had urged them to surrender their
claim to the Island of Saghalien and to give up all idea of an
indemnity. Japanese military triumph had again, as at the close of the
Chino-Japanese War, been followed by diplomatic defeat, and for this
defeat Japanese public opinion held President Roosevelt responsible.
From the days of Commodore Perry and Townsend Harris to the Treaty of
Portsmouth, relations between the United States and Japan had been
almost ideal. Since the negotiations at Portsmouth there has been a
considerable amount of bad feeling, and at times diplomatic relations
have been subjected to a severe strain.

Having fought a costly war in order to check the Russian advance in
Manchuria, the Japanese naturally felt that they had a paramount
interest in China. They consequently sharply resented the attempts
which the United States subsequently made, particularly Secretary
Knox's proposal for the neutralization of the railways of Manchuria, to
formulate policies for China. They took the position that we had had
our day and that we must henceforth remain hands off so far as China
was concerned. This attitude of mind was not unnatural and during the
World War the United States, in order to bind the Japanese government
more closely to the Allied Cause, agreed to recognize, in the
Lansing-Ishii agreement, the "special interests" of Japan in China.

VI

ANGLO-AMERICAN RELATIONS

A few years ago George L. Beer, one of our leading students of British
colonial policy, said "It is easily conceivable, and not at all
improbable, that the political evolution of the next centuries may take
such a course that the American Revolution will lose the great
significance that is now attached to it, and will appear merely as the
temporary separation of two kindred peoples whose inherent similarity
was obscured by superficial differences resulting from dissimilar
economic and social conditions." This statement does not appear as
extravagant to-day as it did ten years ago. As early as 1894, Captain
Mahan, the great authority on naval history, published an essay
entitled "Possibilities of an Anglo-American Reunion," in which he
pointed out that these two countries were the only great powers which
were by geographical position exempt from the burden of large armies
and dependent upon the sea for intercourse with the other great nations.

In a volume dealing with questions of American foreign policy,
published in 1907, the p