Banzai! by Parabellum

by Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff

For the sake of her bales of cotton, her export lists, and her Indian possessions, the London government threw all the traditions of the British world empire overboard and forgot that Old England's problem of civilization was the conquest of the world for the Anglo-Saxon race. For the sake of her London merchants, Old England betrayed Greater Britain, which in the calculations of the London statesmen was only a geographical conception, while the nations without credulously accepted the decisions of English politics as the gospel of British power.

England offered the hand of fellowship to the Japanese parvenu simply because she wanted some one to hold her Russian rival in check.

What the Manchurian campaign cost England can be figured out exactly, to the pound and shilling. She simply purchased the downfall of Russia with the loan of a few hundred millions to Japan—an excellent bargain.

But Sir Charles Dilke was beginning to open the people's eyes. "Another Japanese loan," he cried, "will slip a sharp dagger into the hand of our greatest commercial rival."

England, however, would not listen, and after the war she only drew the bonds of the alliance closer for fear of the Japanese ants who were creeping secretly into India and whispering into the people's ears that the dominion of a few hundred thousand white men over three hundred million Indians was based solely on the legend of the superiority of the white race, a legend which Mukden and Tsushima had completely nullified.

After all, London was at liberty to adopt any policy it liked; but in this particular case the colonies were expected to bear the entire costs. And this was the gratitude for the aid given in South Africa for customs favors extended to English goods at Ottawa, Cape Town, and Melbourne. Deliberately disregarding the warnings of Sir Wilfred Laurier, of Seddon, and of Deakin, who clearly recognized the proximity of the danger, the gentlemen in London insisted upon unrestricted Japanese immigration into the colonies, although Hawaii furnished an eloquent example of how quickly coolie immigrants can transform an Anglo-Saxon colony into a Japanese one.

In South Africa, too, England was sowing trouble with Mongolian miners, until the Africanders took it upon themselves to rid their country of this yellow plague.

In consideration of the existing alliance with Japan, Downing Street demanded of Canada and Australia that the Japanese settlers should be granted equal privileges with the white man. New Zealand's prime minister, Seddon, a resolute man whose greatness is not appreciated in Europe, brought his fist down on the table with a vengeance at the last Colonial Conference in London and appealed to Old England's conscience in the face of the yellow danger. All in vain. Although he persisted in proclaiming New Zealand's right to adhere to her exclusive immigration laws, it was several years before Australia and Canada awoke to a realization of the dangers which the influx of Japanese coolies held in store for them, and before they began to prepare for an energetic resistance.

Then, in August, 1908, came the American fleet. Great was the rejoicing in all the Australian coast towns, and the welcome extended to the American sailors and marines proved to the world that hearts were beating in unison here in the fear of future catastrophes. Never has the feeling of the homogeneousness of the white race, of the Anglo-Saxon race, celebrated such festivals, and when the Australians and Americans shook hands at parting, the former realized that a brother was leaving with whom they would one day fight side by side—when the crisis came and the die was cast which was to decide whether the Pacific should be ruled by the Anglo-Saxon or the Mongolian race.

And now the danger that had been regarded as likely to make itself felt decades hence had become a terrible reality in less than no time. The joint Japanese foe was actually on American soil, the American dominion over the Philippines and Hawaii had been swept away at the first onset, and the great brother nation of the United States was struggling for its existence as a nation and for the future of the white race.