shores a power
of enormous strength and traditional ambition; secondly, because
whatever voice in Manchuria's destiny Russia derived from her
railway, the same voice in Korea's destiny was possessed by Japan, as
the sole owner of the railways in the Korean peninsula; thirdly, that
whereas Russia had an altogether insignificant share in the foreign
commerce of Korea and scarcely ten bona fide settlers, Japan did the
greater part of the oversea trade and had tens of thousands of
settlers; fourthly, that if Russia's dominions stretched
uninterruptedly from the sea of Okhotsk to the Gulf of Pehchili, her
ultimate absorption of northern China would be inevitable, and
fifthly, that such domination and such absorption would involve the
practical closure of all that immense region to the commerce and
industry of every Western nation except Russia.

This last proposition did not rest solely on the fact that in
opposing artificial barriers to free competition lies Russia's sole
hope of utilizing, to her own benefit, any commercial opportunities
brought within her reach. It rested, also, on the fact that Russia
had objected to foreign settlement at the Manchurian marts recently
opened, by Japan's treaty with China, to American and Japanese
subjects. Without settlements, trade at those marts would be
impossible, and thus Russia had constructively announced that there
should be no trade but the Russian, if she could prevent it. Against
such dangers Japan would have been justified in adopting any measure
of self-protection. She had foreseen them for six years and had been
strengthening herself to avert them. But she wanted peace. She wanted
to develop her material resources and to accumulate some measure of
wealth without which she must remain insignificant among the nations.

Two pacific programmes offered and she adopted them both. Russia,
instead of trusting time to consolidate her tenure of Manchuria, had
made the mistake of pragmatically importuning China for a
conventional title. If, then, Peking could be strengthened to resist
this demand, some arrangement of a distinctly terminable nature might
be made. The United States, Great Britain, and Japan, joining hands
for that purpose, did succeed in so far stiffening China's backbone
that her show of resolution finally induced Russia to sign a treaty
pledging herself to withdraw her troops from Manchuria in three
installments, each step of evacuation to be accomplished by a fixe