cnunia, 1680-1022."—By Paul "Hibs ort, Clyde, rit." Seeand Editie levined. USA-: The Ohio. State University Press, Columbus, Ohio.
If this book had appeared eight or ten years ago, when Japan's aggressive policy in this country was the subject of incessant discussion, it would certainly have attracted enough attention to have deen bitterly denounced by the majority of the foreign residents in China. "In the heat of a controversial epoch it would not have deen received as anything other than pro-Japanese—propagand: seeking to vindicate Japanese poli and stressing not only Russian insincerity and Chinese ineptitude, tthe dollar element in American joller diplomacy" as well to bring out, by contrast, Japanese honesty and good-will.' Conditions have undergone such great changes. in recent. years, however, what once coomed Very vital matters to us are, for the moment at least, dend issues dead indeed that' one cannot imagine even Japan wanting old controversies reopened and rehashed in her intexeat—so that it is hard to think of a class of Far Eastern residents to whom Dr, Clyde's book will make any appeal, except insofar as it irritates the Chinese Nationalists, There is no good reason therefore to look upon the author as propagandist, consciously writing. under Japanese, inspiration, It would appear rather that he had found a series of debateable sub-Sects interesting, long after everyone else had ceased to debate them, and that in his effort to work over this abandoned field he had found that the Japanese alone were not too bored by old Manchurian disputes to supply material and present a case, While Jabouring after historical impartiality and the "scientific manner," he there fore presents what no' old resident of China could ever look upon as anything but the Japanese case in Dr, Clyd 8 book obviously the result of much careful reading and, the earlier chapters, gives a good running story of Russian expansion in Manchuria up to the time of the Russo-Japanese war and the Portsmouth Treaty, made intelligible by the quotation and comparison of various memel which are available to all but which few persons have the time or the energy to study in relation to the skeleton outline of Russian history Manchuria that we all know. From that time forward, however, the incompleteness of the work is one of its major characteristics. Over and over again the author aisscets John May's original "Open Door" notes at painful length to show that Japan in' Manchuria never violated the letter oF spirit the "Open Door" agreement of 1898, even going to pains to vhow that' Mr. Hughes was not justified 1922 in his broad interpretation of the Hay doctrine, but we no account or explanation of the Japanese annexation of Korea with its bearing upon Japan's position in Manchuria, Unusual Japanese doings are frequently justified by emphasis upon China's diplomatic and administrative turpitude, but we have no emphasis upon Japanese arrogance and high-bandednces in China over a long period of years nor of the relation which this ha to anti japanese prejudice among When Dr. Clyde comes tothe 'Twenty-one Demands, his efforts to defend his client' and at the same time assert that he is making defence lead him into some very undignified mental acrobatics. One: reviewer, who is quoted on the Publisher's jacket, desert hes the book as "well documented." References in foot-notes to document ary sources are numerous and a fair bibliography is given at the Quek, but the quotations from documentary texts are everywhere unsatisfactory and those from the Twenty-one Demands, to which a thirty-page chapter is dedicated, are absurdly inadequate, It is hurt to.understand why a Pook on International rivalries. in Manchuria, published in 1926 (October) should have closed with the Washington Conference of 1921- 22, but even if the authom@ad ood reason for omitting all of the extremely interesting situations that arose between, let us say, 1922 and 1026, there is' no reason why their [forerunning events should net have been included in a work that pretends to be a complete picture of foreign rivalries. Red Russia was back in the East, extremely active in "Manchuria, and was arousing the closest Japanese attention long before the Washington Conferenes. Dr, Clyde virtually ignores this. International intervention Siberia, which Japan. used as an excuse to put a huge force in close proximity to Northern Manchuria, created an intensely interesting problem, resulting in what amounted for a time to an American dictatorship of the C.E.R. zone, but of this we hear nothing. The French effort to rehabilitate the
dominant partner in the CER, ty Russo-Asi Bank, as the safeguard the interests of French investors and to create a French sphere in Northern Manchuria at the same time, is given no adequate treatment, Such omissions rob the work of its claim to consideration a5 a comprehensive scholarly effort, What Dr, Clyde has really writ. ten is not a history of international rivalries, using the Latest material to publication, but the: Growth and International Estabishment of Japan's Hegemony over: South Manchuria and the Right eousnens of It." If the book were led_we should find much to challenge in it, for most of us have long since grown weary of defending Chinese rights or foreign policy in China on abstract ethical grounds against any form of aggression, interference or intervention that will restore order and cipline and make trade possible in any quarter of what was once China. In the light, of modern opinion one does not have to prove Japan's constant good faith, Russia's malevolence, America's folly and meddlesomeness, and China's weak roguery. to justify Japan's present position in Sai churia" and the' author of this book would have done Japan mich Detter service, if he felt kindly towards her, by keeping out of the controversial field altogether and writing his book in an entirely 1 ferent tone.
Dr. Clyde's second edition is neatly bound and yeel! printed in an austere legal fashion, "as becomes what ought to have' been, in. view of much heavy reading, an authori tative work. The proof reading, is, in keeping with all modern precedent, very bad indeed.—r..
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.