THE CHINO-JAPANESE WAR, ' 1894— 95. 634 was the commoninterest of the Western Powers to prevent Port Arthur passing out of Chinese hands. France and Germany came forward as the alliesof the Czar to enforce the policy thus laiddown. The two old enemies were not yet prepared to join hands,but Russia supplied the temporary bond of union.

survey and marking of the new landfrontier in Manchuria,and the 4th imposed on China the payment of a warindemnity of 200,000,000 taels (equal to about sterling). The 5th settled that any inhabitants of the ceded territories who wished to remain Chinese subjects should within a certain period sell their property and emigrate to Chinese territory. The 6th Article outlined a commercial treaty to be concluded betweenthe two countries,opening new treaty ports in China to Japanese subjects, and giving them the right of navigatingcertain of tlae greatinland waterways of the Chinese empire. The 7th and 8th arranged for the evacuation of Chinese territory by tlae Japanese,and the payment of the instalments of the warindemnity. The 9th provided that all prisoners were tobereleased,andthatno Chinese subject should suffer for having givenany help to the invaders. The 10th and nth arranged for the formal ratification of the treaty,and the definiteendingof the war thereby.

Naturally this intervention of the three European Powers aroused general indignation in Japan. The first impulse was to defy Russia and her allies and refuse to yield the hard-won fruits of victory without a struggle. But the statesmen whodirectedthepolicy of the country, however much they must have personally sympathised with this feeling,natural to a race of soldiers in the very hour of their triumph, recognised that Japan was not prepared for a war with a great European coalition,and that to incur defeatwould be to sacrifice not merely the successes of the past but the best hopes of the future. If England had been willing to throw her swordinto the scale upon their side, it would have been different, but the British Government was not anxious to plunge into a world-wide war. So, not without difficulty, the Mikado's Ministers set themselves to calm the popular agitation, and yielded to the imperious demand ofRussia.

As soon as the terms of the treaty weremade public, the Russian Government protested against the cession ofPort Arthur and the Liaotung peninsula to Japan. Germany andFrance joined in the protest, and the three Powers began to move their ships eastward. England already had a strong squadron in the Chinese seas, and at this crisis might have spoken decisively on oneside or the other;but, though efforts were made by the other WesternPowers to secure her adherence to the threatened coalition against Japan, and though, on the other hand,it was urged by many that British interests in the East would be best served by supporting Japan against the pretensions of Russia, the British Government observed a strictneutrality in the diplomatic strife that at one moment seemed to be the prelude of another war in the FarEast.

But, though they gave up Port Arthur,they did not for one moment abandon the hope of becoming the dominantpowerin theFar Eastern seas. It was the weakness of their navy that had forced them to surrender before the threat offoreign intervention. They set themselvesat once to remedy this deficiency. The millions obtained from China as an indemnity, and millions more enthusiastically voted by the Japanese Parliament, weredevoted to the building of a fleet of powerful battleships, swift armoured cruisers, and torpedo-boat destroyers. In order that no time might be lost, the contracts were distributed among the shipbuilding yards of England, Continental Europe, and the United States. The Japanese dockyards were enlarged, enormous quantities of stores were purchased, and the army was increased. It found for awhilea new sphere of activity in the subjugation of the hill tribes of Formosa. But the soldiers of Japan were looking forward to warfare on a larger scale, in which they would measure themselves with their new rivals of the West.

The Russian Government, while making no objection to the annexation of Chinese islands by tlae Japanese,laid it down that the occupation of Port Arthur and the neighbouring territoryby a foreign Power would be a standing menace to the government at Pekin, and wouldput anend to the independence of China. A foreign fleet, with this fortified harbour as its base, wouldholdthe gatewayto the Gulfof Pechi-li, and the Chinese could no longerhope to defend the approaches to their capital in the event of a renewed aggression. In words that read very strangely in the light of subsequent events, the Russian Chancellor declared that it Tlae triumph of Japan had come as a surprise to Europe. The war had revealed at once the utter helplessness of China and the existence of