THE confident statement that this Association has recently sent to Japan a message bidding the Japanese to be of good cheer, as the. United States was with them and would not allow them to come to harm, gives unusual interest to the Association's "Journal" for December last. The reader's comprehension of the question of the day is assisted by the insertion of a very clearly executed coloured map of part of North China, Corea, and Japan. It would be still more valuable if Masampo and Mok, and some other prominent places in Corea had been marked on it, as well as some more prominent towns in Manchuria.
Mr. Foord begins his "Current Comment" with a reference to the satisfactory arrangement the United States has made with the new Republic'of Panama for the completion of the Isthmian canal. The chief justification, he says, for the policy resident Roosevelt has adopted is "the securing for the United States of a position of vantage in the great Pacific area with its 800,000,000 of people." It is no use building a canal which is to be the gateway to Asiatic commerce if the loot to that commerce is to be slammed in the face of America. Mr. Foord continues "This Government is not blind to P! the fact that the policy of Russia, apparently concurred in by Germany, and certainly approved by France, aims at nothing less than the partition of the most populous of Empires and the richest of all the unexploited regions of the earth among the great Powers of Europe. Very obviously, the United States has everything to lose and nothing to gain by finding another Europe installed on the opposite shore of the Pacific. Commercial ly speaking, that would mean the erection inst: its trade of hostile tariffs, while, politically speaking, it would mean the relegation this Republic to the rank of a second-rate Pacific Power. What menace to its future safety there might be in jthe Slavic doniinion of Asia, which would almost certainly attend the absorption of North China by Russia, can only be dimly conjectured, but the immediate consequences of permitting the fruition of what are the avowed designs of the Russian policy which is being prosecuted in full view of the entire world, are serious enough to demand the gravest consideration."
Mr. Foord then points out how necessary it is to educate the American public into. a comprehension of the fact that the future of the Great Repub'ic is bound up with its prestige on the Pacific, and refers to a "note of warning issued by the Manufacturers' and Producers' Association of California, based on a report made by Mr. J. B, Havre to American manufacturers whose interests he has been endeavouring to push in the Far East." Mr. Foord points out that when Mr. Havre asks that Russia shall give assurances that American goods shall always be admitted into Manchuria on the same terms as Russian he is virtually acknowledging Russian sovereignty in Manchuria, "As it happens that the only Power which alike the ability and the disposition to maintain intact the integrity of China, is the United States, it must be plain that nothing could be more undesirable than a tacit acceptance on the part of our government of Russian sovereignty in Manchuria," Considering the sacrifices. that Japan ism: & not to mention Great Britain's diplomatic efforts, to mainip tain the integrity of China, this statement by Mr. Foord seems. to be unnecessarily limited. The final "Comment" urges the most liberal sible treatment by the United tates of the commerce of the Philipines.
Then comes the usual comparative statement of the value of the exports of the principal staples from the United States to China and Hongkong during the first ten months of 1902 and 1908, in gold dollars To Cotton Mineral Wheat.
i Cloths. Oils: Flour. 1902...14,633,570 2,435,472 241,778 1908... 8,516,693 1,834,058 170,496 Hongkong.
1902... 24,145 1,209,704 3,224,929 1903... 61,110 934,743 3,808,023 There is also a comparative statement of the value of the tea and raw silk imported into the United States from all countries in the firat ten months of 1901, 1902, and 1903, in gold dollars 1901. 1903, Tea... 6,780,379 10,174,472 14,037,046 Silk...30,642,413 95,727,874 36,303,200 under the heading "The Centre of An editorial article
International Conflict in the FarEast,"
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.