Muravieff deserves to rank among the makers of modern Russia.  He waited his time, used his Cossack pawns as an effective screen to each new opening of the game, and pushed his foes hardest when they were at their weakest.  Moreover, like Bismarck, he knew when to stop.  He saw the limit that separated the practicable from the impracticable.  He brought the Russian coast near to the latitudes where harbours are free from ice; but he forbore to encroach on Korea—­a step which would have brought Japan on to the field of action.  The Muscovite race, it was clear, had swallowed enough to busy its digestive powers for many a year; and it was partly on his advice that Russian North America was sold to the United States.

Still, Russia’s advance southwards towards ice-free ports was only checked, not stopped.  In 1861 a Russian man-of-war took possession of the Tshushima Isles between Korea and Japan, but withdrew on the protest of the British admiral.  Six years later the Muscovites strengthened their grip on Saghalien, and thereafter exercised with Japan joint sovereignty over that island.  The natural result followed.  In 1875 Russia found means to eject her partner, the Japanese receiving as compensation undisputed claim to the barren Kuriles, which they already possessed[485].

[Footnote 485:  The Russo-Japanese Conflict, by K. Asakawa (1904), p. 67; Europe and the Far East, by Sir R.K.  Douglas (1904), p. 191.]

Even before this further proof of Russia’s expansiveness, Japan had seen the need of adapting herself to the new conditions consequent on the advent of the Great Powers in the Far East.  This is not the place for a description of the remarkable Revolution of the years 1867-71.  Suffice it to say that the events recounted above undoubtedly helped on the centralising of the powers in the hands of the Mikado, and the Europeanising of the institutions and armed forces of Japan.  In face of aggressions by Russia and quarrels with the maritime Powers, a vigorous seafaring people felt the need of systems of organisation and self-defence other than those provided by the rule of feudal lords, and levies drilled with bows and arrows.  The subsequent history of the Far East may be summed up in the statement that Japan faced the new situation with the brisk adaptability of a maritime people, while China plodded along on her old tracks with a patience and stubbornness eminently bovine.

The events which finally brought Russia and Japan into collision arose out of the obvious need for the construction of a railway from St. Petersburg to the Pacific having its terminus on an ice-free port.  Only so could Russia develop the resources of Siberia and the Amur Province.  In the sixties and seventies trans-continental railways were being planned and successfully laid in North America.  But there is this difference:  in the New World the iron horse has been the friend of peace; in the Far East of Asia it has hurried on the advent of war; and for this reason, that Russia, having no ice-free harbour at the end of her great Siberian line, was tempted to grasp at one which the yellow races looked on as altogether theirs.