RUSSIA AND JAPAN

BEFORE the Japanese began to read the annals of Western countries they acquired their ideas of international intercourse mainly from experiences with the Russians. A great deal of information had been derived, it is true, from incidents connected with Christian propagandism and over-sea trade in the sixteenth and seventeeth centuries. But among these incidents there had not been any actual collisions with armed foreigners. Deeds of violence had been committed by Christian zealots, and the Japanese, in turn, had used the strong arm to free their country from a peril which, as they supposed, menaced its independence. In that chapter of their history they seemed to themselves to have exercised timely wisdom by extirpating a dangerous evil before it became formidable. Extending, at first, an open-armed welcome to strangers, they had found them -or believed that they had found them-the apostles of a creed which enforced its dogmas by violence, and the agents of aggressions which in the end would swallow up the empire. Therefore they had exercised their right of self-protection against religious intolerance on the one hand, and national catastrophe on the other. There had been no resistance, or at least none of any consequence, on the foreign side, and thus the lesson learned by the Japanese from the whole affair had been one of caution rather than of resentment.

It was in the last quarter of the eighteenth century that the traditions bequeathed from these early experiences were modified by a new outlook and a new kind of contact with the outer world. At that epoch glimpses of foreign countries, seen dimly through the narrow window of the Dutch factory at Deshima since the middle of the seventeenth century, began to assume firmer outlines, until they riveted the attention of a small band of students who, braving the worst penalties of the law, set themselves to acquire some knowledge of the wonders thus revealed. Among these students was one Ono Rinshihei, Soon he had to make a difficult choice: to choose between concealing information which seemed essential to his country's safety, and

revealing it at the certain cost of his own safety. He chose the latter, published a brochure which the authorities confiscated and burned, and was himself thrown into prison. But before he had lain in durance five months events vindicated his wisdom. The brochure had described the manners and customs as well as the military and naval organisations of Western States; had warned Japan that the Russians would one day show themselves a formidable enemy on her northern border, and had urged the advisability of building a fleet and constructing coast defences. The Russians appeared while Ono awaited sentence of execution. They asked for tradal privileges, and received a refusal after vexatious delays. All their predecessors, the Spaniards, the Portuguese, the English, the Dutch and the Chinese, had bowed obediently to a similar veto in the seventeenth century. The Russians showed no such submissiveness. They adopted the policy of demonstrating practically how disagreeable they could make themselves, and how much their friendship was preferable to their enmity. Six times during the course of twenty years they made descents upon Saghalien, the Kuriles and Yezo, raiding, burning, slaying and abducting. Had not Russia's attention been diverted from the Far East by the great European struggle of that era, she would either have forced foreign intercourse upon Japan at the point of the sword before the nineteenth century was twenty years old or annexed Saghalien, the Kuriles and Yezo with all their outlying islets. What she did accomplish was to write her name in bloody letters upon Japan's memory.

It

Thereafter came the era of "amity and commerce." began in 1857, and one of its earliest incidents was an attempt on Russia's part to include the island of Tsushima among her colonies Tsushima, which lies within sight of Japan on one side, of Korea on the other, and commands the principal entrance to the Sea of Japan. Foreign trade and intercourse were forced upon Japan against her will, but among all the Powers that insisted upon clasping her reluctant hand Russia alone showed herself in the guise of a territorial aggressor.

In the immediate sequel of this Tsushima incident Japan was called upon to deal with Russian encroachments in Saghalien. That page of history is well known. It ended in the absorption of the whole of Saghalien by Russia, the Japanese being merely allowed to retain some worthless islets in the Kuriles. This transaction may be said to have grown out of the series of remarkable encroachments engineered and directed by men like Nevelskoy and Muravioff; encroachments which brought Russia from Lake Baikal down the valley of the Amur to the

shores of the Pacific. Japan was not yet a very attentive reader of foreign annals, but she could not fail to discern the colossal shadow thus projected over Eastern Asia and to feel its already chilling influence on her own destiny.

In the spring of 1891 the Cesarevitch-now Nicholas II.visited Japan. Passing through the town of Otsu on his way to Lake Biwa, he received a sword slash on the head from a Japanese policeman. This act differed in one respect from assaults to which the representatives of sovereignty are commonly exposed. Tsuda Sanzo, the would-be assassin, believed himself to be championing his country's cause: believed, in common with many of his nationals, that the visit of a Russian Imperial Prince to Japan boded ill for the Empire. Other princes might be welcomed at their coming and sped at their parting, but a Russian prince constituted a menace to the safety of the Sacred Throne. Of course the upper classes in Japan were not disturbed by such fancies; but among the lower orders Tsuda had sympathisers. Russia in their eyes was a traditional danger.

On his way home the wounded Cesarevitch turned at Vladivostock the first sod of the Siberian Railway. This immense road, 4714 miles long, had been projected for many years, but so colossal was the enterprise that even when actually commenced it retained an unreal character in many eyes. Steadily from either end, however, the work crept on, and the Far East, especially Japan, awoke presently to the perception that in a few years Russian aggression would possess an instrument of enormous potentiality. "When the Siberian Railway is finished," became a phrase constantly on the lips. of uneasy politicians. There were still obstacles, however. One of them was the great river Amur. Between Lake Baikal and Vladivostock this river is Russia's frontier, and in that part of its course it takes roughly the form of a vast arc, its periphery measuring some 2500 miles. Through nearly two-thirds of this distance the projected railway, following the bank of the Amur, would have to traverse dense forests and cross big streams in sparsely populated regions with a rigorous climate. On the other hand, could the line be carried along the chord of the arc, the distance between its terminal points would be greatly shortened and the engineering as well as the economical difficulties would virtually disappear. The chord of the arc, however, passed through Manchuria, and Manchuria was Chinese territory.

Russia's immense territorial acquisitions in East Asia have not involved any large use of arms. Especially in the modern

stages of her expansion she has relied on political shrewdness rather than on force. Her plan has been to reap where others sowed. The Crimean War, diverting European attention from East Asia, enabled Muravioff to achieve the navigation of the Amur, and one of the incidents of the war demonstrated the value of this new waterway. China's troubles with the Taipings and with her Anglo-French invaders, rendered her powerless to resist Russia's absorption of the Amur and Ussuri regions. And now, when Russia hesitated to construct the circuitous and costly line needed to link together the terminal sections of her great Trans-Asian railway, fortune came to her assistance. Japan, having utterly defeated China in war, imposed terms of peace which included the cession of Manchuria's littoral from the Liaotung Peninsula to the mouth of the Yalu River; in other words, from the entrance of the Gulf of Pechili to the borders of Korea. In Russia's eyes this was a most unwelcome incident. It has always been her policy to perpetuate conditions of self-helplessness and unprogressiveness in countries adjacent to her Asiatic borders. Thus her expansion meets with a minimum of resistance and finds a maximum of pretexts. But Japan is eminently self-helpful and essentially progressive. Japan in Manchuria would mean that Russia must remain beyond the Amur; must never carry her railway along that short and easy chord of the arc, and, above all, must abandon every hope of pushing southward to the achievement of her traditional desire, the possession of ports on ice-free shores. Therefore Japan had to be kept out of Manchuria. The device Russia employed for that purpose was simple and effective. She persuaded France and Germany to unite with her in protesting against the proposed addition to Japan's dominions. Their protest took the form that Japan's possession of Liaotung and the littoral of the Yellow Sea would imperil the safety of the Chinese capital, would render illusory the independence of Korea, and would constitute an obstacle to the preservation of Oriental peace. Japan had no choice. She could not venture to oppose such a coalition of Powers. All that she might do was to ask for a guarantee that the territory she resigned should never be leased or ceded to another State. Not even that could she get, and not even that could she insist on getting. Every one understood, of course, that Russia had not the smallest genuine solicitude on account of any of the issues she marshalled as reasons for driving Japan off the continent of Asia: she did not care one pin about the safety of Peking; she did not care one pin about the independence of Korea; she did not care one pin about the peace of the East. Equally

well, therefore, every one understood, none better than the Japanese, that her real purpose was to instal herself ultimately in the regions whence Japan had been expelled. But probably very few, the Japanese least of all, looked for the haste she displayed in consummating this indecent programme. By way of immediate compensation for saving Manchuria to the Chinese crown, she sought and obtained permission to carry the Amur Railway across the north of Manchuria—along the chord instead of around the arc. Three years later, she sought and obtained a lease of Port Arthur and Talienwan, that is to say, of the Liaotung Peninsula. And then forthwith she sought and obtained permission to connect these places by rail with her Trans-Asian road. Thus in the brief period of five years after her own expulsion from Liaotung, Japan saw Russia in possession of it by lease, and saw also a Russian railway traversing Manchuria on the north from east to west, and another Russian railway traversing Manchuria in the centre from north to south. In short, Manchuria had become a Russian province in all but name. Nominally it remained Chinese; really it was Russian.

At this juncture fortune again favoured Russia. It was not enough that she should own two railways and lease two harbours in Manchuria. She wanted a pretext for establishing some measure of military control over and above her guards posted along the line and her warships anchored in the harbours. The Boxers furnished that pretext. Just as the allied Powers found it necessary to garrison Chili after the incidents of 1900, so Russia, though with less cogent reason, found warrant for garrisoning Manchuria.

Hitherto the stars in their courses seemed to have been working for Russia. Her position, attained without the shedding of a drop of blood, was unassailable. She might have left the rest to time; might have expressed her title to Manchuria in terms of her own discretion; might have said simply, "I shall remain until I am satisfied that I can withdraw without imperilling my subjects' lives or my own property." But at this juncture in the great drama something like a vertigo seized her diplomatists. They became fussy. They could not let well alone. They encouraged China's opposition by asking her for irksome promises. They created a pretext for protest from Japan by giving written expression to their own ambitious projects. Every student of history knows that no fair comparison can be set up between England's occupation of Egypt and Russia's occupation of Manchuria. The former was the sequel of compelling events; the latter prefaced them. But for the purpose of perpetuating her occupation Russia might

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