that the cession of the Liaotung Peninsula would give to Japan a dangerous predominance in the affairs of China and disturb the whole balance of power in the Far East.  The Russian Note addressed to Japan further stated that such a step would “be a perpetual obstacle to the permanent peace of the Far East.”  Had Russia alone been concerned, possibly the Japanese would have referred matters to the sword; but, when face to face with a combination of three Powers, they decided on May 4 to give way, and to restore the Liaotung Peninsula to China[490].

[Footnote 489:  Manchu and Muscovite, by B.L.  Putnam Weale, p. 60.]

[Footnote 490:  Asakawa, op. cit. p, 76.]

The reasons for the conduct of France and Germany in this matter are not fully known.  We may safely conjecture that the Republic acted conjointly with the Czar in order to clinch the new Franco-Russian alliance, not from any special regard for China, a Power with which she had frequently come into collision respecting Tonquin.  As for Germany, she was then entering on new colonial undertakings; and she doubtless saw in the joint intervention of 1895 a means of sterilising the Franco-Russian alliance, so far as she herself was concerned, and possibly of gaining Russia’s assent to the future German expansion in the Far East.

Here, of course, we are reduced to conjecture, but the conjecture is consonant with later developments.  In any case, the new Triple Alliance was a temporary and artificial union, which prompt and united action on the part of Great Britain and the United States would have speedily dissolved.  Unfortunately these Powers were engrossed in other concerns, and took no action to redress the balance which the self-constituted champions of political stability were upsetting to their own advantage.

The effects of their action were diverse, and for the most part unforeseen.  In the first place, Japan, far from being discouraged by this rebuff, set to work to perfect her army and navy, and with a thoroughness which Roon and Moltke would have envied.  Organisation, weapons, drill, marksmanship (the last a weak point in the war with China) were improved; heavy ironclads were ordered, chiefly in British yards, and, when procured, were handled with wonderful efficiency.  Few, if any, of those “disasters” which are so common in the British navy in time of peace, occurred in the new Japanese navy—­a fact which redounds equally to the credit of the British instructors and to the pupils themselves.

The surprising developments of the Far Eastern Question were soon to bring the new armaments to a terrible test.  Japan and the whole world believed that the Liaotung Peninsula was made over to China in perpetuity.  It soon appeared that the Czar and his Ministers had other views, and that, having used France and Germany for the purpose of warning off Japan, they were preparing schemes for the subjection of Manchuria to Russian