselves superior to the ill-disciplined, ill-equipped troops of the Government, the Bin family had recourse to its familiar expedient, appeal to China's aid. The appeal elicited a prompt response. On the 6th of July, 2,500 Chinese troops embarked at Tientsin, and were transported to the peninsula, where they went into camp at Ya-shan, on the southwest coast, notice of the measure being given by the Chinese Government to the Japanese Representative in Peking, according to treaty.
During the interval immediately preceding these events, Japan had been rendered acutely sensible of China's arbitrary and unfriendly interference in the peninsula. Twice the efforts of the Japanese Government to obtain redress for unlawful and ruinous tradal prohibitions issued by the Korean Authorities, had been thwarted by the action of the Chinese Resident in Söul; and once an ultimatum addressed from Tōkyō to the Korean Government in the sequel of long and vexatious delay, had elicited from the Viceroy Li in Tientsin an insolent threat of Chinese armed opposition. Still more strikingly provocative of national indignation was China's procedure with regard to the murder of Kim Ok-kyün, the leader of progress in Korea, who had been for some years a refugee in Japan. Inveigled from Japan to China by fellow countrymen sent from Söul to assassinate him, Kim was shot in a Japanese hotel in Shanghai, and China, instead of punishing the murderer, conveyed him, together with the corpse of his victim, in a warship of her own to Korea, the assassin to be publicly honoured, the body to be savagely mutilated. When, therefore, the insurrection of 1894 in Korea induced the Bin family again to solicit China's armed intervention, the Tōkyō Government concluded that, in the interests of Japan's security and of civilisation in the Orient, steps must be taken to put an end finally to the barbarous corruption and misrule which rendered Korea a scene of constant disturbance, offered incessant invitations to foreign aggression, and checked the country's capacity to maintain its own independence. Japan did not claim for herself any rights or interests in the peninsula superior to those possessed there by China. She was always ready to work hand in hand with the Middle Kingdom in inaugurating and carrying out a system of reform. But there was not the remotest probability that China, whose face had been contemptuously set against all the progressive measures adopted by Japan during the preceding twenty-five years, would join in forcing upon a neighbouring kingdom the very reforms she herself despised and abhorred, were her cooperation invited through ordinary diplomatic channels only. It was necessary to contrive a situation which would not only furnish clear proof of Japan's resolution, but also enable her to pursue her programme independently of China's endorsement, should the latter be finally unobtainable. She therefore met China's notice of a despatch of troops with a corresponding notice of her own, and the month of July, 1894, found a Chinese force assembled at Ya-shan and a Japanese force occupying positions in the neighbourhood of Söul. China's motive for sending troops was nominally to quell the Tonghak insurrection, but really to reaffirm her own domination in the peninsula and to reseat in the administrative saddle men under whose guidance the country was losing all capacity for independence. Japan's motive was to secure a position such as would enable her to insist upon the radically curative treatment of Korea's malady.
Up to this point the two empires were strictly within their conventional rights. Each was entitled by treaty to send troops to the peninsula, provided that notice was given to the other. But China, in giving notice, described Korea as her "tributary State," thus thrusting into the forefront of the discussion a contention which Japan, from conciliatory motives, would have kept out of sight. Once formally advanced, however, the claim had to be challenged. In the treaty of amity and commerce concluded many years previously between Japan and Korea, the two high contracting parties were explicitly declared to possess the same national status. Japan could not agree that a Power which for two decades she had acknowledged and treated as her equal, should be openly classed as a tributary of the Middle Kingdom. She protested, but the Chinese statesmen took no notice of her protest. They continued to apply the disputed appellation to Korea, and they further asserted their assumption of sovereignty in the peninsula by seeking to set limits to the number of troops sent by Japan, as well as to the sphere of their employment. Japan then proposed that the two empires should unite their efforts for the suppression of the disturbances in Korea and for the subsequent improvement of that kingdom's administration, the latter purpose to be pursued by the despatch of a joint commission of investigation. That was an important stage in the dispute. It rested then with China to avert all danger of war by joining hands with Japan for the regeneration of a nation in whose prosperity and independence the two empires were equally interested. But she refused everything. Ready at all times to interfere by force of arms between the Korean people and the dominant political faction, she declined to interfere in any way for the promotion of reform. Ready at all times to crush the little kingdom into submission to a corrupt and demoralising administration, she refused to aid in rescuing it from the suffering and enervation entailed by the sway of such an oligarchy. She even expressed superciliously insulting surprise that Japan, while asserting Korea's independence, should suggest the idea of peremptorily reforming its administration. In short, for Chinese purposes the Peking statesmen openly declared Korea a "tributary" of the Middle Kingdom, and denied Japan's assertion of its independence; but for Japanese purposes they insisted that it must be held independent, and that Japan must abide strictly by her assertion of its independence. The Tōkyō Cabinet now declared their resolve not to withdraw the Japanese troops without "some understanding that would guarantee the future peace, order, and good government of Korea," and since China still declined to come to such an understanding, Japan undertook the work of reform single-handed.
The Chinese Representative in Söul threw the whole weight of his influence into the scale against the success of these reforms. Still nothing immediately occurred to drive the two empires into open warfare. The finally determining cause of rupture was in itself a belligerent operation.
China's troops, as already stated, had been sent originally for the purpose of quelling the Tonghak rebellion. But the rebellion having died of inanition before the landing of the troops, their services were not required or employed. Nevertheless they were not withdrawn. China kept them in the peninsula, her declared reason for doing so being the presence of a Japanese military force. Thus, throughout the subsequent negotiations, the Chinese forces lay in an entrenched camp at Ya-shan while the Japanese occupied Söul. The trend of events did not impart any character of direct mutual hostility to these little armies. But when it became evident that all hope of friendly co-operation between the two empires must be abandoned, and when Japan, single-handed, had embarked upon her scheme of regenerating Korea, not only did the continued presence of a Chinese military force in the peninsula assume special significance, but any attempt on China's part to send reinforcements could be construed in one sense only, namely, as an unequivocal declaration of resolve to oppose Japan's proceedings by force of arms. Seeing, then, that China was preparing to send reinforcements, Japan warned the Peking Government of the construction she must place upon any act of the kind. Nevertheless China not only despatched troops by sea to strengthen the camp at Ya-shan, but also sent an army overland across Korea's northern frontier. It was at this stage that an act of war occurred. Three Chinese men-of-war, convoying a transport with 1,200 men, encountered and fired on three Japanese cruisers. One of the Chinese ships was taken; another was so shattered that she had to be beached and abandoned; the third escaped in a dilapidated condition, and the transport, refusing to surrender, was sunk. This happened on July 25th, and an open declaration of war was made by each Empire six days later.
The narrative set down above represents the last chapter only of a history having its beginnings a quarter of a century earlier. From the moment that Japan applied herself to break away from Oriental traditions, and to snap from her limbs the fetters of Eastern conservatism, it was inevitable that a widening gulf should gradually grow between herself and China, the inveterate representative of those traditions and that conservatism. Thus the struggle that occurred in 1894 was rather a contest between Japanese progress and Chinese stagnation than a fight to determine China's suzerainty or Korean independence. To secure Korea's immunity from foreign — especially Russian — aggression was of capital importance to both empires. Japan believed that such security could be attained by introducing into the peninsula the civilisation which had contributed so signally to the development of her own strength and resources. China thought that she could guarantee security without any departure from old-fashioned methods, and by the same processes of capricious protection which had failed so signally in the cases of Annam, Tonquin, Burmah, Siam, and Riukiu. The issue really at stake was whether Japan should be suffered to act as the Eastern propagandist of Western progress, or whether her efforts in that cause should be held in check by Chinese conservatism.
But from this synopsis of reasons it would be unjust to omit the state of Japan's domestic affairs in 1894. Unquestionably the friction between the Government and political parties had reached such an acute stage that even a foreign war might have been welcome as a diversion. Some publicists have attached overwhelming importance to that phase of the story. They insist that Japan forced war upon her neighbour in order to escape a worse alternative at home. Others deny strenuously that the rupture was influenced in any respect by Japan's domestic embarrassments. The truth, as usual, seems to lie between the two extremes. Japan would probably have been more unwilling to break the peace if the state of her own household had been more tranquil.
The war itself was a succession of triumphs for Japan. Four days after the first naval encounter, she sent from Söul a column of troops who attacked the Chinese entrenched at Ya-shan and routed them without difficulty. Many of the fugitives effected their escape to Pyöng-yang, a town on the Tadong River, offering excellent facilities for defence, and historically interesting as the place where a Japanese army of invasion had been defeated by Chinese and Korean troops at the close of the sixteenth century. There the Chinese assembled a force of seventeen thousand men and made full preparations for a decisive contest. They had ample leisure. A period of forty days elapsed before the Japanese columns, one moving due north from Söul, the other striking west from Yuen-san, converged upon Pyöng-yang, and that interval was utilised by the Chinese to throw up parapets, mount Krupp guns, and otherwise strengthen their position. Moreover, they were armed with repeating rifles, whereas the Japanese had only single-shooters, and the ground offered little cover for an attacking force. Under such circumstances, the advantages possessed by the defence ought to have been wellnigh insuperable; yet a day's fighting sufficed to carry all the positions, the assailants' casualties amounting to less than seven hundred and the defenders losing six thousand in killed and wounded. It was a brilliant victory, and it proved to be the prelude of another equally conspicuous success at sea.
For, on September 17th, the very day after the battle at Pyöng-yang, a great naval fight took place near the mouth of the Yalu River, which forms the northern boundary of Korea. Fourteen Chinese warships and six torpedo-boats were returning to home ports after convoying a fleet of transports to the Yalu, when they encountered eleven Japanese men-of-war cruising in the Yellow Sea. Hitherto the Chinese had sedulously avoided a contest at sea. Their fleet was the stronger, since it included two armoured line-of-battle ships of over seven thousand tons' displacement, whereas the most powerful vessels on the Japanese side were belted cruisers of only four thousand tons. In the hands of an admiral appreciating the value of sea power, China's naval force would certainly have been directed against Japan's maritime communications, since a successful blow struck there must have put an end to the Korean campaign. History had already demonstrated that fact, for on two occasions in former ages attempts made by Japan to conquer the peninsula were rendered abortive by the superior maritime strength of the Koreans and Chinese. On land her soldiers proved invincible, but her sea-route being severed, she had to abandon the enterprise in each case. The Chinese, however, failed to read history. They employed their war-vessels as convoys only, and when not using them for that purpose, hid them in port. Everything goes to show that they would have avoided the battle off the Yalu had choice been possible, though when forced to fight, they fought bravely. Four of their ships were sunk, and the remainder escaped to Wei-hai-wei, the vigour of the Japanese pursuit being greatly impaired by the presence of torpedo-boats in the retreating squadron.
The Yalu victory opened the over-sea route to China. Japan could now strike at Talien, Port Arthur, and Wei-hai-wei, naval stations on the Liao-tung and Shantung peninsulas, where powerful permanent fortifications, built after plans prepared by European experts, were armed with the best modern weapons and enjoyed the reputation of being almost impregnable. They fell before the assaults of the Japanese troops as easily as the comparatively rude fortifications at Pyöng-yang had fallen. The only resistance of a stubborn character was made by the Chinese fleet at Wei-hai-wei; but after the whole squadron of torpedo-craft had been destroyed or captured as they attempted to escape, and three of the largest vessels had been sunk at their moorings by Japanese torpedoes, and one by shot and shell, the remaining four ships and five gunboats surrendered, and their brave commander, Admiral Ting, committed suicide.
This ended the war. It had lasted seven and a half months, during which time Japan put into the field five columns, aggregating about 120,000 of all arms. One of these columns marched northward from Soul, won the battle of Pyöng-yang, advanced to the Yalu, forced its way into Manchuria, and moved towards Mukden viâ Fenghwan, fighting several minor engagements and conducting the greater part of its operations amid deep snow in midwinter. The second column diverged westward from the Yalu, and marching through southern Manchuria, reached Haicheng, whence it advanced to the capture of Newchwang and Yingkow. The third landed on the Liao-tung Peninsula, and turning southward, carried Talien and Port Arthur by assault. The fourth moved up the Liao-tung Peninsula, and, having seized Kaiping, advanced against Yingkow, where it joined hands with the second column. The fifth crossed from Port Arthur to Wei-hai-wei and captured the latter. In all these operations the total Japanese casualties were 1,005 killed and 4,922 wounded, — figures which sufficiently indicate the inefficiency of the Chinese fighting. The deaths from disease aggregated 16,866, and the total monetary expenditure was twenty million pounds sterling.
The Chinese Government sent Li Hung-chang, Viceroy of Chili and Senior Grand Secretary of State, and Li Ching-fong, to discuss terms of peace with Japan, the latter being represented by Marquis Itō and Count Mutsu, Prime Minister and Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, respectively. A treaty was signed at Shimonoseki on the 17th of April, and subsequently ratified by the sovereigns of the two empires. It declared the absolute independence of Korea: ceded to Japan the part of Manchuria lying south of a line drawn from the mouth of the river Anping to the mouth of the Liao, viâ Fenghwan, Haicheng, and Yingkow, as well as the islands of Formosa and the Pescadores; pledged China to pay an indemnity of 2,000,000 taels; provided for the occupation of Wei-hai-wei by Japan pending payment of the indemnity; secured some additional commercial privileges, as the opening of four new places to foreign trade and the right of foreigners to engage in manufacturing enterprises in China, and provided for the conclusion of a treaty of commerce and amity between the two empires, based on the lines of China's treaties with Occidental Powers.
No sooner did this agreement receive ratification at the hands of the sovereigns of Japan and China, than three of the Great European Powers — Russia, Germany, and France — stepped forward, and presented a joint note to the Tōkyō Government, recommending that the territories ceded to Japan on the mainland of China should not be permanently occupied, as such a proceeding would be detrimental to the lasting peace of the Orient. The recommendation was couched in the usual terms of diplomatic courtesy, but everything indicated that its signatories were prepared to enforce their advice by an appeal to arms. Japan found herself compelled to comply. Exhausted by the Chinese campaign, which had drained her treasury, consumed her supplies of warlike material, and kept her squadrons constantly at sea for eight months, she had no residue of strength to oppose such a coalition. Her resolve was quickly taken. The day that saw the publication of the ratified treaty saw also the issue of an Imperial rescript in which the Mikado, avowing his unalterable devotion to the cause of peace, and recognising that the counsel offered by the European States was prompted by the same sentiment, "yielded to the dictates of magnanimity and accepted the advice of the three Powers."
The Japanese were shocked by this incident. They could understand the motives influencing Russia and France; for it was evidently natural that the former should desire to exclude warlike and progressive people like the Japanese from territories contiguous to her borders, and it was also natural that France in the East should remain true to her alliance with Russia in the West. But Germany, not directly interested in the ownership of Manchuria, and by profession a warm friend of Japan, seemed to have joined in robbing the latter of the fruits of her victory simply for the sake of establishing some shadowy title to Russia's good-will. It was not known until a later period that the Emperor of Germany entertained profound apprehensions about an irruption of Oriental hordes into the Occident, and held it a sacred duty to prevent Japan from gaining a position which might enable her to construct an immense military machine out of the countless millions of the Chinese nation. When His Majesty's mood came to be understood, much of the resentment provoked by his unfriendliness in the Manchurian affair was softened by the mirth his chimera excited.
One of the results of this war was to suggest to the Japanese a new estimate of the attributes that win respect for a nation in the eyes of Europe and America. They saw that their country's peaceful progress and her successful efforts to qualify for equal intercourse with Western States had attracted little consideration compared with the victories of her arms. Probably that discovery had much to do with a large scheme of military and naval expansion that they undertook in the sequel of the war, raising the army to a fighting strength of over half a million men and more than doubling the navy.
But the main reason for this great development of belligerent force was the action of Russia, Germany, and France in robbing Japan of the fruits of her victory, and expelling her from the position she had won in Manchuria by force of arms. The bitterness of that deprivation could not fail to be accentuated by a doubt whether any one of the three Powers sincerely entertained the purpose they avowedly sought to promote, namely, the preservation of China's integrity. Nothing in their records indicated that the interests of an Oriental State had ever been an object of solicitude to them, and Japan had no choice but to conclude that the motive of their arbitrary interference was to prevent her own aggrandisement rather than to avert her enemy's dismemberment. To secure herself against a possible repetition of such humiliations, and to support the dignity of her newly won position as the leading Power in the Orient, she expanded her armaments. Many onlookers averred that alone among the civilised nations of the world she might have confided in the forbearance of other States and pursued the even tenor of her way, unarmed and uninsured. But she did not derive any such conviction either from her own experience or from her observation of international usages, and it must be admitted that her misgivings found curiously quick and signal justification in subsequent events.
For little more than three years after the three Powers' ostentatious parade of concern for China's integrity, Germany seized Kiao-chow and asserted her claim to a hinterland embracing the greater part of Shantung province.
This act of spoliation was effected by Germany without giving any sort of warning to China, although the relations between the two empires were peaceful and amicable. The ostensible pretext, namely, that a Shantung mob had murdered two German missionaries, might have possessed some semblance of validity had Kiao-chow been occupied as security for satisfaction in the nature of an indemnity and the punishment of the murderers. Even in that case the routine observed by civilised nations is to prefer a claim first, so as to give the other side an opportunity of satisfying it peacefully before extreme measures are resorted to. But Germany helped herself to territory at once without preferring any claim, and retained the territory in permanence irrespective of China's willingness to fulfil all ordinary obligations of reparation. This record has nothing to do with the morality of Germany's policy. The impression produced upon the Japanese is alone in question, and that impression was that the sanctions and vetoes of international law constitute no sort of protection for an Oriental State against Occidental aggression.
In the immediate sequel of Germany's absorption of Shantung, Russia annexed the Liao-tung peninsula. The procedure in each case was euphemistically termed "leasing;" but no one, least of all Russia or Germany, laboured under any manner of delusion as to the true nature of the transaction.
Thus within four years of her expulsion from territories belonging to her by right of conquest, Japan saw those territories appropriated by the very Powers that had expelled her. Solicitude for the preservation of China's integrity, which had formed their pretext for expelling Japan, was now shown to have been anxiety lest by leaving her in possession their own opportunities for aggrandisement might be curtailed.
But to have been openly flouted caused comparatively little concern to the Japanese. What chiefly troubled them was that by Russia's occupation of the Liao-tung peninsula a danger hitherto remote had become imminent. To a Power holding Vladivostock and Liao-tung the possession of Korea, or at any rate of a portion of its southern coast, is essential. For between Korea and Japan not only does the sea of Japan narrow to a breadth of one hundred and twenty miles, but also the Japanese island of Tsushima lies in the middle, and immediately opposite to Tsushima on the Korean coast is the Japanese settlement of Fusan. Japan, therefore, is competent to sever at any moment the maritime communications between Vladivostock and Liao-tung, unless Russia can secure in Korea such a position as will give her at least equal command of the narrows. But Russia in Korea is an intolerable prospect to the Japanese nation. They cannot consent to see planted, almost within sight of their shores, the outposts of an empire enormously powerful and governed by an irresistible impulse of expansion. They know well that Russia's growth is not controlled from St. Petersburg, but is perpetually promoted by "the man at the front," and that Korea would not be the terminus of her advance to-day any more than Geok Tepe was twenty years ago. Besides, their material interests in Korea are incomparably larger than those of Russia; the peninsula promises to be a prosperous settlement for their surplus population; they fought in 1894 to secure its independence, and history shows that if any Power has a title to shape its fate, that Power is Japan. It is easy to comprehend, therefore, how profound was the uneasiness felt by the Tōkyō statesmen when they saw Russia seated in Liao-tung, and how greatly their conviction was strengthened that among the Powers of Europe England alone had a sincere disposition to refrain from territorial aggression in the Far East. When these events occurred, Japan occupied Wei-hai-wei, which lies on the Shantung coast opposite to Liao-tung, and is one of the finest sites in China for a naval station. It was there that the Chinese troops and ships had made their last stand in the war of 1894-1895, and the subsequently concluded treaty of peace contained a provision that the place should remain in Japanese possession pending China's payment of an indemnity of 200,000,000 taels. The last instalment of the indemnity having been handed over shortly after Russia's appropriation of Liao-tung, the world looked to see Japan convert her provisional occupation of Wei-hai-wei into permanent tenure by way of rejoinder to Russia's action. But Japan preferred to have England planted at Wei-hai-wei. She evacuated the place in Great Britain's favour, thus giving a further and unequivocal indication of her political tendency.
Meanwhile the Chinese Court, seeing its territories filched from it piece by piece, and recognising that a chief source of danger lay in the apathy of its own subjects, took steps to promote the organisation of volunteer associations in the provinces adjacent to the capital. It does not belong to the scope of this history to describe the processes by which a movement, possibly legitimate in official inception, assumed, in the summer of 1900, the character of an anti-foreign rebellion, which, breaking out in Shantung, spread to the metropolitan province of Chili, and resulted in a situation of extreme peril for the foreign communities in Tientsin and Peking. There did not indeed appear to be any possibility of despatching a European or American force with sufficient promptitude to save the legations in Peking, which were beleaguered by a crowd of Chinese soldiers and insurgents enormously more numerous than the little band of defenders. Hence the eyes of the world turned towards Japan, whose proximity to the scene of disturbance enabled her to intervene expeditiously, and whose troops were believed to be qualified for such a task.
But Japan hesitated. Knowing now with what suspicion and distrust the development of her resources and the growth of her military strength were regarded by some European peoples, and aware that she had been admitted to the comity of Western nations on sufferance, she shrank, on the one hand, from seeming to grasp at an opportunity for armed display, and, on the other, from the solecism of obtrusiveness in the society of strangers. Not until Europe and America made it quite plain that they needed and desired her aid did she send twenty thousand men to Chili, where they acted a fine part, first in the storming of Tientsin, and subsequently in the relief of Peking, which had to be approached in the fierce heat of a Chinese midsummer under most trying conditions. Fighting side by side with European and American soldiers and under the eyes of competent military critics, the Japanese acquitted themselves in such a manner as to establish a high military reputation. Their success in the war of 1894-1895 had been largely discounted by foreign critics, who attributed it, not to the prowess of the victors, but to the total helplessness of the vanquished, and who denied that any inference might be drawn as to the quality of Japanese fighting material for the purposes of a struggle with Western troops.[2] But the Campaign of 1900 in Chili furnished an unequivocal test. There could no longer be any doubt about her military capacity, and since also in the subsequent negotiations she uniformly effaced herself, subordinating her own interests to the important object of maintaining the coöperative union of Western Powers, much of the suspicion with which she had been regarded in Europe ought to have been dispelled.
Much of it was dispelled, doubtless, but not all. Racial prejudice has not been softened by the touch of time. It is customary with a great many Europeans, especially those residing in Japan, to accuse the Japanese of harbouring anti-foreign sentiments and to upbraid them with not having fully laid aside their traditional dislike of aliens. But, if plain truth be told, the anti-Japanese prejudice displayed by the foreign communities themselves is incomparably more profound and demonstrative than any anti-foreign prejudice that can be detected among the Japanese. Nothing Japanese meets with approval among foreigners residing in the settlements. The general attitude — there are exceptions of course — is one of contemptuous tolerance or frank antipathy. Something of this is an aftermath of the resident foreigner's long struggle to retain the privilege of being judged by his own law courts and exempted from taxation. But racial prejudice is in the main responsible. The Japanese is counted an inferior being, and his persistent attempts to reverse that verdict provoke resentment rather than approval, while any display of impatient self-assertion on his part is attributed to inbred hatred of Occidentals. Himself maintaining an attitude of ineffable superiority, the foreigner roundly accuses the Japanese people of conceit, and living carefully apart from them, charges them with exclusiveness and unsociability. It is not conceivable that any community of aliens living in an Occidental country under similar circumstances would find the people equally tolerant and good-humoured.
There is, of course, another side to the account. There is the open-handed benevolence with which the foreign resident responds to every appeal for aid when calamity overtakes the Japanese; there is the noble devotion of the missionaries, Roman Catholic and Protestant, who labour perpetually for the welfare of their Japanese brothers and sisters, and there is the generous appreciation of onlookers from a distance who see Japan's progress in its true proportions. Such object-lessons do much to mitigate the harsher mood habitually displayed by the foreigner within the gates. But the balance is largely on the side of disdainful superiority, benevolent condescension, or unkind criticism, and the Japanese, gradually learning to see these things as they really are, have come to understand that many of the qualities which they are denounced for not displaying find no place in the conduct of their denouncers. Additional light has been reflected on the subject by the anti-Semitic sentiment in Europe, and by the legislation of Australia and America for excluding immigrants of Japanese or Chinese nationality. It was against similar exclusiveness on Japan's part that the Powers of the West inveighed when they required her to open her gates, and the contrast between their preaching then and their practice subsequently cannot but strike Eastern nations.
The Chinese complication in 1900 was suggestive in another respect also. During the war in 1894-1895, a section of the Japanese army, invading the Liao-tung peninsula, committed some cruel excesses at Port Arthur. There were extenuating circumstances. The men had been exasperated beyond endurance by finding the bones of two of their comrades who had been roasted to death by the Chinese, and the remnants of others who had been shockingly mutilated, and, moreover, the civilian inhabitants of Port Arthur whom the Japanese slew were believed to be soldiers in disguise. Foreign critics, however, refused to take these circumstances into account. A veritable shout of indignation was raised; newspapers wrote as though the Japanese, permanently forfeiting their title to be called civilised, had re-established their affinity with Oriental barbarians; this one incident of a war conducted on all other occasions with marked humanity and unvarying respect for the best principles of international morality, was magnified into a heinous act of savagery, and altogether it seemed as though Europe and America were shocked into hysterical horror. Now, if the Japanese had killed all the wounded Chinese, given no quarter under any circumstances, and sought to exterminate their enemies instead of subduing them, they would only have followed the usages of war, as it was known to them by tradition. But, on the contrary, they treated the wounded with the utmost kindness, refrained studiously from all acts of rapine, and with the one exception of Port Arthur were nowhere guilty of sacrificing life needlessly. Remembering, then, how short a time had elapsed since the sacking of cities was deemed a legitimate perquisite of European armies, and how only fourteen years separated Port Arthur from Geok Tepe, the Japanese, though they made no complaint, were probably a little bewildered by this experience. At all events, they concluded that under no provocation would Western soldiers be betrayed into retaliating on a merciless enemy. But one of the earliest incidents of the Chinese complication in 1900 was a shocking massacre at Blagovestchensk by the Russians, an act of savagery which threw Port Arthur totally into the shade; and in Chili the Japanese themselves saw not only the Cossacks, but also the Germans, follow the principle of "no quarter" with terrible fidelity. The world, however, said very little. It had been thrown into a tumult of palpitating horror when Japanese soldiers, remembering their tortured and mutilated comrades, forgot for a moment to show mercy to a savage enemy; but when the troops of great Occidental States deliberately reverted to mediæval fashions of warfare, a feeble remonstrance, followed by discreet silence, was the measure of public condemnation. There could be no mistaking the import of this contrast: "one law for me, another for thee" was to be the governing principle of the Occident's attitude towards Japan.
The climax of the drama was reached when Russia planted her foot in Manchuria, and when Germany pretended that an agreement made by her with England concerning the integrity of the Chinese Empire could not be construed as applying to Manchuria, though Manchuria is as integral a portion of the Chinese Empire as Prussia is of the German. Japan was able to congratulate herself on having been mainly instrumental in preventing a convention by which China, helpless and blind-eyed, would have virtually added that huge territory to Russia. But although Russia failed to obtain documentary sanction for her occupation, she remained in occupation none the less, and no one, least of all a person conversant with her historical respect for engagements, could be so sanguine as to suppose that her disavowal of permanent occupation would ever be translated into evacuation. Thus, whereas the tenure of a portion of Manchuria by Japan had seemed to Russia, Germany, and France in 1895 such a menace to the security of China and to the peace of the East, that they saw themselves under the painful duty of expelling Japan, the appropriation of the whole of Manchuria by Russia in 1900 did not seem to Germany to affect the integrity of China in any way, to menace her security, or to jeopardise the tranquillity of the Orient; seemed to France an arrangement that she could conscientiously support; and seemed to Russia an act not at all inconsistent with her previous attitude towards Japan.
Russia has thus extended her dominion to the very boundaries of Korea. She need only step across the Yalu River and she will find herself in a country inviting aggression by helplessness, promising to repay it by ample resources, and strategically essential to the security of her position in the Far East. She has conventions with Japan which, if faithfully observed, would prevent her from exercising in Korea any influence baleful to Japanese interests. Similarly at one time she had a convention with Great Britain placing Afghanistan entirely outside the sphere of Russian influence. Yet, in a time of peace, she deliberately instigated Afghanistan to make war upon England. Korea has now become the Afghanistan of the Far East, with this difference that whereas Afghanistan suggests itself to Russia merely as a weapon for harassing England in Asia in order to force her hand in Europe, Korea presents itself to her as a possession which would round off her newly acquired empire in the Far East, secure the sea route between Vladivostock and Liao-tung, and consummate her long-cherished ambition by giving her full access to southern oceans. If in the past her aggressive progress had shown any symptom of finality, or if Japan's vital interests and hereditary inclination suffered her to abandon Korea to its fate, the situation now created would be less perilous.
Another important result of the Chinese complication has been to bring Japan, the United States of America, and England into very close relations. Japan has always regarded the United States with exceptionally friendly eyes. In every instance she has found America considerate, sympathetic, and appreciative, and she cherishes a firm conviction, which even the absorption of Hawaii and the Philippines has not shaken, that territorial aggression will never disfigure American policy in the Orient. Towards England her feelings used not to be so cordial. She doubted at one time whether Great Britain's growth might not yet be attended by catastrophes to Far-Eastern nations. But being now fully persuaded that the unique aim of British policy in China is to keep the markets of that Empire open on equal terms to all the world, and to avert its partition among States which discriminate commercially against other nations, she sees in England a Power with which she would willingly clasp hands in any common emergency.
It may be added that Japan has not lost all hope of China's resurrection from the grave of conservative stagnation. Ever since the war of 1894-1895, the Viceroys of central China, Chang Chih-tung and Liu Kun-yi, have been sending youths to Japan to study military and naval sciences, law, medicine, commerce and industry,[3] and during the complications of 1900-1901 the Government in Tōkyō, acting through these viceroys, was able to exercise wholesome influence on the counsels of the Chinese Court. There is also a powerfully supported Japanese society under whose auspices schools have been opened at several places in China, and useful books are translated into the Chinese language and widely circulated. If events do not move too fast, China may possibly develop strength to cope with them, or at least to make some contribution to her own preservation.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 9.
Note 9.—The tariff was fixed originally on a basis of ten per cent duty on imports, but in 1865 Japan consented, under heavy pressure and even armed menace, to reduce the rate to five per cent. This, too, was only nominal, for the conversion of ad valerem duties into specific was managed in such a manner that the sum actually levied on imports did not average as much as two and a half per cent of their value at the port of shipment.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 10.
Note 10.—This idea was founded partly on the inferior stature and weight of the Japanese. The average height of the adult male Japanese, according to Dr. E. Baelz, the best authority on the ethnography of Japan, is 5 ft. 21⁄2 in., and that of the adult female, 4 ft. 81⁄3 in. Thus the male in Japan is about as tall as the female in Europe. The weight of the male is 150 lbs. in the lower orders, and from 140 to 145 lbs. in the upper (against an average weight of 188 lbs. in Europe); the woman weighs from 122 to 125 lbs. It will be convenient to set down here some salient facts as to the physical structure and properties of the people, following always the authority of Dr. Baelz. The Japanese grows only eight percent of his stature from the time of puberty, whereas the European grows thirteen per cent. The bulk of the people are strong. The upper classes are comparatively weakly, but the lower are robust and muscular. In the matter of weight, as well as in that of height, development ceases sooner in the Japanese than in the European. The head is large, the face and torso are long, the legs short. Indeed, the length of the torso and the shortness of the legs are so marked as to constitute a race characteristic. In a European the length of the leg from the trochanter to the ground is more than one-half of the length of the body; in the Japanese it is distinctly less. The face, in consequence of the low bridge of the nose, is less prominent than that of the European, and appears to be broader, but is not really so. The forehead is low; the vertical distance between the tip of the nose and the upper lip, very small. The mouth is sometimes small and shapely, but frequently it is large and the teeth are prognathous. The eye is always dark, generally of a fine brown. It seems to be oblique, but the obliquity is due to the position of the lids. Further, the upper lid is almost a direct continuation of the skin of the forehead, instead of being recessed under the eyebrow, as is the case in Europeans. The cheeks are broad and flat; the chin, narrow; the legs are often crooked and graceless, especially in women; the calves are strongly developed; the ankles thick; the feet broad; the arms, hands, and neck remarkably graceful; the skin is light yellow, often not darker than that of southern Europeans, but sometimes as dusky as that of the Singhalese. The Japanese belong to the least hirsute of the human species. Their hair is black and straight. It turns grey at the age of forty-five to fifty, but baldness is comparatively rare. Dr. Baelz concludes that the finer type of the Japanese came from the borders of the Euphrates and Tigris, and that they belonged to the same stock as the Egyptians.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 11.
Note 11.—The number of these students had reached two hundred by the middle of 1901.