Japan presented an entirely different ease. An island kingdom, she succeeded in keeping herself to herself for a longer period than either India or China, but in the out of her clusion, when Perry, the Commander of an American squadron sailed into the harbour of Uraga in 1853, and rudely forced the consciousness of outside world upon her. Japan suffered the indignity in sitence—but she learnt the lesson, and before the rest of the world realized what had happened, chold she appears, within a few decades, first as the conqueror of China, and a few years later as the challenger and master of a! great Western nation,—Russia. And to this day she has remained one of the World Powers.
Japan's success has been looked upon with envy by India and China, or rather we should say, by certain sections of the people of these countries, the upper classes in India and the student and} official classes in China, the mass of the population in either country caring little who is the superior—yellow, black, red white—so long as they ure eft in peace to get on with their lives in their own quiet and meagre way. The en classes of both and however, have felt and said amongst themselves, that if Japan could do what she did, and be treated by Western nations san equal, then India and China can and should, And it is th feeling and. spirit, gaining thea way, as education in those countries increases and having received it only through strength, which Asia could emulate if she so desired—as witness Japan—that the West has been able to JGominate the East. Yet while the Asiatic feels this, he seems unable to. make any rel headway in. acquiring the military strength necessary to throw off the domi tance of the European. So, failing the acquisition of military strength, he thinks that by asserting his equality loudly enough, or by other methods, such as boycotts, strikes, and agitation of a poli tical or anti-foreign nature, h maylget_ that equality acknowledged. By cleverly directed propaganda in Europe and America, the Chinese patriot, who knows that never by military strength will his country throw off the s0- called foreign yoke, hopes to induce. the Governments sin these continent to acknowledge his claim, and sacrifice their own nationals: to the abstract justice of them.
Led by Japan, Mr. Rice, thinks that Asia might possibly become, powerful enough to attack and defeat Europe, but he sees inherent lack of unity in the people of Asia; each nation or group is for itself alone, the Japanese as the British. reali fear, he claim
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.