THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, MAY 8, 1907. JAPANESE ALLIANCES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13482, 8 May 1907, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, MAY 8, 1907. JAPANESE ALLIANCES.

a When the historians of the -far n future write of the events ;; of , the d Twentieth Century they will pro bably place as'the turning point in 3 the relations of Asia and Europe not the Manchurian War, but the effect of that war in obtaining for Japan - the acknowledged suzerainty of Asia. The Franco-Japanese Treaty now being negotiated is nominally of the same character as the Anglo-Japan-ese, the contracting parties mutually v guaranteeing to one another their Df possessions in the Far East. But !. the reality of the treaty is much; more far-reaching than appears on J; the surface. It will be interpreted 5 * throughout Asia as the recognition d by France that no : European Power can hold territory on that continent without the i consent and , support of Japan ;, just as we must be all well k aware the Anglo-Japanese. Treaty is -.'.' being interpreted to-day throughout is the length and breadth of India. In our Indian- territories it was once a believed that . the British rule depended upon the strong arm and 28 ■ shrewd brain of the Englishman. We > s were not loved— it is quite impossible foi any foreign ruler to be '« loved by the aliens he rules— we le were feared and respected, the more so as every attempt to ; shake the » British " rag ';' was foiled by desper- • ate courage and military genius, displayed by the " Sahibs," which no w Indian people could rival, though they could all understand. Of latter years'we have been endeavouring to conciliate and induct into democratic i methods a medley of races whose only common point is that for count- • less ages they have been ~ governed by the sword of some conqueror and that they consequently regard imperious authority as the only natural „'. one. Conciliatory legislation and i- political concessions are as little appreciated in India as truth-telling in 16 Egypt, where all Lord Cromer's hard ; 8 and honest work has politically produced nothing but a population seeth- £ ing with animosity to the British rule : under which it has prospered. India 12 has looked upon them as clear evii) dences of weakness and incapacity, so that when the news passed £ through the bazaars that the Mikado ;..-•' had promised to assist in maintainJ - ing the rule of the Emperor Edward ld it was not illogically regarded as corroborative evidence that the British "rag'* was on the wane. That this .was the effect of the, AngloJapanese Treaty there is a very gene-: ral concurrence of Anglo-Indian N opinion- the effect being all the" greater because of the popular belief that the ; British civil and military authorities had always looked with | nervous eyes upon the advance of the very Russians who had been ignominiously beaten out of Manchuria. The Franco-Japanese Treaty will have an even greater influence upon the prestige of France. For Eng- ■ land is, ■; after all, a fighting Asiatic •• Power whose troops have, within the memory of man, forced their way to Cabul, Kandahar, and Lhassa, while millions still live who can recall tremblingly how the berseker spirit the -British rose above the storm of the Great Mutiny and wrought deeds which even to Englishmen appear now uncanny and impossible. 1 Whereas France has a lesser reputation and may well be i regarded in Asia as a comparatively minor nation, whose rulers have wisely taken shelter under the wing of Japan. Even > to European eyes the mutual % obligation involved may not appear equal until we call to mind the once imminent danger of a combined European attack upon the Japanese. After ; the Chino-Japanese War of - 1894 France, Germany, and Russia ? joined forces and compelled Japan to withdraw her troops from Port Arthur ; and Manchuria; and the original Anglo-Japanese understanding was avowedly intended to pre-; vent a repetition of that pressure. Had it not been for the British navy"•; , there is considerable reason for the I i surmise that the same • interposition, with the same result, would have taken place after the Russo-Japanese $ conflict had reached certain point. 8 would have been quite impossible

for Japan toi have held Manchuria if cut off from her base, and there is little doubt that French and German battleships would have been very much deadlier foes than the ill-train-ed and mutinous Russians,, The Japanese guarantee to assist England in holding India in consideration of the British guarantee to assist Japan in holding Manchuria was therefore a very excellent /bargain for the Government at Tokio, and might well be regarded so by the Indian Government and British diplomatists. But - popular belief, with all its crudities and incompetencies, has a peculiar habit; of getting down to fundamentals and ignoring the superficial. Whether the Anglo-Japanese Treaty was a good bargain for Japan or not, popular opinion in Asia saw at once that it involved the idea that an Asiatic Power had appeared which" was able to speak as a diplomatic equal with the Europeans, and whose strength was admittedly sufficient to affect the politics of all Asia. A FrancoJapanese Treaty cannot but emphasise this popular opinion, although the maintenance of cordial AngloFrench relations obviously depended upon the British Government having no paramount obligation in the Far East which was not shared by the French. A Franco-Japanese Treaty was therefore inevitable, and may not improbably be followed by a Russo-Japanese Treaty and even by negotiations with Germany. For Japan has every interest in maintaining the peace of Asia until she has thoroughly digested Manchuria and . Corea and until she has still further developed the remarkably powerful navy she is sedulously fostering. Nor is any European Power apparently desirous ■* of Asiatic trouble at this particular moment, for there is still a vague hope in some quarters that the clouds may bio over and that tilings may settle down to much what they were before Japan arose as a great World Power. Diplomacy . usually endeavours to solve international problems by putting off unpleasant questions, and at the present .time there is nothing more unpleasant to most European Powers than the Asiatic outlook. They are very much in the position which Asiatic Powers would be in were Europe occupied in" spheres " by Hindoos, Japanese, and Chinese garrisons while some liberating Frederick the Great had displayed the military power and demonstrated the independence/ of some Prussia. We know what would happen, and only that the . East moves more slowly than the West the same thingis likely to happen in Asia. Meanwhile Japan is guaranteeing to Britain and France their possessions in. Asia; and thus gaining an immense prestige in . every part of a continent which knows, very well that twenty years ;: ago ■. no Asiatic Power was looked upon as worth wasting paper over for ; such i a purpose, and that Britain and France and every other European nation took it for granted that Europe did as it would with all Asia.