th and her myriads of people, dispute the power of the little
Island. At present there is no limit to Japan's ambition. Poor China! It
will take years and tens of years to mould her people into a nation;
and Japan comes to her each year, buying her rice, her cotton and
her silk.

These wily merchants travel up her path-ways and traverse her rivers
and canals, selling, buying, and spreading broadcast their influence.
There are eight thousand men of Japan in Shanghai, keen young men,
all looking for the advantage of their country. There is no town of any
size where you cannot find a Japanese. They have driven the traders
of other nationalities from many places; the Americans especially
have been compelled to leave; and now there is a bitter struggle
between the people from the British Isles and the Japanese for the
trade of our country. In the olden time the people from Great Britain
controlled the trade of our Yang-tse Valley, but now it is almost wholly
Japanese.

The British merchant, in this great battle has the disadvantage of
being honest, while the trader from Japan has small thoughts of
honesty to hold him to a business transaction. We say here, "One
can hold a Japanese to a bargain as easily as one can hold a slippery
catfish on a gourd." The Sons of Nippon have another point in their
favour: the British merchant is a Westerner, while the Japanese uses
to the full his advantage of being an Oriental like ourselves. Trade--
trade-- is what Japan craves, and it is according to its need that she
makes friends or enemies. It is her reason for all she does; her
diplomacy, her suavity is based upon it; her army and her vast navy
are to help gain and hold it; it is the end and aim of her ambitions.

We, Chinese, have people-- millions, tens of millions of them. When
they are better educated, when China is more prosperous, when new
demands and higher standards of living are created, when the coolie
will not be satisfied with his bowl of rice a day and his one blue
garment, then possibilities of commerce will be unlimited. Japan sees
this with eyes that look far into the future, and she wants to control
this coming trade-- and I fear she will. She has an ambition that is as
great as her overpowering belief in herself, an ambition to be in the
East what England is in the West; and she is working patiently,
quietly, to that end. We fear her; but we are helpless. I hear the men
talk bitterly; but what can they do. We must