to encourage the creation of British industries in some foreign quarters of the globe, the investment of large sums of money there, loans to the impecunions and unreliable native government, and, all this accomplished, to seize the country, dispossess the native rulers and annex it to the British crown,-"in order to safe guard the large interests of British subjects." In brief, while the words of the Muscovite monarch have been full of the promise of respect to Chinese rights in Manchuria, and of the speedy withdrawal of his troops, his deeds have been equally full of preparations for the seizure and permanent occupancy of that territory. It is emphatically true that a Russian diplomatist must be understood and judged by his acts, not by his words. In view of these facts it is no wrong to the government of the Czar to assert that it has become involved in this present conflict with Japan through its determined purpose to wrest the large and valuable province of Manchuria from China, its rightful owner, and to secure such a grip upon and control of Corea as will enable it to absorb that small but politically and strategically important empire, at its convenience.

No such motive of illegitimate greed and ambition can, with any show of reason, be charged against Japan. This is not a struggle between two land pirates to determine by main. strength which shall secure a given booty of great value. It is, rather, a conflict between a robber and an honest householder, the latter having been driven to defend his neighbor's property for the sake of the ultimate safety of his own. In this argument, with long range guns, battleships, torpedoes, smokeless powder and dynamite, Russia stands as the exponent and defender of European aggression, of the absorption and domination of the Far East by several of the great Powers of Europe, while Japan stands as the champion of the rights, liberties and national existence of the three remaining peoples of Eastern Asia-of their inalienable right to control their own territories, manage their own affairs, and to develop a higher and more modern national life along lines of their own selection, free from all outside dictation or interference. Japan is fighting for herself and her neighbors; for life, national and independent, and against a mere colonial existence.

There is abundant evidence that the purpose and attitude of the two parties to this conflict are here correctly described.

The history of the diplomatic intercourse of Russia with Corea for the past twenty years, is one long record of intriguery, of impudent demands, cajolery and threats, made use of in turn, to secure political supremacy in that ignorant and inefficient government,-newly opened to intercourse with foreign powers, hence timid and uncertain of its footing. Numerous requests, or rather, orders, for the appointment of Russians to posts of trust and great responsibility, such as Confidential Adviser to the Monarch, the Treasury, and other departments of the government to the exclusion of all persons of other foreign nationalities, have been made with the utmost effrontery. During this long stretch of time, the representatives of the government of Japan, at Seoul have been kept more than busy in efforts to counteract Muscovite intrigues, and to preserve a semblance of free and self-controlled action to the Corean authorities.

In

Every one is familiar with the impertinent, treacherous and unfriendly action of the servants of the Czar at Pekin, in an attempt to frighten China into a refusal to grant the request of the government of the United States, that two additional parts of Manchuria be opened to American commerce. spite of the denial of the Russian Ambassador at Washington, and of the officials of the Czar at St. Petersburg, the attempt was made, persisted in, and caused a delay of months in the conclusion of our Commercial Treaty with China. This action was taken by the Russian authorities because they desired no additional complications with foreign powers when they, in the near future, would cease uttering falsehoods regarding their intentions, throw off the mask and openly attempt the annexation of Manchuria.

In regard to Japan, there is equally pertinent and conclusive evidence of the unselfish character and the honesty of her attitude and purposes towards her neighbors in the Far East; and that motives creditable alike to her statesmanship and her generosity, and such only, have led her into this conflict with Russia.

The immediate cause of the war was, the persistent refusal of Russia to accede to the urgent and repeated request of the Mikado to withdraw its forces from Manchuria and that the two Emperors unite in a treaty by which each should engage to "respect the independence and territorial integrity of China and Corea." If such an engagement, as that, meant anything, it meant that Japan had no desire to invade the rights of either of her neighbors and that she did not propose that Russia should do so.

Since the war began, in the flush of pride over important naval victories, and when the troops of Japan were in position to take immediate and entire possession of the Corean peninsula without even a show of resistance from the legitimate ruler of that empire, the Mikado, upon his own motion, has entered into a fresh treaty with that monarch, in which he pledges himself to guarantee the independence and integrity of his weak and defenseless neighbor.

Do not fail to notice that this guarantee binds the Mikado, against himself and against any and all other governments which may attempt either to annex the peninsula empire or to deprive it of any portion of its domain. The purposes of the Mikado, in this compact, run closely parallel with our own recent policy in regard to Cuba. He is engaging to do for Corea what the United States did for Cuba,-free it from immediate danger of conquest by the Muscovite, and later, maintain its. freedom against the world,-by force of arms, if need be.

The Powers of Europe laughed when, at the beginning of our war with Spain, we declared that the limit of our purpose was to free Cuba from Spanish tyranny and plunder, and then to withdraw, leaving the people of the island to govern themselves. These same governments, across the Atlantic, have, now, utter disbelief in the disinterestedness of Japan, regarding Corea and Manchuria. They have been confident, from the first, that Russia was lying when it declared its intention to withdraw from Manchuria, and they have no better opinion of the professedly honest designs of Japan. They have watched the struggle, going on for more than twenty years past, between the Japanese and the Muscovite, for political and com

mercial supremacy in Corea, and have seen but one end to it all, the seizure of that strip of land by one or the other,and, with their European contempt of the Oriental as a lower order of creation than themselves, as having no rights which they are bound to respect, they have never had a doubt of Russian success. Even Great Britain, though in alliance with Japan to protect China and Corea against national marauders, fails to give the Mikado' credit for honesty of purpose. The press in London and other important cities there has insisted that Japanese expansion is inevitable, and that the only available room for it is upon the neighboring mainland of Asia, and there is a widely prevalent conviction in British minds that, should this war end in the discomfiture of Russia, Japanthat young, strong, and wonderfully vital insular empire,will stretch across the Straits of Corea and establish itself upon the continent.

All of which unbelief, only proves it to be a positive misfortune to nations as to individuals, to lead a dishonest life. They cannot understand honest purposes in others because they do not practice such themselves. By their own national habits, long persisted in, of disregard of the rights and liberties of the defenseless, of aggression and robbery of the territories of the weak, these European Powers have become blind to honesty and fair dealing in others. They cannot conceive of rectitude of conduct between nations, except in cases where any other line of action would be dangerous. The sympathies of some of them go out largely to Russia, because in this attempt at robbery, they have a fellow-feeling with her. They are purblind to another fact. They fail to see that something more is at stake than the question whether Manchuria shall remain Chinese or become Russian,-important as that is. It has not appeared to them that Japan has undertaken to put an end, permanently, to aggression, by European Powers or any others, upon the rights and territories of the nations of Eastern Asia. These aggressions have been numberless, infinitely varied in kind and degree, and long continued. All Europe has had a share in them and now Japan stands in the open field facing this group of land-pirates, determined to put an end to their

incursions, and to maintain the right of those nations in the Far East to independent, self-controlled life, against the greed and domineering ambition of them all.

What honest man can have a doubt regarding the ethics of such a struggle? What American can fail to sympathize with Japan in such a purpose?

While there is no selfishness there is a large measure of wise self-interest in the line of action which the Mikado has found himself obliged to undertake. He is forced to defend the rights of his neighbors in order to protect his own domain from ultimate seizure and absorption. A brief study of a reliable map of Eastern Asia will convince an intelligent person of this. Corea is like a giant finger thrust down between Japan and North China and in easy striking distance of either. It is defenseless yet easy of defense by a strong power. If Russia were in settled possession of it, very soon, doubtless, that great empire would dominate the northern half of China, and Japan would be at the mercy of the Czar, to be seized, overrun and annexed by him, at his pleasure.

Since Japan undertook the task, already so marvellously accomplished, of bringing herself within the lines of modern life and progress, this fact as an actual menace to her national life, has never been absent from the thought of her able and clearsighted statesmen. They have long realized that a halt must be called, at once and for all time, to European interference and aggression in the Far East, or that vast region with its wealth of resources and unnumbered millions of people would lose all semblance of independent existence and become petty colonies under the arbitrary rule of monarchs distant by nearly half the circumference of the globe. For a quarter of a century or more they have watched with anxious eyes the progress of events in that region, and have clearly seen this tendency, so fatal to their patriotic hopes. In 1884, knowing that we had no sinister designs on their country or its neighbors, and that Corea had selected our government as the first with which it chose to enter into treaty relations, the Japanese made an informal suggestion, that the United States and China join with them in an alliance to guarantee the autonomy of the

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