ng to undergo the throes of transition.

As for the direct international situation of Japan, the feeling in
Japan is that of the threatening danger of isolation. Germany is gone;
Russia is gone. While those facts simplify matters for Japan somewhat,
there is also the belief that in taking away potential allies, they
have weakened Japan in the general game of balance and counter-balance
of power. Particularly does the removal of imperialistic Russia
relieve the threat on India which was such a factor in the willingness
of Great Britain to make the offensive-defensive alliance. The
revelation of the militaristic possibilities of America is another
serious factor. Certainly the new triple entente cordiale of Japan,
Italy and France is no adequate substitute for a realignment of
international forces in which a common understanding between Great
Britain and America is a dominant factor. This factor explains, if it
does not excuse, some of the querulousness and studied discourtesies
with which the Japanese press for some months treated President
Wilson, the United States in general and its relation to the League of
Nations in particular, while it also throws light on the ardor with
which the opportune question of racial discrimination was discussed.
(The Chinese have an unfailing refuge in a sense of humor. It was
interesting to note the delight with which they received the utterance
of the Japanese Foreign Minister, after Japanese success at Paris,
that "his attention had recently been called" to various press attacks
on America which he much deprecated). In any case there is no
mistaking the air of tension and nervous overstrain which now attends
all discussion of Japanese foreign relations. In all directions, there
are characteristic signs of hesitation, shaking of old beliefs and
movement along new lines. Japan seems to be much in the same mood as
that which it experienced in the early eighties before, toward the
close of that decade, it crystallized its institutions through
acceptance of the German constitution, militarism, educational system,
and diplomatic methods. So that, once more, the observer gets the
impression that substantially all of Japan's energy, abundant as that
is, must be devoted to her urgent problems of readjustment.

Come to China, and the difference is incredible. It almost seems as if
one were living in a dream; or as if some new Alice had ventured
behind an international looking-glass wherein ever