Europe has never been in joyful mood over the rise in Japanese prestige, and she was more than reluctant to recognize the New Japan as the dominant force in the East. That a yellow people should claim fellowship with European countries guided by houses of lofty lineage was never believed to be possible. Continental Europe was unprepared to admit that Japan's triumph proved anything beyond a genius in the art of war that was nothing short of a menace to the rest of mankind, and that luck and geographical position helped the Mikado's legions in all ways. The great Hohenzollern spoke of the Japanese as the "scourge of God"; in France the "yellow peril"—a phrase really made in Germany—was seriously debated; while Russia many times sought sympathy from the Christian world on the ground that she was fighting the white man's battle against paganism. Solitary in her preference for the Japanese, expressed in the form of an astute and fortunate alliance, England gloried when her Oriental ally revealed the weakness of the vaunted power of the north that had dared to cast covetous eyes at India. All these nations hold Asiatic possessions, each has aspired to have a say in Chinese affairs, and each confesses to having a panacea for the innumerable ills of the Celestial Empire—each is hungry, likewise, to extend her trade with the awakening Orient.
Japan intruded, and deranged the plans of all and sundry for rousing China to a realization of her greatness; and in all human probability Japan will do for herself what several European powers wanted to do for Asia. Japan can always justify her claim that she was driven to war to preserve her national existence, by pointing to her rapidly-increasing population, existing in an archipelago incapable of producing food for even two thirds of her people, since every possibility of obtaining a foothold on the adjacent continent had been cut off by self-imposed Russian rule. There was no room for expansion, that was clear.
When Japan shattered the strength of Russia she gained many coveted advantages. One of these was the opportunity to commercialize neighboring Korea, a goodly section of Manchuria, and practically the whole of China—enough to recoup the war's outlay; and once entered upon, why not perfect and extend the enterprise wherever she might, thereby providing occupation for her increasing millions of people?
For a long time to come Japan will remain conspicuously in the public eye, but her achievements and victories hereafter are to be those of peace. Her scheme for national betterment, already well under way, is as thoughtfully prepared as was her war program. The Mikado's people emerged from the Russian conflict with energies enormously aroused, and a few months later every condition was favorable to a realization of the dream of empire giving to Japan an importance amounting almost to sovereignty over a vast section of the Far East. The new treaty with Great Britain, which Germans claimed to be anything but altruistic, is having a steadying influence on the policy of the Tokyo government.
With the conversion of Japan from war to peace, the process of fiscal recuperation and industrial development has been observed by students of Eastern affairs with the keenest interest. The debt of the nation at the close of the war in 1905 was approximately $870,000,000, which sum, apportioned among Nippon's 47,000,000 inhabitants, was $18.71 per capita. The amount properly chargeable to the campaign was $600,000,000, or thereabouts. A characteristic of the war commanding widespread attention was that the Japanese side was conducted from start to finish on the soundest financial principles, with her credit abroad scarcely lessened by successive bond issues. It was the criticism of students of finance that Japan conducted her campaign throughout on a gold basis, as if exploiting a vast commercial program, without subjecting herself to usurious commissions, and without resorting to the issuance of fiat or negligible currency. The financing of the Asiatic side of the great Russo-Japanese conflict was certainly as businesslike as anything ever done by a European power compelled to raise funds by foreign bond sales.
BRONZE DAIBUTSU AT KAMAKURA, JAPAN
When a candid history of the war is penned, the writer must perforce acknowledge the "luck" attaching to Japan when Russia expelled the Jews, and when thousands of that faith were ruthlessly slaughtered at Kishineff. Whether the purse-strings of the world are controlled by Hebrew bankers may be a moot question, but it was a fact distinctly clear that Japan could place her bonds in any money-lending country in the world, while Russia could scarcely raise a rouble upon her foreign credit. Even Germany, the sentimental ally of Russia, almost begged for the privilege of lending to Japan. There was no disputing that the great Hebraic banking houses of London, New
York and Frankfort found it an easy task to supply the Mikado's country with every needed sinew of war, and the massacres of Kishineff may have been avenged in a measure at Port Arthur and Mukden.