the Russian and Japanese governments over the respective rights and reversionary interests in Outer and Inner Mongolia respectively, are not without significance. It cannot be too strongly emphasized therefore that the policy of the open door and the integrity of China is as important to-day for British commercial interests in neutral markets, and for our moral prestige in the East, as it was fifty years ago. It is not therefore wise for England to blind herself to the fact that there are two powers in the East, with whom she is on the friendliest terms, but who by economic necessity pursue objectives which are not altogether in keeping with her traditional ideas. To connive at a subtle infringement of the open door in any province of China is equivalent to assuming the responsibility of closing it, and unless extreme caution is exercised by British representatives at home and abroad, England may be unwittingly drawn in the Far East into the "orbit" of a certain diplomatic group, pursuing aims and policies at variance with her own. Once allow such an infringement over any part of Mongolia, Manchuria or Turkestan, and a precedent may be set up which will apply equally to other parts of those little-known mountainous regions of Far Western China.
It must be recognized that the economic policies of both Russia and Japan in the Far East are both fundamentally exclusive, and should be watched with considerable care. The price of British co-operation in China, as elsewhere, must always be the maintenance of the open door for foreign commerce; and the integrity of China, and the interpretation of the open door, must include no connivance at the closing of that door by any other power. But adherence to
