er nations down to Ecuador. It is the acts of the
Japanese rather than their rhetoric that must concern us.

The Sino-Japanese war of 1894-5 concerned Korea, with whose internal
affairs China and Japan had mutually agreed not to interfere without
first consulting each other. The Japanese claimed that China had
infringed this agreement. Neither side was in the right; it was a war
caused by a conflict of rival imperialisms. The Chinese were easily and
decisively defeated, and from that day to this have not ventured to
oppose any foreign Power by force of arms, except unofficially in the
Boxer rebellion. The Japanese were, however, prevented from reaping the
fruits of their victory by the intervention of Russia, Germany and
France, England holding aloof. The Russians coveted Korea for
themselves, the French came in as their allies, and the Germans
presumably joined them because of William II's dread of the Yellow
Peril. However that may be, this intervention made the Russo-Japanese
war inevitable. It would not have mattered much to Japan if the Chinese
had established themselves in Korea, but the Russians would have
constituted a serious menace. The Russians did not befriend China for
nothing; they acquired a lease of Port Arthur and Dalny (now called
Dairen), with railway and mining rights in Manchuria. They built the
Chinese Eastern Railway, running right through Manchuria, connecting
Port Arthur and Peking with the Siberian Railway and Europe. Having
accomplished all this, they set to work to penetrate Korea. The
Russo-Japanese war would presumably not have taken place but for the
Anglo-Japanese Alliance, concluded in 1902. In British policy, this
Alliance has always had a somewhat minor place, while it has been the
corner-stone of Japanese foreign policy, except during the Great War,
when the Japanese thought that Germany would win. The Alliance provided
that, in the event of either Power being attacked by two Powers at once,
the other should come to its assistance. It was, of course, originally
inspired by fear of Russia, and was framed with a view to preventing the
Russian Government, in the event of war with Japan or England, from
calling upon the help of France. In 1902 we were hostile to France and
Russia, and Japan remained hostile to Russia until after the Treaty of
Portsmouth had been supplemented by the Convention of 1907. The Alliance
served its purpose admirably for both parties during the Russo-Japanese
war