COMMENTS ON THE CABLES

Evening Star, Issue 12982, 19 June 1908, Page 4

COMMENTS ON THE CABLES

America does not .acclaim her heroes after the manner of ancient Rome. Mr Koos«velfs The victorious leader is no Popalar longer borne in a chariot Triumph. drawn by four horses along the Via Sacra to the Capitol with his? captives in front and hi 6 legions behind. What the Democracy of to-day offers to the man whom the people delight to honor is " a tremendous outburst of enthusiasm, lasting forty minutes." Probably very few of our readers have been present or participated in) .a demonstration of this nature, the more striking, perhaps, from the fact that its inepirer is not present in the flesh. The vast hall, wherein nearly a thousand delegates to the Convention are gathered, is gaily decorated with flags, banners, shields, streamers, ribbons, and bunting; bands of music are placed about the budding; the platform is packed with row on row of men of national repute; and the galleries are filled to overflowing by interested onlookers to the number of ten or fifteen thousand from all parts of the country. Each delegation from the fortyfive States of the Union is assigned its own place on tne floor of the 5 auditorium, and each member of the delegation carries a banner or wears a button whereon is stamped a portrait of the party's favorite candidate. To this audience the permanent chairman of the Convention. appeals in language that to many would be a.; exaggerated and unique as.the demonstration it evokes. But speaker, delegates, >- i «i audience 2^ a «• Mniann. Jill ai« -wait-

, ing; for the proclaiming of the, one name i which will turn them from well-dressed, ; collected, rational beings into creatures' ; temporarily bereft of reason. At the pychological moment a national convention i b admittedly and unblushingly pande- ■ monium let loose. At th« great Chicago : Convention the spark that fired the flame was the name of. Roosevelt, and when Sena-" , toi l Lodge had spoken it he could get no ; further. The house " rose "at him, and for forty minutes—ndouble the averagethere were shouting, thousands, tooting horns, waving banners, bands playino- ' Hail Columbia' and 'The Star-spangled Banner,' ■ embracings, dancings, overthrown chairs, ; flying coats and umbrellas and sticks, and j wild rushes of one delegation to another to i join in a hullabaloo of discord, while above j all was heard the never-ending yell " Roosei velt for President." When nature could ! do no more, when tired delegates sank back m their seats, when exhausted women rearranged their ruffled plumes, Senator Lodge told the Convention what all the world already knew, but what place-hunting politicians have never understood, that Mr Roosevelt'* refusal to offer himself for renomination was final and irrevocable. We can recall no similar outburst of public affection like that spontaneously paid to Mr Roosevelt. The Presidency was his for the taking, but he has put it aside. Mr Doolev. when asked what he would do if he were an ex-President, said: "If I wanted something rale hard to do—something that wud keep me busy, an' take up all me time to th' end iv me days—l'd thry to be Prisidint again." Mr Roosevelt, we cannot avoid thinking, has chosen the better part.

Tkoji vine to time items of news come from Corea, a country of The Trigftijr which Ave hear little since it nf Corea. was " absorbed" bv Japan Mr Arclubald Colquhoun uses the term absorption; Mr F. A. MacKenzie prefers the phrase "wholesale theft." Tmpnrti.dly viewed, there is not mnch difference between these two writers. Mr Colquhoun. discussing Japan's polk-v on the mainland, 6ays: She has trampled on them. She hap loused the bitterest hatred of the Coroan«, and her present policy (notwithstanding the theoretical liberality and humanity which is expressed on paper and the undoubted integrity of Count Ito) is ono of ruthless denationalisation. Corea is to be made a Japanese province—notlung less will secure her—and to do this the independence of the Coreans has to be crushed. Mr MacKenzie uses stronger adjectives—"odiourt cruelty," "needless slaughter," etc.—but his conclusion is the same: Japan has broken heT solemn promises to Corea and has evaded in every way her pledged obligations to maintain the policy of equal opportunity because she is driven thereto by heavy taxation, by the poverty of her people, and by the necessity of obtaining fresh markets and new lands for settlement. Nor are these competent observers alone in their survey of the Corean situation. What they say Mr Putnam Weak, Professor Hulbert of the 'Corean Review,' and other English and American writers on the Far East have also 6aid. If Japan had to answer for her government of Corea to the journalists and travellers who at the outbreak of the war were either strongly biased or predisposed in her favor, she would be pronounced guilty, possibly without a recommendation to mercy. Mr Douglas Story, who, like his contemporaries, gives chapter and verse for his charges, asserts that the Treaty which handed Corea over to Japan was forced down the throats of Corean Ministers at the point of the bayonet, and that the Emperor of Corea, far from being a consenting party, was a mere tool manipulated by Marquis Ito. In Manchuria the story of Japanese diplomacy is much the same. There are neither "open door" nor trade facilities. No Power will regret mora than Great Britain Japan's failure to realise the hopes she inspired. She is cur ally, and not so long ago the Japanese were regarded with admiration und welcomed as friends. Whether this mutual good feeling will continue is not free from doubt. Mr Colquhoun only repeats what has been previously said when he remarks: "One cannot fail to be struck with the fact that Japan has alienated from hervelf during the few years of her operations in Corea the sympathies of Europeans and Americans who -were once strongly proJapanese." The visible effects of Japano* rule in Corea are rebellion and slaughter. The country is in open revolt in certain districte, though little news is allowed to filter through. All that can be said with safety is that present conditions are not likely to continue. The prosecution of a prominent journalist on a charge of sedition, of which the cables advise us, may provide a solution of the problem. Mr Bfthall, in liis defence, denies Japan'sright to supremacy in Corea. The verdict of the special Court appointed by the British Privy Council will carry with it more momentous consequences than are involved in the guilt or innocence of the accused pressman.