20th February.
Ir is some three months since we stated in this column that in the event of war breaking out after all between Russia and Japan, every effort would be made by the leading Great Powers to persuade China to adopt an attitude of strict neutrality. Nothing is of more consequence to the Powers generally than that the war should be confined to the two protagonists and the countries that separate them, Manchuria and Corea, There seems very little likelihood of Russia's being able, if she had any such intention, to attack Japanese territory; and the only place on Russian territory that Japan is likely to attack is Vladivostock, which will probably fall a comparatively easy prey whenever Japan turns her attention to it, if the condition of things there is anything like the condition at Port Arthur, Russia, we learn, has agreed in principle to recognise the nentrality of China, and Japan will do the same if Russia keeps her agreement, Unfortunately, when Russia agrees to a thing in principle, it seems to mean that she limits her consent to the principle and does not extend it to particular cases. In Keeping her man-of-war, the Mandjour in Shanghai, she is violating the, neutrality of China, and is givin Japan justification for doing the same thing. If China is not strong enough to enforce the neutrality which she has been persuaded by the majority of the Great Powers to adopt, she should be assisted to do it by an international force. If the Mandjour is not prepared to go to sea, and no one would want to send her out to certain capture, she should at any rate be disarmed. At present, Russia is not "playing the game" here.
To patriotic Chinese, and there are many of them, who are really acquainted with the question now at issue, the position which China is) being forced to assume must be very irksome. If Switzerland were to go to war with Germany in the hope of making the latter Power evacuate Alsace and Lorraine to France, and were to insist on France remaining neutral during the struggle, we should have a sort of reproduction of the present situation in the Far East, While it is, of course, of the greatest importance to Japan prevent Russia from annexing Manchuria, which would be only a step towards the absorption of Corea, which in its turn would be a fatal blow to the independence of Japan, the result of Japan's efforts, her willing sacrifice of men and money, will be to restore to China the provinces which she allowed Russia to filch from her, Russia did not conquer Manchuria by fair fighting as Germany did the two Rhine provinces from France. Rather is Russia like Hamlet's uncle, "That from a shelf the precious diadem stole, And put it in his pocket."
It certainly does not consort with the dignity of China and her old-time military prowess that Japan should fight her battles for her, and that her friends should get round her and prevent her even assisting her former enemy who has now become her best friend. China has been working hard since 1900 to remodel and drill and re-arm her troops. She has one or two statesmen with knowledge of the modern world and widening views and is believed to have one or two Generals who have made some study of the arts of war, She is wel! supplied with arms and ammunition, and if she were go to war now, the disgraceful collapse which marked her struggles with France and Japan would probably not be repeated. The Chinese who - know this must undoubtedly be chafing at the restraint {which her friends are putting upon her. It must seem to them strange that these friends should say to her that they recognise that Manchuria is a part of China, that they recognise that China must remain neutral, and must enforce on the belligerents a respect for her neutrality, but that at the same time she must not take up arms to enforce her neutrality in Manchuria, as Prince Ssu is said to have recommended. Meanwhile, by not enforcing her neutrality at Shanghai, where the Taotai is waiting on the Viceroy, and the Viceroy cannot make up his mind to act, she is endangering her own future, and the safety of the strangers in her gates.
Irksome as the restraint imposed on China must be to the patriotic Chinese, it is doubtless a chain which the Empress-Dowager will hug, and it is one which China does well to accept. lo declare war against Russia in conjunction with Japan would be to give Russia the right to invade her in Mongolia and all along her north-western frontier, and it is certain that she is not strong enough yet to repel the attacks that would be made on her integrity in the West. It has been a good excuse for Russia, an excuse which has enabled her to throw dust in the eyes of many worthy people in Europe, to say that her only anxiety has been to secure an ice-free outlet to the Pacific, while her rea! object has been, and doubtless still is, to add to her Asiatic dominions the whole of, Northern China and the whole of Central Asia down to, and hereafter including, Tibet, and the Himalayas.
Tf China were to declare war against Russia, as we have said, Russia would have warrant to push on southward from Siberia and eastward from the Khanates of Central Asia; she can hardly do this openly, unscrupulous as her proconsuls may be, as long as China remains neutral, On the whole, therefore, the assistance of China now, as the statesmen at Tokio know, would increase instead of lightening Japan's work of re-establishing China's independence in the future, and the first consequence of China's taking a hand in the struggle would undoubtedly be the dispatch of a Russian force to Peking, for which Russia is eagerly looking for a pretext.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.