comrade, a colleague, or a son-in-law.

And the advances made by Ito and others would have been reciprocated by
Witte and Lamsdorff were it not that the Tsar, interested in
Bezobrazoff's Yalu venture, subordinated his policy to those vested
interests, and compelled Japan to fight. The master-idea of the policy
of Ito, with whom I had two interesting conversations on the subject,
was to strike up a close friendship with the Tsardom, based on community
of durable interests, and to bespeak Russia's help for the hour of storm
and stress which one day might strike. The Tsar's government was
inspired by analogous motives. Before the war was terminated I repaired
to London on behalf of Russia, in order to propose to the Japanese
government, in addition to the treaty of peace which was about to be
discussed at Portsmouth, an offensive and defensive alliance, and to ask
that Prince Ito be sent as first plenipotentiary, invested with full
powers to conclude such a treaty.

M. Izvolsky's policy toward Japan, frank and statesman-like, had an
offensive and a defensive alliance for its intended culmination, and the
treaties and conventions which he actually concluded with Viscount
Motono, in drafting which I played a modest part, amounted almost to
this. The Tsar's opposition to the concessions which represented
Russia's share of the compromise was a tremendous obstacle, which only
the threat of the Minister's resignation finally overcame. And
Izvolsky's energy and insistence hastened the conclusion of a treaty
between them to maintain and respect the _status quo_ in Manchuria, and,
in case it was menaced, to concert with each other the measures they
might deem necessary for the maintenance of the _status quo_. And it was
no longer stipulated, as it had been before, that these measures must
have a pacific character. They were prepared to go farther. And I may
now reveal the fact that the treaty had a secret clause, providing for
the action which Russia afterward took in Mongolia.

These transactions one might term the first act of the international
drama which is still proceeding. They indicate, if they did not shape,
the mold in which the bronze of Japan's political program was cast. It
necessarily differed from other politics, although the maxims underlying
it were the same. Japan, having become a Great Power after her war with
China, was slowly developing into a world Power, and hoped to establish
her claim to that position one