The able statesmen of Japan, of whom there are quite a number, must be in some doubt as to when they they ranged their country on the right side in the war. Yes, they will perhaps ask themselves whether it would not have been more advantageous for Japan to have prevented the World War. This would have been within her powers, had she ranged herself firmly and unequivocally on the side of the Central Powers, from which in former times she had Jearned so willingly and so much.
Had Japan adopted soon enough such an orientation in her foreign policy, and, like Germany, fought by ful means for her share in world trade and activity, I should have put the "yellow peril" away in a corner and joyfully welcomed into the circle of peacefully inclined nations the progressive Japanese nation, the "Prussians of the East." Nobody regrets more than I that the "yellow peril" had not already lost its meaning when the crisis of 1914 arose. The experience derived from the World Waa may yet bring this about.
Germany's joint action with France and Russia at Shimonoseki was based upon Germany's situation in Europe. Wedged in between on-marching Russia, threaiening Prussia's frontier, and France, fortifying her borders anew with forts and groups of fortresses, confronted with a friendship he-tween these two nations resembling an alliance, Berlin looked with anxiety into the future. The warlike preparations of the two powers were far ahead of ours, their navies far more modern and powerful than the German navy, which consisted of a few old ships almost without fighting value. Therefore it to us wise to acquiesce in the suggestion of this strong group in order that it might not—sho:!d we decline—turn immediately te England and camse the entry of
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.