velopment of the commerce and industry of Manchuria.'

"It would be interesting to know whether a refusal to allow China to
build a railway on her own territory is or is not an impairment of
Chinese sovereignty and whether such a railway as that proposed was not
a measure for the 'development of the commerce and industry of
Manchuria.'

"It is doubtful if even the Russo-Japanese war created as much feeling
in China as did the Fa-ku-men incident. Japan's action was of such
flagrant dishonesty and such a cynical repudiation of her promises and
pledges that her credit received a blow from which it has never since
recovered. The abject failure of the British Government to support its
subjects' treaty rights was almost as much an eye-opener to the world as
the protest from Tokio....

"The methods which had proved so successful in stopping the Fa-ku-men
railway were equally successful in forcing the abandonment of other
projected railways. Among these were the Chin-chou-Aigun line and the
important Antung-Mukden line.[60] The same alleged secret protocol was
used equally brutally and successfully for the acquisition of the
Newchwang line, and participation in 1909, and eventual acquisition in
1914, of the Chan-Chun-Kirin lines. Subsequently by an agreement with
Russia the sixth article of the Russo-Chinese Agreement of 1896 was
construed to mean 'the absolute and exclusive rights of administration
within the railway zone.'"

Japan's spheres of influence have been subsequently extended to cover
the whole of Manchuria and the whole of Shantung--though the latter has
been nominally renounced at Washington. By such methods as the above, or
by loans to impecunious Chinese authorities, the Japanese have acquired
vast railway monopolies wherever their influence has penetrated, and
have used the railways as a means of acquiring all real power in the
provinces through which they run.

After the Russo-Japanese war, Russia and Japan became firm friends, and
agreed to bring pressure on China jointly in any matter affecting
Manchuria. Their friendship lasted until the Bolshevik revolution.
Russia had entered into extensive obligations to support Japan's claims
at the Peace Conference, which of course the Bolsheviks repudiated.
Hence the implacable hostility of Japan to Soviet Russia, leading to the
support of innumerable White filibusters in the territory of the Far
Eastern Republic, and to friendship with France in all international