"Japan anp THE Uniren States" by Pay-son Treat. Houghton Mifflin Company.
Prof. Treat holds the chair of Oriental History in the Stanford University, California. He does not concern himself about the dusty past but occupies his students with the modern period which fwmishes the immediate basis of things present. In order to keep himself up to date, he visits China and Japan from time io time. He happens to' be in Shanghai just now when one of these visits is in course. The book which is the subject of this review consists of 12 lectures which Prof. Treat has delivered on this trip at four of the leading Japanese universities. It is a great pity that the lectures have not also been delivered at every one of the Chinese universities. It certainly ought to be translated into Chinese and be a text book im all schools in which modern history is taught.
Publishers' wrappers are not always to taken as_ strictly accurate estimates of the books wrapped up. But no reader of this book is likely to qualify the bold type heading "Essential to an Understanding of the Problems of the Pacific" with which the publishers announce this work. Here, in handy form one gets the exact dates and accurate state ments of actual occurrences not only of the interesting relations; between Japan and America, but of! the th which have coloured! those relations and which include! the main matters of intercourse between Japan and Korea and Japan and China. Many—one may) almost say, most—of the books on the matters dealt with by Prof. Treat are the work of authors committed to one side or the other of the subjects discussed... Publicists (as such men are called in America) who have learnt how to tickle the public ear and to write "good sellers" have occupied almost all the field. Pyobably not one of such books is altogether inaccurate; they depend for their plausibility upon a certain modicum accuracy. But the ordinary yoader has little power of separating the accurate from the inaccurate.
Truta Nakep anp Unastamep.
In this book, we have the work of a university professor whose aim is the very simple one of investigation of the truth. The Stanford University is not an institution which muzzles its professors and compels them to write in accordance with the ideas of the government of the day. It appoints honest men to the various chairs and gives them free scope for the publication of the results of their investigations.
Although there are no footnotes to guide the sceptical reader to the sources of information which have been drawn upon, any reader of these pages who is accustomed to deal with works based on_officia! documents feels the atmosphere ai certitude about the statements of fact.. The writer does not confine himself to such statements; he gives his judgement on the statesmen -of his own and other lands, and any reader retains his liberty of differing from any such judge ments. They are never confounded with the statements of fact. The early chapters are well worth reading, but the interest grows as the book goes on to the more recent happenings. No putting of the right and wrong of the celebrated Twenty-One demands has equalled the chapter which deals with that subject. The unwisdom which Japan showed in copying some of the weak examples of western diplomacy in those demands and especially the pity that Japan should inflict on China a kind of treatment which she so strongly resented when other nations applied it to herself is well brought out. But the weakness of China's handling of the whole situation is brought out with equal clearness.
British readers of the book will greatly appreciate the whole tone of the references to British policy in Japan and China from such a writer. Nor will they grudge Prof. Treat the still higher appreciation! which he holds of American policy in these lands.
G. W.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.