thousand, two thousand, or fifty thousand men, inevitably and inexorably they fling their enemies back nearer and nearer the Amur.

Newspapers, too, represent this Continental Block of opinion in the Far East: three or four German papers, two or three French, a dozen Chinese sheets, and half a dozen subsidised English newspapers scattered along the long coast-line. The Chinese and English newspapers are mainly subsidised by the Russians or owned by groups of men to whom the name of Japan is anathema; but in Seoul a small English newspaper represents the strong antiJapanese feeling still existing at the Korean Court. But the war of newspapers and words has been much overdone in the Far East since the beginning of hostilities, and people are almost universally a little tired of misstatements and miscalculations. The Japanese press campaign has been so extensive everywhere in China that everything has become oversaturated with wise sayings and obvious statements. This was particularly the case whilst Port Arthur held out. Many people are beginning to resent being told by telegraph that armies are not made in a day, and of the coming revolution in Russia which is to end the war. Great efforts are made incessantly by both belligerents to enlist public sentiment in the Far East by the dissemination of news calculated to throw odium on the enemy; and whilst at the beginning of the war some sense was shown, the irrelevant nature of accusations now being levelled is becoming tiresome.

Too much importance has been attached to Far Eastern opinion.

Finally, it is Japan herself who merits one wordor rather words without end were there but time. For never has any nation presented such a solid front of public opinion as Japan of to-day. Not one dissentient voice can be heard, not one murmur, not one shiver, when the country is being called on to bear a strain which almost escapes notice because it is so silently borne. When Englishmen remember that in addition to the ordinary budget a war-budget amounting to at least three times the ordinary normal expenditure of the country may have to be faced for two or three years to come, they will realise what it means financially to a nation with but little accumulated wealth. How long, for instance, would any British Government dare to demand £600,000,000 sterling a year-which is exactly what the Japanese Government demands, in comparative figures, for the prosecution of the war; and how long would England stand the drain without whimpering, even though the whole world were encompassing her ruin? Russia is at present the whole world to Japan-at least, Japan's statesmen have taught the people to regard the great Northern Power as such-but nothing will make the Japanese whimper.

When the great war was beginning at Liaoyang, on the Shaho and at Port Arthur-for this was only a preliminary fencing—and when Japanese men and women at home realised that their soldiery would

have to fall by the hundred thousand before there could be any possibility of Russian submission to facts, there was a little disappointment, that was all. Then as the slaughter-lists began to be known every Japanese man, woman and child remembered who he was, and why Providence had borne him into this vale of tears; and each one, drawing himself up proudly yet humbly, and breathing very deeply, crushed every feeling except one-the unflinching resolve to go through to the bitter endand became the Spartan nation which is exciting the admiration of the world. Few people will ever realise what this war has been to Japan; how much suffering and poverty have had to be faced and entirely concealed, so that no one may suspect what curtailing of everything excepting the bare necessities of life has been necessary. And in addition to this it has now been realised that if Russia, too, is resolved to fight to the bitter end, a half million Japanese may be left dead on the Manchurian hills and plains, and a million or two more carried home maimed and crippled. Every Japanese knows by now that the fighting of the last months in Central and Northern Manchuria will far eclipse anything seen in Southern Manchuria, and that men will fall by the hundred thousand where they merely fell before by scores and hundreds. Almost every family has fathers, brothers or sons in Manchuria, but every one of these families and the entire public opinion of Japan demand the sacrifice of all the myriads of soldiery who will be on the banks of the

Sungari and beyond if necessary. There is no stop-the-war party in Japan, and there will never be one; but it is not improbable that by 1907 there will be a starvation-party growing to such dimensions that even a Japanese Government will find it very difficult to continue the war. Already Count Okuma, a veteran statesman, has been sounding warning notes, and valiantly expressing opinions which it must be distasteful for him to have to express as a Japanese; but although the Government may pay some attention to these plain hints the people never will. How long the struggle will continue rests now entirely with Russia.

Such is the complex state of Far Eastern opinion about the great war to-day. The growing Chinese press strongly inclines towards the Japanese; the Continental Block will remain solid behind Russia until the latter crashes to the ground; the Koreans are still in the main mulishly opposed to men whom they must one day recognise as benefactors; the Chinaman is half-indifferent, and only in the highest official circles somewhat concerned; whilst, overshadowing everything else mightily, the AngloJapanese Alliance with its composing factors in the Far East heaves forward on its onward course, destined to exert a world-influence that men are but beginning to realise.

CHAPTER XXX

RUSSO-CHINESE AND CHINO-JAPANESE RELATIONS

ONE of the greatest questions of the day is undoubtedly what the real Chinese attitude will be after the war-not the attitude of the Chinese plebs, but the real attitude of the Chinese Government and the Manchu Court, who, together with the literati and the big men possessing vested interests all the Empire over, go to make up a curious combination of nicely-balanced forces which finally decide the national attitude.

What will this national attitude be after the great Far Eastern war? To what extent will each belligerent be able to count on warm friends and bitter enemies in China when the final settlement has been made? Will the forces which are of value in China be thrown on the side of Japan or of Russia later on? To answer such pregnant questions some retrospection must be indulged in, so that the reader may understand the exact process through which all the dominant cliques in China have gone through. A commencement must be