blindness and bigotry has been responsible for strong undercurrents of progress, almost immediately discernible; and after the Korean war this was soon verified. These undercurrents have always been in danger of being swamped by the vast sluggish masses of stagnant waters lying heavily everywhere, but gaining in strength as years proved their worth, the undercurrents have ended by showing that their power is undeniable.

The war with Japan saw the native press of China, until then a shrivelled bud of no promise, suddenly begin to blossom, and this felicitous flowering was a good omen for Japan. For Chinese newspapers were modelled after Japanese newspapers; the very type they used was all cast in Japan the native compositors had to learn their work from Japanese; and thus in many trivial ways a new community of interests began to spring up between the letter-loving Chinese and the schoolmaster Japanese along the fringe of coast and riverports open to foreign intercourse. Now, finding that the haughty Chinese were at last showing themselves willing to learn something new, Japanese translators were seen at work in company with Chinese literati rendering Western novels, histories, scientific books into Wen-li or polished Chinese prose; and to the newborn newspaper life was added that growing literature in which you may find to-day all the masterpieces of Europe excellently translated into the language of Confucius.

For Japan the war with China meant also many

;

things, chief of which was the immediate realisation that she must become a manufacturing country and play the same part to the mainland of Asia that England had played in the past to the Continent of Europe. A glance at statistical records shows the phenomenal expansion which took place in Japan at this period in the development of the factory idea and another glance at statistics reveals that raw stuffs and cereals from the Asiatic mainland benefited accordingly. Cotton began to be exported in ever-increasing quantities from the Yangtsze basin ; Manchuria was " discovered," and great quantities of beans and their products made their way to Japan; the Japanese flag made its appearance more and more frequently in Chinese waters-in a word, the Chinese and Japanese peoples, after a sharp passage of arms between their Governments, were slowly but irresistibly pushed together on account of their proximity and their similar interests.

Meanwhile these new things which were gradually leavening the Chinese masses along the coasts and open waterways more and more were not without their influence on the ruling Peking clique, although Japan was still regarded with a disapproving frown. Defiant for several years after the Japanese war, the Chinese mandarinate and the Manchu Court, after the events of 1898, could not shut their eyes to the fact that "protection" given by the 1895 triplicate had been paid for almost as dearly as the hardest usurer could have desired. It is true that in place of an actual cession of the Liaotung only conditional leases

had been given to Russia, Germany and France; whilst in the case of Japan, even with the intervention, Formosa had been stripped from the Empire. To the sage old Chinese diplomatists nodding sleepily in their Yamens, the matter appeared as six of one and half-a-dozen of another, and it seemed clear that nothing had really been solved. They would wait patiently and gain time— gain that time which has always vanquished everybody.

The Boxer movement surprised the whole world, and it surprised the Chinese Government almost as much as everybody else. Missionary authors have been at some pains to trace laboriously what they label the genesis and growth of Boxerism, and have attempted to show that the Boxer movement was a carefully planned national movement. It was, however, nothing of the sort. It was merely a natural outbreak, proving that a species of spontaneous combustion occurs with the greatest ease among loosely-governed Eastern peoples. Some people are never tired of asking whether the Russians or the Japanese knew anything of the movement, the consequences of which have proved so far-reaching, before it occurred-the former on account of their political cozening with the inner circle of Chinese officialdom, the latter because of their racial affinity. To this question a qualified negative may be once more given in both cases. The Russian Government learned a little of what might happen, and so did the Japanese a few weeks before the outbreak, but neither Power was in a more favoured position

than those nations which possess missionaries scattered over the interior of China, all of whom sent repeated warnings.

The immediate consequence of the 1900 outbreak was to see Japan's position in regard to China vastly improved. A number of things contributed towards this state of affairs, but undoubtedly the most important and far-reaching was the admirable behaviour of the Japanese troops during the occupation of Peking. Whilst these troops did most of the heavy fighting from the sea to the Chinese capital, no sooner had they entered Peking than it became clear that their one desire was to allow the events occasioned by the Boxer madness to be forgotten as soon as possible. In a word, they felt that to restore order and confidence among a terrified populace were the best things which could be done.

Thus, a week after the entry of the relief columns into Peking, the Japanese section of the city was quite safe and order well preserved, whilst other parts were still in a frightful uproar. Chinese officials and rich men in hiding quickly flocked to the Japanese quarter, and finding peace and safety from outrage for themselves and their womankind they noised the news abroad far and wide, both then and after the evacuation, that the Japanese were virtuous. The despised we-jen, or dwarfs, of former years had become an intelligent and excellent people. Never has anything demonstrated more clearly that justice and fair dealing have not only an immediate reward, but one which is continuous and

almost everlasting. Japan, the Peking exclusiveness and contempt which had shown itself for years past in high places practically disappeared from the surface, gaining a certain strength only later on, as will be shown. In other words, the Manchu party was beginning to see the good points of the Japanese, just as the people of the coast and river ports had already done.

Most important of all for

As soon as the main bodies of occupation-troops had withdrawn from Peking and the Court had returned, a party sprang into existence which openly favoured a pro-Japanese policy in place of the former Russian entente cordiale. The fact, however, that the Russians were still in occupation of Manchuria and continually hinting privately that the time had now come for former promises and understandings to be given effect to, made the Peking cliques and the Court more cautious than ever, and less and less inclined to do anything which might be taken as indicative of their true policy and inclinations. The Chinese Government, in fact, was placed in one of the most uncomfortable positions it had ever occupied. For while it was prepared to admit that the Japanese had certainly reversed the policy of the years 1894-5 and wished it to be thoroughly understood that such was the case by their Peking behaviour, it was equally clear that Russia was for the time being the most dangerous factor because of the continued occupation of Manchuria and the special private arrangements set