The Marlborough Express. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. Wednesday, October 24, 1894. JAPAN—COREA—CHINA.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXX, Issue 249, 24 October 1894, Page 2

The Marlborough Express. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. Wednesday, October 24, 1894. JAPAN— COREA— CHINA.

» Almost simultaneously with the outbreak of the war m the East, there was published m London a book which is, m view of present complications m the far Orient, of muoh more than ordinary interest and value. This is, " Problems of the Far East," the author being the Hon George M. Curzon, the Conservative member for the Southport division of Lancashire, and formerly private secretary to Lord Salisbury. Mr Curzon had already distinguished himself as a traveller and an author, a previously-published book from his pen on " Persia and the Persians" having created considerable attention. His new work is a reoord of his experiences m Japan and China -—and also, we may state, the Corea —m 1892-1898, so that it is thoroughly up-to-date. Mr Curzon is a keen observer, and the object of his visit to the East was to study for himself the great international problems of the countries he visited, their growth m Western civilisation, their naval and military strength and their political system. Although a comparatively young man, he has made a name for himself m the English political world, and is looked upon as one of the coming men of the Conservative party. Putting aside the ordinary topics dealt with by the average globe-trotter, Mr Curzon treats mainly, so we observe by a lengthy review of his book which appears m the London Daily Chronicle of August 20, of the constitutional questions which are to the front m both Japan and China, and especially with the future of the former power. He states that he found m Japan a distinct tendency towards modifying the semi-auto-cratic rule of the Mikado, and also towards increasing the representation of the people. He pays a high meed of praise to the remarkable progress which has been made by Japan, and notices that there are many signs of a quite uncommon and widespread financial prosperity. Trade is healthy, and the manufacturing industries are increasing by leaps and bounds. When he passes on to Corea he gives special attention to the political relations of that country. He points out the peculiar geographical situation of Corea as a sort of Tom Tiddler's ground between China, Russia, and Japan, and then proceeds to sketch what was the position of the Japanese m the country, prior, of course, to the outbreak of the present war. Here Mr Curzon may be quoted m full: —" Active and business-like as compared with the indolent Coreans, possessed of capital, and understanding how to make others pay through the nose for the loan of it, Japan's colonists and merchants have gradually fastened a grip on the weaker country which it will be exceedingly difficult to shake off. ... Civil and obliging m their own country, the Japanese develop m Corea a faculty for bullying and bluster that is the result partly of national vanity, and partly of the memories of the past. . . . Till quite recently Count Ito and his colleagues were not believed to have any sympathy with the intemperate and swaggering attitude of the Radical and Jingo party m Japan towards the weaker State. They appeared to recognise that the Japanese policy m Corea could only attain its ends by a friendly understanding with China, that the effort to recover purely political ascendancy m Soul was incompatible with such an understanding, and that every attempt to humiliate or terrorise over Corea was to play China's game, and to tighten the bonds that united the vassal with the suzerain. At the same time no Japanese Minister could afford altogether to abandon the immemorial claims of his country over the petty adjacent kingdom; while every Japanese Minister has now to deal with a people —namely, his own countrymen —who, when their so-called patriotic instincts are appealed to, are apt to respond by going stark._Baad.~ It is theiatter^phgliOHtgiion, and the skilful but not too scrupulous use that has been made of it, that are responsible for the events occurring m Corea as these pages go to press." Japan, thinks Mr Curzon, will m the long run be the sufferer by the issue, a conclusion which, judging by later events hardly seems to be justifiable, but it must be remembered that the war is not yet concluded. With regard to the Chinese policy, which, he says, is virtually the polioy of Li Hung Chang, he holds it was well meant, and thoroughly justifiable. He says: " Judged by its results, it might be said that the polioy of Lj Hung Chang, however little shaped by the oanons either of logic or of international custom, was not unsuccessful. Each logical faux pas was m the end retrieved by some praofciqal advantage. If he declined to punish (Jorea m the first place for her attacks upon missionaries and foreigners, he thereby escaped responsibilities for her cruelties. If he allowed Corea, a vassal State of China, to make treaties with foreign Powers, he at the same time vindicated his right to appear as gobetween —a capacity m which Japan was most anxious to figure. By (these means he might claim to have enlisted the interest of foreign Powers as a set-off to the only two rivals whom China seriously fears m Corea —viz., Japan and Russia. Finally, having surrendered some of the techniatd symbols of suzerainty, he offered a vety practical demonstration of the remainder at all moments of crisis, and by judicious advances of inonoy obtained a firm hold upon

Korean administration. His policy, indeed, towards Corea might not iniptly be compared with that of Great Britain during the last decade, towards Egypt, where every species of bechnical anomaly has yet been the ultimate precursor of a vigorous and commanding control. It remains to be seen whether he can cope with the new situation." So far, at least, Li Hung Chang has not been able to cope with the new situation, but although popular sympathy m these colonies may be to a very large extent on the side of Japan, it is only fair to the Chinese to remember that if Mr Curzon's contentions are correct, the Japanese have been the I aggressors. Mr Curzon, who is no lover of Russia, and has all the average English Tory's horror and distrust of that Power, says that both China and Japan " are m reality working over their shoulders at the real antagonist Russia," and he proceeds to say " both are equally concerned m keeping her out. She would not be more odious to the one m. the Yellow Sea than to the other m the sea of Japan. Both are secretly conscious that by a mutual understanding alone can this object be secured." This exactly bears out the contention made some weeks ago m these columns, that whatever power were triumphant, Russia would endeavor to squeeze some personal advantage from the victor. We could go on quoting from Mr Curzon's interesting book, or rather from the Daily Chronicle's views of the same at great length, but lack of space forbids. His summing up of the so-called " awakening of China," and the future of Chinese progress, is, however, too important to be excluded, and with an extract from it we may very fitly conclude. Mr Curzon says :— " The continued national existence of the Yellow Race may be regarded as assured. But that the Empire which m the last fifty years has lost Siam, Burma, Annam, Tonking, and part of Manchuria, and has already seen a foreign army m Pekin; whose standard of civil and political perfection is summed up m the stationary idea ; which, after half a century of intercourse with ministers, missionaries, and merchants, regards all these as intolerable nuisances, and one of the number with intolerable aversion; which only adopts the lessons they have taught her when the surrender is dictated by her necessities or her fears ; and which, after a twenty years' observation of the neighboring example of Japan, looks with increasing contempt upon a frailty so feeble and impetuous — that this empire is likely to falsify the whole course of its history and to wrench round the bent of its own deep-seated inclinations, simply because the shriek of the steam-whistle or the roar of cannon is heard at its gates, is a hypothesis that ignores the accumulated lessons of political science, and postulates a revival of the age of miracles. I have narrated the stages of China's tardy advance, and I have shown how far she has condescended to reform. But it remains a mechanical and not a moral advance ; it is an artificial and not an organic reform. . . . Politically speaking, her star is a waning, and not a rising orb." Mr Curzon's conclusion as to the East, and as to the future of Asiatic supremacy is one which is not unflattering to his English readers. "As I proceed with this undertaking," he says," " the true fulcrum of Asiatic dominion seems to me increasingly to lie m the empire of Hindustan. The secret of the mastery of the world is, if only they knew it, m the possession of the British people."