JAPAN AND BRITAIN

Evening Star, Issue 12397, 10 January 1905, Page 5

JAPAN AND BRITAIN

[By an Englishman from tho Far East.]

Since my arrival in England from North China I have been greatly struck by the utter lack of knowledge among the general iiublic of the important issues, directly affecting British interests, involved in the present struggle between Russia and Japan. And yet it is not tec much to say that., had not Japan come to the rescue, the position of the Anglo-Saxon in the Far East •\>aa doomed. We wlm> havo lived in China, for many years had long despaired of any effective hacking from our own Government, and it was a matter of general calculation among us that, given time, Russia would be in Pekin in live years. Even tha Chineso have come to treat us with contempt, and you may gather something of the level to which British prestige has sunk when I tell you that Britishers desirous of obtaining legal satisfaction from a Chinese lmvo often found it necessary to pay the member of some other nationality—French, German, or Italian—to mako the case his own, and obtain redress, which is then immediately forthcoming, through his own representative. It would make

—The Briton at Home Blush—to hear of the repeated instances in which private interests have been, deliberately sacrificed by Ilia Government for the sake of peace and quietness. Our only hope lay in the action of Japan, and it is she alone that has saved us and the British Empire from a reduction to impotence in the China Stas. It has;seemsd to me, therefore, perfectly astooadins that the general attitude of the British public towards the galLmo rffort -which Japan is now making should 1)0 merely that of the disinterested spectator, tempered by a fervent hope that Gieab Britain is not dragged into the scrimmage. I have talked with numbers of good people of nearly every class, where intelligence was to be expected, and, while a few would seem to have studied the question in all its bearings, the vast majority, Although possessing a sentimental leaning towards Japan rather resembling that felt far Jack the Giant-killer in a Christmas pantomime, have betrayed not the remotest conception that the future salvation of their own country in China and the Pacific is solely dependent on the successful outcome of the great effort which the Government &f the Mikado are now making. No one in Great Britain, outside mercantile and official circles, yet realises how far Russia had actually gone in the absorption of China. Manchuria is but a small pirt of the great question. —British Optimism.— With that ardent desire displayed by all British Governments to preserve an ostrichlike bdief in Russia's good faith, our Government not long since signed a ridiculous self-denying' ordinance at St. Petersburg wherein they faithfully promised that British subjects should seek for no concessions outside the Great Wall of China—that is to say, in Manchuria—if Russia on Her part abstained from obtaining concessions south of the same line of demarcation. What has been the result? While Great Britain has kept strictly to the letter and spirit of ithb agreement, Russia at once east about for means to evade her compact Employing that political engine the RussoCkinese Bank, as well as her Belgian coadjutors, she secured concessions ia Honan, Shansi, and elsewhere, which set the whole agreement at nought It is also well known tliat the Pekin-Hankow Railway is for all practicafl purposes a Russian, instrument, and she has likewise obtained a controlling interest in, the American HankowL'anton road. On. paper, therefore, Russia has her way prepared, down to the Pearl River already. It ia even said that Hongkong has been marked down by her as a prospective naval base! It is therefore because of all this, because they know thafc Japan is fighting England's battle' almost as much as she is fighting her own, that Englishmen in the Far East are moved with astonishment and disgust when tliey Encounter the ignorant apathy of the mass >f the British people towards nn event of unci, vital import to their Empire. But, nnfortunately, apathy is not all. An insane fear of a yellow military federation has got on. the nerves of a certain section, and there are not wanting those who would actually abandon the Japanese alliance because of Japan's very successes. Indeed, instead of the alliance producing a feeling rf satisfaction that we possess the friendship and support of a nation which has shown Keelf superior in organisation ito all the rest of the world, an ■utterly illogical apprehension tends to drive them into the opposite extreme. Such people cannot ape that cur international position minus l the alliance would be hazardous in the extreme, and that if there is one factor which has furthered our European policy more than another it lias been the idliance with Japan. The backing of Japan, especially in Asian political questions, has strengthened our diplomacy immensely, and increasingly fo ever since the world was forced to recognise the brilliant efficiency of the Mikado's naval and military power. But tlie lukew-armiwss and lack of personal interest fbovra by Great Britain has immistakeahly been causing —Considerable Resentment in Japan,— ■who looked for stronger and more intelligent sympathy. Instead of this she has been irritated by a seeming incessant tmxipty on the part of her ally to coneiliote the foe; by the timorous lack of projection afforded to Britisii sea-borne commerce with Japan; the incessant supply rf steam coal famished to the Russians; "and by Great Britain's unhappy collusion in the virtual broach of neutrality by which permission has been aecorded to the Baltic fleet to coal and take in stores at Port Said. I can assure the English people that the resentment of Japan at our invertebrate attitude is not confined to the lower orders. It is very certain that if we fail to exhibit a stronger appreciation of our present connection with Japan others will not be too phort-sightod to recognise the fact that a j;ew and powerful moral a-s well as political force has been born into the world, and will -take advantage of our remissness. —A Possible Danger.—

There has, at any rate, always been a Rnssophile party in Japan, and l although little has been heard of them of late, t£ey will at a later stage be quite capable of utilising any divergence or weakness of sympathy between their country and Britain! There are more impossible things in the immediate future than a political understanding if not an actual alliance, between the pre' Fent belligerente, which, in the development of Far Eastern affairs, might, con ceiyably offer Japan more solid and immediate advantages than a, het-ilatin<r and grudging sympathy on the part cf Great .Britain. This is an aspect of the situation TO China seas which Englishmen! in (the Far En-H find no difficulty in recognising and it will be well if English people shovr themselves equally prescient before it he too late and the possible arrival of that moment when Russia finds herself free to reek compensation in some other direction. 'St James's Gazette.'