not taken of Spain's empire in the Pacific.

These latent rivalries had been brought into the open by the
Chino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, which showed the powerlessness of
China. The western world was, indeed, divided in opinion as to whether
this colossus of the East was essentially rotten, old, decrepit,
and ready to disintegrate, or was merely weak because of arrested
development, which education and training could correct. At any rate,
China was regarded as sick and therefore became for the moment even more
interesting than Turkey, the traditional sick man of Europe. If
China were to die, her estate would be divided. If she were really to
revitalize her vast bulk by adapting her millions to modern ways,
she had but to stretch herself and the toilfully acquired Asiatic
possessions of the European powers would shiver to pieces; and if she
awoke angry, Europe herself might well tremble. The really wise saw that
the important thing was to determine the kind of education which China
should receive, and in solving this problem the palm of wisdom must be
given to the missionaries who represented the great Christian societies
of Europe and America. To small-minded statesmen it seemed that the
situation called for conquest. No nation was willing to be late at the
division, if division it was to be; while if China was to awake, the
European powers felt that she should awake shackled. By no one was
this latter view so clearly held as by the Kaiser. With his accustomed
versatility, he designed a cartoon showing the European powers, armed
and with Germania in the forefront, confronting the yellow peril. On
sending his troops to China in 1900, he told them to imitate the methods
of the Huns, in order to strike lasting terror to the hearts of the
yellow race. By such means he sought to direct attention to the menace
of the Barbarian, when he was himself first stating that doctrine of
Teutonic frightfulness which has proved, in our day at least, to be the
real world peril.

It was Japan who had exposed the weakness of the giant, but her victory
had been so easy that her own strength was as yet untested. Japan had
come of age in 1894 when, following the example of Great Britain, the
various powers had released her from the obligation of exterritoriality
imposed upon her by treaties when their subjects were unwilling to trust
themselves to her courts. It was still uncertain, however, whether the
assumption of European methods by Ja