lien, and thereafter exercised with Japan joint
sovereignty over that island. The natural result followed. In 1875
Russia found means to eject her partner, the Japanese receiving as
compensation undisputed claim to the barren Kuriles, which they already
possessed[485].

[Footnote 485: _The Russo-Japanese Conflict_, by K. Asakawa (1904), p.
67; _Europe and the Far East_, by Sir R.K. Douglas (1904), p. 191.]

Even before this further proof of Russia's expansiveness, Japan had seen
the need of adapting herself to the new conditions consequent on the
advent of the Great Powers in the Far East. This is not the place for a
description of the remarkable Revolution of the years 1867-71. Suffice
it to say that the events recounted above undoubtedly helped on the
centralising of the powers in the hands of the Mikado, and the
Europeanising of the institutions and armed forces of Japan. In face of
aggressions by Russia and quarrels with the maritime Powers, a vigorous
seafaring people felt the need of systems of organisation and
self-defence other than those provided by the rule of feudal lords, and
levies drilled with bows and arrows. The subsequent history of the Far
East may be summed up in the statement that Japan faced the new
situation with the brisk adaptability of a maritime people, while China
plodded along on her old tracks with a patience and stubbornness
eminently bovine.

The events which finally brought Russia and Japan into collision arose
out of the obvious need for the construction of a railway from St.
Petersburg to the Pacific having its terminus on an ice-free port. Only
so could Russia develop the resources of Siberia and the Amur Province.
In the sixties and seventies trans-continental railways were being
planned and successfully laid in North America. But there is this
difference: in the New World the iron horse has been the friend of
peace; in the Far East of Asia it has hurried on the advent of war; and
for this reason, that Russia, having no ice-free harbour at the end of
her great Siberian line, was tempted to grasp at one which the yellow
races looked on as altogether theirs.

The miscalculation was natural. The rapid extension of trade in the
Pacific Ocean seemed to invite Russia to claim her full share in a
development that had already enriched England, the United States, and,
later, Germany and France; and events placed within the Muscovite grasp
positions which fulfilled all the conditions requis