The prospect of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance being automatic cally extended for another year is welcome. Raw haste as we all know is sister to a good many other things beside delay. With barely six weeks to run before the date fixed for possible denunciation (namely, July 13), attempts at revision would almost inevitably have led to patchwork. British interests in China are not, of course, the only thing that the Foreign Office has to consider, but they are certainly a large factor. As our readers are aware, there are two sections of opinion in this part of the world, a small but noisy faction who shout for termination of the Alliance: while the larger and more far-sighted party realize that in its renewal, on lines of careful revision and clear understanding, lies the best opportunity of benefiting at once Chiao and British interests within her borders. Reuter's message indicates that the British Government is not prepared to renew the Alliance without alteration, and the year's grace now secured will allow of all issues being prop2cly weighed and of giving full satisfaction on the points on which China has addressed an inquiry to London. The reference to the elimination of German influences in the Far East" is specially interesting. Clearly the "open door" idea is something of a mockery if Japan retains the best parts of Shantung as practically her own property. In this connexion attention may be drawn to Mr. Anderson's hint at the China Association meeting, that the very wisest: thing Japan could do, in her own interest, would be to hand back Shantung freely to China. That opinion, which has often been urged in these columns, is undoubtedly gaining ground. That the militarists in Japan still cling desperately to power, His Majesty the Emperor's indifferent health giving them greater scope, is of less importance to-day than that such articles, for example, as the one quoted from the Osaka "Asahi" the can be and are frequently published nowadays in important Japanese journals.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.