brought Japan and Russia closer together in Manchuria. The convention of July 4th, 1910, signed at St. Petersburg, was one of the tangible results. Its text is given in Appendix 25.

Two pending questions of minor importance between China and Japan were settled in August and September, 1909-the reconstruction of the Antung-Mukden line to which China gave her consent in the Peking Treaty of December 22, 1905 (Appendix 20), and the settlement of the Chientao trouble. Some of the Peking politicians tried to play considerable politics over both of these, but in the end settlements were reached to the satisfaction of both parties. The Antung-Mukden railway-reconstruction question was settled in a note of August 19th, 1909, and the Chientao affair by the agreement of September 4th, 1909.

TWENTY-ONE DEMANDS

Then came the Great War.

"The first task of the Foreign Secretary was to call for the aid of our Ally in the Far East," writes G. P. Gooch in "The Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy" (Vol. III, page 509). When Japan was summoned by her British ally to fulfill the terms of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, she did not wait for long: on August 15th, she called upon Germany to hand over Kiaochou, with the view to its eventual return to China. The picture of Japan exhibited before the American public was quite different from this. Japan was painted as rushing her armed millions pell-mell over the Yellow Sea into Shantung in spite of all England could do to stop her. For what? For no other end whatever than to gobble up the whole of the Chinese Province of Shantung and thereby make good the first step in her nefarious and preposterous imperialistic design on the continent

of Asia. All that was pure, unadulterated propaganda bunk of course, but at the time it passed all over intelligent America as an eighteen-carat nugget of golden truth. Japan did not even take the trouble to deny the lie. She is old-fashioned in some things, in spite of all her up-to-dateness. Propaganda is one of them. It was below her dignity to deny any such silly buncombe as that. Her idea of propaganda was on the old-fashioned basis of Truth and the eternal years of God, which are said to belong to her.

In the first half of November, 1914, Japan was through with the job of taking Tsingtao and clearing the Pacific of German ships. As the new year came on, she thought of many and various questions which were pending between her and China. There was the question of Chinese neutrality, of the Shantung Railway, and of a tangle about the customs tariff at Tsingtao. Moreover, Japan had got a bitter lesson at the time of the Russian war. She waited to negotiate with China until after she had concluded the Portsmouth Treaty, and thereby lost many a precious vantage. Therefore, when China came to her with the demand to do away with the war zone and for the withdrawal of the Japanese forces from Shantung, she thought it an excellent opportunity of making a clean sweep of all the moot questions hanging over them. With this end in view, she approached China on January 18th, 1915, with what later became famous as the Twenty-one Demands.

CAPITALIZED BY ANTI-JAPANESE PROPAGANDISTS

At the very outset, the anti-Japanese propagandists made a grand master hit over this. They pictured Japan pussyfooting into Peking, just at the time when all the European powers had their hands full with their war, and holding up poor, defenseless China at the point of

the gun. This appealing yarn went with our American friends like the proverbial hot cakes.

It was an insult to American intelligence. Of course that had nothing to do with the case. Nevertheless, it was. A moment's reflection should have shown any American of intelligence that the greatest friend of China at the time, the one who would have acted quicker and more effectively than anybody else, was no other than Uncle Sam. It so happened also that the United States was the mightiest power on the face of the globe just then. The United States was not at war with anybody then; her hands were not tied in any way. It is barely possible that the anti-Japanese propagandists who cooked up the yarn did not know this fact; but nobody else could have been guilty of such an oversight. Japan, as a matter of fact, had nothing whatever to fear from her European allies, more especially from England, France, and Russia. They would have backed Japan in her demands on China-at least those over Shantung. This came out at the time of the Peace Conference at Paris. Japan had the promise of some of her European allies to back her in her demands on China as far as the German leases and concessions were concerned. The Chinese knew this pretty well. They did not waste time and breath appealing to any of the European powers to help her in her fight against Japan. They centered their efforts on the United States-which was sane and proper for them. Therefore all this entertaining talk about Japan sneaking in like a cowardly assassin to fall upon China when all her friends and protectors were otherwise occupied, is-mere entertaining talk.

Japan is a fairly good fighter as fighters go, and a good fighter rarely takes pleasure in a stab in the back. The present writer is the last man on earth to uphold the righteousness of the Twenty-one Demands. He does Whenever another power rises to throw stones

not.

at Japan, a certain Biblical passage comes into his head, that is all.

AN INSIDE STORY OF THE TWENTY-ONE DEMANDS

The reason why the anti-Japanese propagandists made such an excellent thing out of the Twenty-one Demands was, first of all, because our American friends are so utterly innocent about Chinese politics and politicians. The late President Yuan Shihkai was the master politician of his time and of his race. An incident connected with the Twenty-one Demands brings this out in dramatic relief. Ever since the presentation of the Twentyone Demands, the 16-inch gun barbettes of anti-Japanese propagandists have been the Japanese ultimatum served on President Yuan at the time. The treaty was "signed under duress," therefore valueless, has been their battle cry.

The following sidelight on that historic occasion at the Presidential Palace at Peking was given me by a high Japanese authority who happened to be on the scene when it took place. The Japanese ultimatum of May 7th, 1915, was practically made to the order of President Yuan. There is no doubt he welcomed it: he frankly told the Japanese negotiators so. The Japanese diplomatists who negotiated the treaty were neither mad nor utterly silly. They did not like the idea of presenting an ultimatum: they did not like the appearance of the thing. The Japanese pointed out to President Yuan that as the result of long negotiations, and of repeated Japanese concessions, the differences between the views of the Chinese president and the Japanese side were very small, almost trifling. Therefore the Japanese diplomats urged Yuan to approve the terms. It was then that the talk of an ultimatum arose. The Japanese diplomats told President Yuan frankly that they did not like the idea

at all. Yuan looked up at them sharply and said: "But I would welcome it. I would much rather have an ultimatum than yield to your terms at this time."

No amount of argument could budge him an inch from this position. The inference was plain-to any one versed in any way with the time-honored methods of Chinese politicians. If Yuan Shihkai had a Japanese ultimatum in his pocket he would yield without any more ado. He could go before his people and say to them:

"Behold, here is a threat of war from Japan. China, our beloved China, is helpless at this unhappy time to resist the Japanese military invasion. I held out to the last. Here is the proof, the ultimatum. Of course, I had to save my country and my people from useless bloodshed."

That is what Yuan Shihkai did do. The story of the Twenty-one Demands is the story of a Chinese victory in the sense that it shows the impatience of Japanese diplomacy in walking right straight into the trap set by wily Chinese methods.

The so-called Twenty-one Demands have received a tremendous amount of free advertising, especially in the United States. They succeeded in creating a general impression that Japan had imposed her imperialistic will upon helpless China and made of her a sort of a vassal state. This impression is about as correct as the general run of popular impressions of the affairs of foreign states 10,000 miles from Broadway usually are in America. It is as near correct as a vague idea current in some sections of Japan that America has made of Mexico a sort of one-legged dependency of hers.

As a matter of historic fact, practically all the advantages Japan gained through the so-called Twenty-one Demands of May, 1915, were more apparent than real. Moreover, they were all readjusted at the Washington Conference to the satisfaction of all the parties con