THE 'YELLOW peril' bogEY

WHEN the German Emperor in the summer of 1900 descanted on the Yellow Peril, and posed for half an hour as the European Michael, he set an example which has proved infectious among observers of the situation in the Far East whose imagination is more easily excited by the spectres of their own creation than controlled by the sound knowledge and calm judgment that alone make any opinion of value. The Yellow Peril is again being raised by Russian, French, and even German writers and politicians, whose names are well known, in order to excite Continental opinion, first against Japan, and secondly, and perhaps more definitely, against England, the ally of that Great Power of the Orient. There is no more popular theme in the Continental press and periodicals to-day than the alleged approaching combination of the yellow races, welded and led on by Japan, the magician of the Far East, for the purpose of defying, humiliating, and in the end menacing Europe.

The prospect placed before the uninstructed reading public is a revival of the Hun and Mongol terrors, and the names of Attila and Genghis are set out in the largest type to create a feeling of apprehension. The reader is assured in the most positive manner that it is the doing of that enterprising nation of Japan. Nay, there is a still greater culprit, it is England, who stands behind her, and unfortunately a very large number of foreigners believe it, and add this one to the long list they have compiled of our enormities as a nation.1

Before examining the Yellow Peril in a matter-of-fact manner it will be as, well to give one or two specimens of what is being written about it on the Continent. M. de Lanessan, an ex-French Colonial Minister who has studied colonial questions with some assiduity, has published a long article aiming at showing what China may become under Japanese teaching and leading. He is aware that some of the Chinese authorities have made use of Japanese instructors, not merely for military but also for pacific pursuits, and

1 A typical instance of these opinions may be found in the description of England given by a Belgian Senator, M. Picard :-'Ce peuple est aussi enthousiaste et brigand comme nation, qu'il est honnête et loyal comme individu.'

he assumes that results have been attained many years before they are possible. For instance, he asserts that the Viceroy of Yunnan has now under his orders an army of 50,000 men well trained by Japanese officers, and provided with modern weapons.' This statement is not based upon fact, and is a typical exaggeration among the collection of details put forward to make out a plausible-looking Yunnan is one of the poorest provinces of China. If the ten Japanese officers who went there in 1902 have succeeded in drilling a thousand men, they are as many as the Viceroy would care to pay for. In order to create a sense of peril, it is necessary to exaggerate, and M. de Lanessan gravely assures his readers that the education which the Chinese are receiving at the hands of the Japanese 'contains nothing favourable to the Western nations.'

In another part of his paper he extols the 'military qualities' of the Chinese, whose sole defect from this point of view is that they have 'no taste for the soldier's profession' and 'no sense of military honour.' But these defects are removable, and wherever they are given a chance Japanese instructors are already removing them. General Frey, a French officer who served in China, has just published a book on 'The Chinese Army, as it was, as it is, and as it will be,' in which he supports M. de Lanessan's conclusions, and enlarges upon the formidable proportions that the future Chinese army-the force of a nation of 500 millions-will attain. It is possible to agree on this point to a great extent with the author, and to hold the highest opinion of the military qualities of the Chinese race without foreseeing or apprehending the disturbance of the present political system or the danger to Europe that has been conjured up as the inevitable consequences of the revival and progress of the Far Eastern States in a fit of nightmare.

But if French writers are somewhat alarmist, it is in Russia that the general imagination is running riot on the subject of the Yellow Peril, arising from the anticipated and dreaded accaparement of China by Japan. The Russian papers are full of the subject, and as they only deal thus persistently at any rate with matters approved of by the official authorities, it may be concluded that design and calculation are at the root of the demonstration rather than mere imagination. The expression of these opinions is not confined to the journalists of St. Petersburg and Moscow. A Russian officer, Commandant Eletz, who served in China, has lately been lecturing on the subject in Brussels and elsewhere. Some of the gallant officer's remarks were a little surprising-as, for instance, his assertion that the arrogant and dictatorial attitude of some ambassadors, especially the English,' was responsible for the present situation, which he described as 'worse than before the Boxers.' He evidently forgot the presence in Pekin of M. Lessar, who outdistances all competitors in arrogance and imperiousness, and indeed admits of

no rivalry in those respects. Commandant Eletz does not confine himself to one extraordinary statement. We, who think that English action in the Far East for the last ten years has been extremely supine, are assured that the attitude of the English ambassador is especially arrogant, but in the next passage a still more serious charge is laid to our account. Our 'territorial acquisitions by force' (brutales) have been, it appears, the real incentive to the Chinese and Japanese to combine and create a formidable Yellow confederacy. Yet it is Russia, and not England, who has absorbed Mongolia and Manchuria, and come down to the Yellow Sea. A little inaccuracy of this sort is not surprising on the part of persons who see in the employment of Chinese labourers in South African gold mines a contributory to the Yellow Peril.

An officer of the Russian Imperial Guard entrusted with a semiofficial mission as a propagandist does not allow himself to talk nonsense such as this without a strong motive. What is it? Russia is brought face to face with Japan. She tried a game of bluff and browbeating, and Japan did not flinch. Russia recognises the seriousness of the position, and is alive to its hidden dangers. But against a small Power such as Japan is still considered to be, against an Asiatic Power which she always must be-and Asiatic on the Continent means inferior-she cannot call out to her too faithful ally, France, for aid. No matter what the reverses of war, neither pride nor self-interest will allow of such an appeal-pride, because Russia is, after all, a great empire on the map; self-interest because, if Russia cannot vanquish Japan, the question must be asked in Paris what possible use can Russia be against Germany? All these contingencies have been passed in review at St. Petersburg, and the necessity has been realised of creating the impression of a common danger. Hence the Yellow Peril has been evoked. Russia does not want aid against Japan, but against 'a peril which is common to all Europeans and their immense interests in China.' The situation is painted as worse than it was before the Boxer rising, and the prediction is made as a crushingly conclusive argument that Chinese soldiers will become first-class, and that Japan will make out of them the most formidable army in the world.'

The object of these statements is clear. It is to rally France and Germany to the side of Russia, to revive in 1904 the triple alliance of 1895 which humiliated Japan in the hour of victory, and to avert, for the benefit of Russia, the unpleasant admission that she has gone too far and must draw back under the pressure of diplomacy or by the force of arms. These are the definite aims and objects which have made Russians set their wits together to conjure up the Yellow Peril, and some of their sympathetic friends in Paris are backing them up. In Berlin, too, the idea has been well received. If there is hesitation there, it arises from the doubt as to what the

three allies of 1895 could accomplish against the other three allies of 1904, for everyone ought to know that, though there may at this moment be no written bond, the co-operation of the United States with England and Japan in face of such a menace would not be delayed one hour after the other side had revealed their intentions.

As our Continental friends are for their own reasons devoting so much attention to the so-called Yellow Peril, it is not wholly waste of time to give it careful consideration from our point of view, and to reduce the problem to its correct proportions. Assuredly if there were a real Yellow Peril, we could not escape feeling its consequences just as much as any of the others. It would mean the disappearance of our trade throughout the greater part of Asia, the probable loss of Burma, a constant menace to India, and the closing of Central Asia more effectually than is done by the Russian tariff. The magnitude and tempting character of the prize that our possessions in Southern Asia would offer might even prove the safeguard of Europe, by diverting the overflow of those millions of armed warriors before it reached the Volga. It is with no intention of diminishing the possible consequences of the peril, whenever it may have attained corporate reality, that I proceed to expose the non-existence for us of the Peril itself within any considerable period of time. We have to deal with the questions and facts of the day and our most carefully arranged political combinations must be based on them, and can at the longest only have force and value for twenty years. There are some questions that must be left for posterity. It is perfectly clear why the Russians are conjuring up the Yellow Peril, but the very reasons which are actuating them in creating this racial Frankenstein should make us see in it a Yellow Protection.

The great and central fact upon which all these suppositions are based is the Chinese nation, 400 millions or more of active, vigorous, unchanging and self-perpetuating individuals, upon whom time, contact with European civilisation, and the ravages of famine, pestilence, and war seem to have produced none of the accustomed and anticipated impressions and modifications. There we are confronted with an ocean of humanity, impassive, unimpressionable, for which we have no plummet, that is tranquil to-day, but that may at any time become agitated by some national upheaval as sudden and terrible as the typhoons that sweep its seas. It is not surprising that the imagination should run beyond the limits imposed by custom and common sense at the contemplation of a society and a nation which in all essentials are what they were at least 2,500 years ago. But up to a recent period there had been no sense of grave peril as the result of this contemplation. The Chinese were distinctly free from the military spirit, and what was still more assuring, they had effected no real progress in the military art. The purchase of modern arms and artillery had not made them any more

VOL. LV-No. 323

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formidable as opponents than they were in the gingal and bow and arrow period. The study of the Chinese question suggested then a mystery rather than a danger.

nation of Japan

Here was one of scarcely less hoary

But the progress accomplished by the sister raised apprehensions and changed the perspective. the Yellow races emancipating itself from a past than that of China, and placing itself without an apparent effort on a level with the foremost nations of the world, and especially, and above all things, in military science and equipment. The overthrow of China in 1894-5 as a feat of arms did not count for much, but the scientific manner in which it was accomplished created a deep impression, and that impression was further deepened by the incidents of the international campaign in China in 1900-1. There the Japanese were associated with the picked troops of all the Powers, and there is no disputing the fact that they displayed the greatest courage and dash of them all. If they had a competitor for the first place, it was the Anglo-Chinese regiment led by English officers. This demonstration of what Yellow troops could do on the field of battle was enhanced by the poor show of the Russian troops. If a secret ballot had been possible of the opinions of the foreign commanders as to the merit of the different contingents, there is scarcely a doubt that the Japanese would have been placed first and the Russians last. Of course the Japanese were more on their mettle than the English or the French. They wished to show what they were made of before Europeans, and their temerity sometimes cost them more than was necessary, but on the other hand it furnished some ground for the boast of a Japanese officer that when they had to deal with the Russians 'they would walk through them.'

If the question of Japan's future had remained detached from that of China, it would still have presented a serious aspect for the Power which had practically absorbed Mongolia and Manchuria, which aspired to control the affairs of Corea as well, and which regarded the Chinese ruler as a mere puppet. From its geographical position Japan commands the route of sea communication between Russia's old possessions at Vladivostock and her new occupations round Port Arthur. By its industrial and commercial necessities Japan requires an outlet in Corea, and Russia is well aware that she will never acquiesce in her being ousted from that peninsula, whilst it is perfectly clear that Japan's occupation of Corea in a military sense would render Russia's position in Manchuria so precarious as to deprive it of any real value. Finally neither her pride nor her political aspirations would allow Japan to look on idly while Russia acquired the control of the central Chinese Government at Peking and converted the Manchu Emperor into a vassal prince. Her feelings on that subject might be compared to ours if Germany attempted to place a Hohenzollern on either of the thrones of the