f the All-British idea,
for the sake of which Australia, Canada, and New Zealand had sent their
sons to South Africa? England, whose grand mission it was to protect
the palladium of Anglo-Saxon dominion, stood aloof in this conflict.

The cabinet of St. James had sent a warning to Ottawa not to permit
Canadian volunteers to enter the United States, and similar instructions
had been forwarded to Melbourne and Wellington.

But when England, at Japan's instigation, tried to persuade the European
powers to compel Mexico to prevent American volunteer regiments from
crossing the frontier by concentrating her army opposite El Paso,
Germany frustrated this plan by declaring that the acknowledgment of the
Monroe Doctrine as a political principle in 1903 rendered it impossible
for her to meddle in America's political affairs. In spite of this
failure, the cabinet of St. James continued to play the role of
international watchman, and employed the influence secured by _ententes_
in previous years to carefully prevent other European governments from
violating the laws of neutrality towards Japan. It was, of course, the
worry over India which made the English government, generally very
elastic in its views regarding neutrality, all at once so extremely
virtuous.

London felt very uncomfortable when, in July, a Canadian paper published
an alleged conversation between a Japanese and an English diplomatist.
"What will Great Britain do in case of war?" the Japanese is said to
have asked, whereupon he received the ambiguous answer: "Her duty."
Then, with the daring candor assumed by these people when they feel that
they are masters of the situation, the Japanese had declared: "The
London government must bear in mind that the continuation of British
rule in India depends absolutely on the wishes of Japan; that England,
in other words, can support the United States only at the price of an
Indian insurrection."

This conversation, which was published by a curious act of indiscretion,
and of course at once denied in London, nevertheless threw a flood of
light on England's political situation. Japan did not directly ask for
military aid, which, as a matter of fact, she had no right to expect
under the terms of the second Anglo-Japanese agreement, but she did
demand favorable neutrality on the part of Great Britain as the guardian
of the mobile forces of the Anglo-Saxon world-empire; in other words,
Japan insisted that England should betray