True, a sudden change has come within recent years, but a just historian will see in it nothing but a reflex of what has happened on this shore of the Pacific. At first confined to the advocates of Asiatic exclusion on the Pacific Coast, the adverse sentiment against Japan has recently been fostered and heightened by the critics of her foreign policies. While the great majority of the American people who, I confidently believe, entertain no ill-feeling toward Japan, remain inarticulate, the most vociferous of them engage in bitter attacks on their neighbors across the Pacific and spread broadcast false rumors and baseless misrepresentations, an illustration of which has been given in this article. The Japanese people naturally look askance at these attacks and are confounded by some of the acts of Amer

ica, which seem to them as calculated to block every road open to them.

The misunderstandings and friction between the two peoples are, however, not the sole creation of yellow journalism or of a few mischiefmakers and fire-eaters; they arise in large measure from the divergence in the angle of their vision when they consider the Pacific and Far Eastern problems. That the English and Japanese views on these questions are not far apart-is this not a confirmation of what I say? The key to the whole situation, then, is the harmonizing of the diverse viewpoints of the United States and Japan, a necessary preliminary to any satisfactory solution of those problems which are of vital concern to the Japanese people and of increasing interest to Americans. It is perhaps the greatest task that confronts the Washington conference.

MARCH 8, 1862-August, 1921.

These

dates comprise the history of the ironclad monitors, the first of which, invented by John Ericsson, met and defeated the Merrimac at Hampton Roads on the date first named. The last of the British monitors, after seeing minor service in the World War, were consigned to the scrap heap by the Admiralty last August. The history of the monitors goes back to the days of Napoleon III., when Great Britain was in a ferment, apprehending invasion from across the Channel. Ericsson, a Swedish engineer, urged the French Emperor in 1854 to build, according to his design, armored vessels of low freeboard, with big guns in revolving shot-proof cupolas, placed centrally on the decks. Such a type of armor-clad ship, he declared, would revolutionize naval warfare. The idea was not carried out, and Great Britain's wooden ships never had to face the ordeal of the Merrimac. But Ericsson prevailed on the Union leaders of the American Civil War to give his idea a trial. In 100 days his ship was built, armed and equipped, and it soon fulfilled the inventor's

hope that it would serve as a monitor" or lesson to the Confederacy.

Even before this, however, the British Admiralty had taken up the idea, and had built a vessel of a similar type at Blackwall on the Thames, which it baptized the Warrior. Others were developed for coast de fense. A few of these still remained when Lord Fisher, at the beginning of 1921, went to the Admiralty as First Sea Lord. When the war clouds broke, none were left, but the Admiralty, made apprehensive by the German invasion of Belgium, took over three such vessels that were being built for Brazil, and they did gocd service. Of light draft, they were able to steal in close to the Belgian coast and fire with effect on the right flank of the German Army. Others were built, but Lord Fisher's plans to build a considerable fleet were never carried out. Some of those existing were used in the Dover Patrol; others in the Mediterranean. At the time of the armistice the British Navy had thirty-seven of them. Now that the war is over, the superdreadnought idea is triumphant.

"Can

Starting from a basis of twentyfive years' military service in the Russian Far East, and twelve years' holding down of military posts requiring exhaustive study of Japan's military resources, the first question I asked myself was this: Japan ever drive matters to such an extremity as to lead to a declaration of war on the United States?" My answer was: "Yes! But only if Japan's destinies should by that time have fallen into the hands of men who are both politically and militarily illiterate, and who have reached a state of Berserker-like frenzy, which alone could account for such an adventure, spelling destruction Japan."

for

The radical and swift changes, however, which have already taken place and are still occurring at the

to

present time in the conditions of Japanese political life warrant the belief that the chances for such persons taking hold of the reins of power are growing less. Although the bigoted, blind followers of the military caste and political intriguers and newspaper men looking for cheap popularity continue defiantly "rattle the sword" and to base predictions on the generally hostile sentiments of the Japanese toward the United States, there can be no doubt that the same elements among the Japanese business and laboring classes, as well as increasingly large portions of the general public, have already sufficiently realized whither the policy of "Continental" military adventures has led their country. These elements are beginning to see both the futility and the danger of this rattling of swords at their neighbor across the Pacific, realizing that what was once expedient and effective and brought such splendid results in dealing with Russia and China would be stupid, harmful and dangerous if used against America. If this attitude of belligerency sometimes meets with approval even among the classes just mentioned, it happens only in the artificial excitement caused by alleged military preparations ostensibly being made

by America with the object of swallowing up completely the beautiful land of Yamato's people! Were it not for the unceasing agitation of this alleged menace and of the Cali

fornia trouble we would find all aspirations of the sensible majority of the Japanese people reduced merely to the improvement of their condition, the lowering of the incredibly high cost of living, the restoration of trade and lost markets; and all political adventures launched by the military circles and by business trusts seeking an outlet in concessions on the mainland, in war orders, secret war loans, &c., would cease.

JAPANESE VICTORY IMPOSSIBLE

Let me, however, suppose that some extraordinary circumstances may arise which will drive Japan to a declaration of war; what, in that event, would be her chances of success, and could the Japanese army and navy inflict a crushing defeat on the enemy across the sea?

There can be only one answer; Japan has absolutely no chance of a decisive victory, not even a ghost of a chance! There can be only one issue of an armed conflict between Japan and the United States, namely, the total defeat of Japan, and the loss of everything she has gained in the course of thirty years of unbroken military, political and financial prosperity. This answer is by no means the result of any particular sympathies or antipathies; it is merely based on an impartial measuring of all the resources available for the struggle on both sides, taking into account certain immutable factors presented by the conditions of time and space under which such a conflict would have to be fought out. All the various major and minor causes predetermining just such an issue for this conflict may be reduced to these two: financial and military.

Japan, first of all, is not able to stand the tremendous financial strain which would be imposed upon her by a protracted war with so powerful,

persistent and resourceful an enemy as the United States. Japan's jingoes are boasting of her immense annual budget and of her 2,000,000,000 yen gold reserve [a gold yen is equivalent to one American dollar] as being an index to her financial power. But they are silent on the fact that this same budget is incredibly unsound and inflated; that in balancing it they are forced to withhold from the country the satisfaction of its most urgent domestic needs; and that for the sake of maintaining the formidable appearance of a great and terrible world power, the last sap has to be squeezed out of the country. They do not tell the people how many months this gold reserve could last, and what they could accomplish within those few months to bring the enemy to his knees, and to present to Japan triumphs and trophies far greater than those of Shimonoseki, Portsmouth and a score of Chinese treaties. Nor do they reveal what will become of Japan after the gold reserve and means of warfare have been exhausted, with the war only just begun and the foe across the ocean only beginning to unfold all the might of his resources, finances and technical equipment. They do not tell the people, lastly, that modern warfare against so powerful an enemy requires either inexhaustible natural resources, or powerful alliances, or open, unlimited foreign credits, or an assured, unbroken, plentiful flow of supplies from the outside, to furnish the army and the country with everything necessary for the prosecution of the war, and that Japan has nothing of that kind and never will have it.

They keep silent, for a true answer to any of these questions would prove fatal to them, should they dare unsheathe the sword. Even now Japan is panting and heaving under the strain of the effort to save herself from an economic catastrophe engendered by the critical state of her industry, inflated by war orders and not yet demobilized; she is unable to find a market for the billions of dol

lars' worth of all kinds of third-rate goods congesting the warehouses of Yokohama, Kobe and Osaka; her markets are lost everywhere; her cost of living is incredibly high; her people are roaming all over the world in search of a livelihood.

Can a country suffering from such financial handicaps, and with technical resources inadequate to meet the colossal demands of modern warfare, ever wage a successful war with the United States, whose financial power, natural resources and technical equipment are so incomparably superior to those of Japan?

For the United States is not China, nor Russia of 1904-1905; it is not the kind of enemy which, challenged to battle, is capable of stopping halfway, and, under the influence of accidental failures or military reverses, of accepting national humiliation and defeat. The cards of the past have already been shown, and it is time for the military circles of Japan, who are so much puffed up over their Russian victories, to realize that the Russian armies were not defeated by the ability of Japanese military leaders, nor by the heroism of Japanese troops, but by that which, breaking into such luxurious and bloody flower in 191719, was already at that time imperceptibly sapping Russia's strength.

That same past, those identical years of 1917-19, the things that were done during those years by the United States, the immense scale of its military enterprise, its stupendous technical equipment, the enthusiasm of its people rising in defense of an alien. cause and demonstrating what they are capable of; its financial and industrial endurance and elasticity are the factors on which the jingoes who are so defiantly rattling their Samurai swords, and who seem to forget that mere morale no longer suffices to settle armed disputes, ought to reflect.

JAPAN MAY TAKE PHILIPPINES

That the armed resources of Japan are excellent cannot be gainsaid; she undoubtedly has at this moment

under arms the best army in the world, homogeneous and strong in spirit, with a warlike rank and file capable of heroic deeds and great exertion. Her navy, manned by natural-born sons of the sea, proud of its importance to the country, is a powerful weapon. However, no matter how valuable these may be in themselves, they cannot in a war with the United States find the application that would make them a decisive factor and enable them to deliver a mortal blow. No matter how great an effort Japan may make to augment and perfect her army and navy, she cannot create conditions which would enable these armed forces to penetrate to the enemy's territory and strike a decisive blow within the limited time for which Japan could bear the strain of modern warfare.

But Japan has no such objective of war, either on the mainland or on the sea. It is usually pointed out that there is danger in the isolated position of the Philippines which renders them liable to seizure. Of course, with a certain amount of exertion on the part of the Japanese navy and landing forces, the seizure of the Philippines is quite likely. But what of it? Would that end the war? Would that be the mortal blow that would force Uncle Sam to the mat and make him beg for peace? By no means! For that would only be the beginning, the prelude to a long, stubborn, ruthless struggle to settle the Pacific problems once for all.

No other employment except a Philippine or Hawaiian expedition could exist for the formidable Japanese army. Some jingoes, and those who have been scared by their cries, talk about a landing of the Japanese army on the Pacific Coast, about a conquest of California, about battalions of death and similar nonsense; all these bugbears, however, are fit only to scare infants or over-credulous and over-timid folk. The fundamental, immutable characteristics of extensive landing operations are such

that a crossing of the vast expanse of Pacific waters and a landing on American soil, in the event of hostilities between Japan and the United States, are absolutely impossible. No sleep should be lost by the inhabitants of the Pacific Slope on that account.

INVASION IMPOSSIBLE.

In the first place, before making the decision to attempt such an extraordinary landing, it is indispensable for the landing forces to have an objective which would justify the immense expenditures and risks. The only objective of that kind would be the crushing of the American armies, thereby deciding the issue of the war. The very idea is fantastic, and no Japanese Commander-in-Chief would undertake it. He would not dare to, because he could not realize the first indispensable condition of successabsolute mastery of the sea and security of the landing vessels from attacks by the naval and air forces of the enemy.

There remains, then, the Japanese navy as a means of long-distance operations for ferreting out and destroying American war fleets, for cruising and destroying trade, for bombarding large ports along the Pacific Coast, &c. This, however, sounds terrible only in the stories told by Japanese militarists; a sober and calm analysis of all the conditions required for the actual execution of such operations will demonstrate their impossibility.

In order to operate against the American navy, the Japanese navy will have to cross the Pacific, get far away from its base, accept battle under most unfavorable conditions for Japan and most favorable ones for the enemy, near foreign shores, under the combined attacks of all the fleets of the enemy and of his submarines and aerial means of defense. Japan's naval forces are not so large that she can venture upon such an exceedingly risky action, which, even in

case of partial successes, would demand so high a price that nothing could compensate for it. The Japanese jingoes, bragging about their naval prowess, ought to forget all about the successes at Tzushima and Port Arthur, and realize that the American navy is not a hodge-podge of vessels fit only for relics in a museum, such as were the fleets of Rozdestvensky and Nebogatoff, which, according to the testimony of honest witnesses, had already gone to pieces long before their actual destruction.

However greatly the Japanese might overestimate their own powers and underestimate their enemy's 1esources, they could scarcely assume that the mere appearance of their formidable battle fleets would in itself prove sufficient to drive the American fleets to shelter in the bays of the Pacific Coast for the pupils of Togo and Kamimura to destroy as easily and swiftly as the Spanish ships were destroyed some years ago along the shores of Cuba and Manila. Cruising operations, stoppage of Pacific commerce, daring raids on the coast, bombardment of the shores, all these, of. course, are possible, although accompanied by tremendous difficulties and great risk. But these operations, even though they proved successful, would be mere pin-pricks, exercising no influence upon the final issue of the struggle.

WARNING TO JIGOISM.

As a general conclusion, I feel confident that, from whatever viewpoint we may look at the possible issue of an armed clash between Japan and America, even if we are to make the most favorable allowances for the former power, such a conflict is bound to end in total failure for Japan.

The sooner the militaristic swashbucklers in Japan, with their constant threats against their transpacific neighbor, disappear, the better will it be for peace throughout the world. The helmsmen of the Japanese ship