ity was boldly borrowed from the Turkish
Capitulations, and made the rock on which the entire fabric of
international dealings in China was based. These treaties, with their
always-recurring "most-favoured nation" clause, and their implication of
equal treatment for all Powers alike, constitute the Public Law of the
Far East, just as much as the Treaties between the Nations constitute
the Public Law of Europe; and any attempt to destroy, cripple, or limit
their scope and function has been very generally deemed an assault on
all the High Contracting Parties alike. By a thoroughly Machiavellian
piece of reasoning, those who have been responsible for the framing of
recent Japanese policy, have held it essential to their plan to keep the
world chained to the principle of extraterritoriality and Chinese Tariff
and economic subjection because these things, imposing as they
necessarily do restrictions and limitations in many fields, leave it
free to the Japanese to place themselves outside and beyond these
restrictions and limitations; and, by means of special zones and secret
encroachments, to extend their influence so widely that ultimately
foreign treaty-ports and foreign interests may be left isolated and at
the mercy of the "Higher machinery" which their hegemony is installing.
The Chinese themselves, it is hoped, will be gradually cajoled into
acquiescing in this very extraordinary state of affairs, because being
unorganized and split into suspicious groups, they can be manipulated in
such a way as to offer no effective mass resistance to the Japanese
advance, and in the end may be induced to accept it as inevitable.

If the reader keeps these great facts carefully in mind a new light will
dawn on him and the urgency of the Chinese question will be disclosed.
The Japanese Demands of 1915, instead of being fantastic and
far-fetched, as many have supposed, are shown to be very intelligently
drawn-up, the entire Treaty position in China having been most
exhaustively studied, and every loophole into the vast region left
untouched by the ex-territorialized Powers marked down for invasion. For
Western nations, in spite of exorbitant demands at certain periods in
Chinese history, having mainly limited themselves to acquiring coastal
and communication privileges, which were desired more for genuine
purposes of trade than for encompassing the destruction of Chinese
autonomy, are to-day in a disadvantageous position which the Japan