are over two hundred miles from Tsing-tao) you
find Japanese soldiers at every station, and several garrisons and
barracks at important towns on the line. Then you realize that at the
shortest possible notice, Japan could cut all communications between
southern China (together with the rich Yangste region) and the
capital, and with the aid of the Southern Manchurian Railway at the
north of the capital, hold the entire coast and descend at its good
pleasure upon Peking.

You are then prepared to learn from eye-witnesses that when Japan made
its Twenty-one Demands upon China, machine guns were actually in
position at strategic points throughout Shantung, with trenches dug
and sandbags placed. You know that the Japanese liberal spoke the
truth, who told you, after a visit to China and his return to protest
against the action of his government, that the Japanese already had
such a military hold upon China that they could control the country
within a week, after a minimum of fighting, if war should arise. You
also realize the efficiency of official control of information and
domestic propaganda as you recall that he also told you that these
things were true at the time of his visit, under the Terauchi cabinet,
but had been completely reversed by the present Hara ministry. For I
have yet to find a single foreigner or Chinese who is conscious of any
difference of policy, save as the end of the war has forced the
necessity of caution, since other nations can now look China-wards as
they could not during the war.

An American can get an idea of the realities of the present situation
if he imagines a foreign garrison and military wireless in Wilmington,
with a railway from that point to a fortified sea-port controlled by
the foreign power, at which the foreign nation can land, without
resistance, troops as fast as they can be transported, and with bases
of supply, munitions, food, uniforms, etc., already located at
Wilmington, at the sea-port and several places along the line. Reverse
the directions from south to north, and Wilmington will stand for
Tsinan-fu, Shanghai for New York, Nanking for Philadelphia with Peking
standing for the seat of government at Washington, and Tientsin for
Baltimore. Suppose in addition that the Pennsylvania road is the sole
means of communication between Washington and the chief commercial and
industrial centers, and you have the framework of the Shantung picture
as it presents itself daily to th