saw her entire Eastern
policy threatened with failure. The permanent occupation of the
Liao-Tung peninsula by Japan meant that she had to deal, not with an
effete and waning power which she might threaten and cajole, but with a
new and ambitious civilization which had just given proof of surprising
ability. After vast expenditure of energy and treasure and diplomacy,
access to the sea was further off than ever.

Then came a masterly stroke. Germany and France were induced to
co-operate with Russia in driving Japan out of Manchuria, upon the
ground that her presence so near to Pekin endangered the Chinese
Empire, the independence of Korea and the peace of the Orient. So in
the hour of her triumph Japan was to be humiliated; the fruits of her
victory snatched from her, precisely as the "Berlin Treaty," in 1879,
had torn from Russia the fruits of her Turkish victories! Japan wasted
no time in protests, but quietly withdrew and, as it is significantly
said, "proceeded to double her army and treble her navy!"

As the protector of Chinese interests Russia was in position to ask a
favor; she asked and obtained permission to carry the Siberian railway
in a straight line through Manchuria, instead of following the Amur in
its great northward sweep. The Japanese word for statesman also means
_chess-player_. Russian diplomatists had played their game well. In
serving China, they had incidentally removed the Japanese from a
position which blocked their own game, and had at the same time opened
a way for their railway across that waiting gap in Northern Manchuria.

Just three years after these events Germany, by way of indemnity for
the murder of two missionaries, compelled China to lease to her the
province of Shantung. Russia immediately demanded similar privileges
in the Liao-Tung peninsula. China, beaten to her knees, could not
afford to lose the friendship of the Tsar, and granted the lease; and
when permission was asked to have a branch of the Russian railway run
from Harbin through the length of this leased territory to Port Arthur,
humbly conceded that too.

With wonderful smoothness everything had moved toward the desired end.
To be sure, the tenure of the peninsula was only by lease, and in no
way different from that of Shantung by Germany. There was no pretext
in sight for garrisoning the dismantled fort at Port Arthur, but the
fates had hitherto opened closed doors and might do it again. And so
she waite