But the white races had economic designs of their own on China, and one of the preliminary conditions of their execution was that Japan’s aspirations should be foiled.  Witte opened the campaign by inaugurating the process of peaceful penetration, but his remarkable efforts were neutralized and defeated by his own sovereign.  The Japanese, after the Manchurian campaign, which they had done everything possible to avoid, contrived wholly to eliminate Russian aggression from the Far East.  The feat was arduous and the masterly way in which it was tackled and achieved sheds a luster on Japanese statesmanship as personified by Viscount Motono.  The Tsardom, in lieu of a potential enemy, was transformed into a stanch and powerful friend and ally, on whom Nippon could, as she believed, rely against future aggressors.  Russia came to stand toward her in the same political relationship as toward France.  Japanese statesmen took the alliance with the Tsardom as a solid and durable postulate of their foreign policy.

All at once the Tsardom fell to pieces like a house of cards, and the fragments that emerged from the ruins possessed neither the will nor the power to stand by their Far Eastern neighbors.  The fruits of twelve years’ statesmanship and heavy sacrifices were swept away by the Russian revolution, and Japan’s diplomatic position was therefore worse beyond compare than that of the French Republic in July, 1917, because the latter was forthwith sustained by Great Britain and the United States, with such abundance of military and economic resources as made up in the long run for that of Russia.  Japan, on the other hand, has as yet no substitute for her prostrate ally.  She is still alone among Powers some of whom decline to recognize her equality, while others are ready to thwart her policy and disable her for the coming race.

The Japanese are firm believers in the law of causality.  Where they desire to reap, there they first sow.  They invariably strive to deal with a situation while there is still time to modify it, and they take pains to render the means adequate to the end.  Unlike the peoples of western Europe and the United States, the Japanese show a profound respect for the principles of authority and inequality, and reserve the higher functions in the community for men of the greatest ability and attainments.  It is a fact, however, that individual liberty has made perceptible progress in the population, and is still growing, owing to the increase of economic well-being and the spread of general and technical education.  But although socialism is likewise spreading fast, I feel inclined to think that in Japan a high grade of instruction and of social development on latter-day lines will be found compatible with that extraordinary cohesiveness to which the race owes the position which it occupies among the communities of the world.  The soul of the individual Japanese may be said to float in an atmosphere of collectivity, which, while leaving his intellect intact, sways his sentiments and modifies his character by rendering him impressible to motives of an order which has the weal of the race for its object.