gs as an insignificant interchange of neighbourly courtesy."
Undoubtedly Ryukyu, from time to time, had followed the custom of
despatching gift-bearing envoys to Peking, just as Japan herself had
done. But it was on clear record that Ryukyu had been subdued by
Satsuma without any attempt whatever on China's part to save the
islands from that fate; that thereafter, during two centuries, they
had been included in the Satsuma fief, and that China, in the
settlement of the Formosan complication, had constructively
acknowledged Japan's title to the group. Each empire asserted its
claims with equal assurance, and things remained thus until 1880,
when General Grant, who visited Japan in the course of a tour round
the world, suggested a peaceful compromise. A conference met in
Peking, and it was agreed that the islands should be divided, Japan
taking the northern part and China the southern. But at the moment of
signing the convention, China drew back, and the discussion ended in
Japan retaining the islands, China's protests being pigeonholed.

KOREAN COMPLICATION

Sufficient reference has already been made in these pages to the
series of events that terminated in 1875, when Japan, by a display of
partly fictitious force, drew Korea out of international isolation
and signed with the Peninsular Kingdom a treaty acknowledging the
latter's independence.

WAR WITH CHINA

During the centuries when China occupied the undisputed position of
first in might and first in civilization on the Asiatic continent,
her habit was to use as buffer states the small countries lying
immediately beyond her borders. But she always took care to avoid any
responsibilities that might grow out of this arrangement. In a word,
the tide of foreign aggression was to be checked by an understanding
that these little countries shared the inviolability of great China,
but it was understood, at the same time, that the consequences of
their own acts must rest upon their own heads. Such a system, having
no bases except sentiment and prestige, soon proved futile in the
face of Occidental practicality. Burma, Siam, Annam, and Tonking, one
by one, ceased to be dependent on China and independent towards all
other nations.

In Korea's case, however, the fiction proved more tenacious, since
the peninsula furnished easy access to Manchuria, the cradle of the
Manchu dynasty. But while seeking to maintain the old-time relations
with Korea, Chinese statesmen clung uni