wires and by its postal statistics, the full significance of these figures can hardly be understated.

Telegraphs and telephones abound in almost every street in nearly every town throughout the country, and, according to Lord Charles Beresford, it cannot be doubted that, as regards the use of electricity as a motive power, Japan is far ahead, not only of Great Britain, but of every other country.

Japan's railways have not only shown a marvellous progress as regards length, equipment, and services rendered, but they are also highly profitable undertakings, notwithstanding their recent creation and the great natural obstacles that had to be overcome at very great expense. The railway service is only in its infancy, and is capable of an almost unlimited expansion. Yet the net profits were recently 8-4 per cent. for the State lines and 8.2 per cent. for the private lines. These profits should greatly increase in the future.

The economic development of a country can be gauged to a very large extent by the trend of general wages. In a prosperous and progressive country wages have a tendency to rise. In an economically stagnant or impoverishing country wages remain on the same level, or have a tendency to decline. For these reasons it is worth while to look at the movement of wages in Japan :

These representative wages figures show a continuous, general, and rapid rise in the remuneration of labour. In 1894 the general average of wages was 40 per cent. higher than in 1887, and in 1901 wages had risen about 150 per cent. above the wages figures of 1887. In 1887 the average wage in the occupations enumerated was about 6d. a day in English money; in 1901 it had risen to about 18. 2d. a day, English money.

The position of the Japanese masses is improving for several In the first place, the rise in wages that has taken place

reasons.

owing to the greater demand for labour benefits the industrial labourers. In the second place, a higher price for all agricultural products benefits the agriculturists, who form the majority of the population. Owing to its improved position, the masses of the population are able to buy more and better food, and the physique of the Japanese has of late strikingly improved under a better and more generous diet. How much the importation of food into Japan has increased of late may be seen from the following table:

The enormous increase in the imports of sugar, flour, and eggs is particularly noteworthy, because these articles were hitherto considered as luxuries in Japan, as may be seen from the smallness of the quantities imported in former times.

If we now survey the progress of Japan's agriculture, mining and fishing, and that of her manufacturing industries, her railways, her mercantile marine, her banks, her insurance companies, &c., we must come to the conclusion that the economic progress of Japan has been far more rapid than that of any other nation. If we, furthermore, bear in mind that the wonderful prosperity of Japan is almost entirely created by herself; that her productive enterprises are not mortgaged to foreign bondholders, as is the case with so many newly developed countries, but that all her harbours, railways, waterworks, electrical works, telegraphs, telephones, steamships, factories, mines, &c., are entirely her own, that they have been paid for with Japanese money, and that, notwithstanding these enormous expenses, huge and rapidly increasing quantities of liquid capital are accumulating with the Japanese banks, savings banks, mortgage companies, insurance companies, &c., we must come to the conclusion that Japan is not only progressive, but also highly prosperous and on the road to wealth. Her prosperity has a more solid foundation than that of numerous European and extra-European countries, which are more or less stagnant, and yet require constantly foreign monetary assistance merely in order to keep the State going, and where, rightly considered, the most remunerative commercial and industrial enterprises belong to foreign capitalists.

Japan is certainly indebted to the world for ideas, but she is not in debt to the world for money. The 'tribute' which she has to send yearly abroad for borrowed money comes, probably, to no more than one million pounds sterling.

Though Japan has spent much money, she has not been a spendthrift, for she has spent it wisely. The money which the Government has expended has been the seed from which the great economic prosperity of Japan has sprung. Neither her army nor her navy, neither her schools nor her model factories, neither her commercial missions nor her scientific institutions, have been shams and makebelieves. If we look through the most detailed Government accounts, we find efficiency and economy, forethought and prudence, writ large everywhere. Consequently we are justified in concluding that Japan's financial position will prove as strong as have proved her army and navy.

The war will, no doubt, be expensive, but it will certainly not be conducted wastefully on Japan's part. It may cause a severe financial strain to the country, but that strain should not be too great to be borne. Japan may possibly find it necessary to borrow money abroad; but if she should have to borrow, she can show a clean record, point to a very progressive and prosperous land that is almost entirely free from foreign debts, and give excellent security.

O. ELTZBACHER.

COMING CONTINENTAL COMPLICATIONS

THE hope and belief, held by the majority of people almost to the day of rupture, that there would be no war between Japan and Russia is now the hope and belief that the struggle will not spread, and that the peace of Europe at least will remain undisturbed. Yet we should remember that, despite the most strenuous efforts by the most influential persons to avert it, war came in the Far East. Those efforts were

beyond example, for if diplomacy ever gave up its choicest secrets, it would be seen that England never made a more serious or sustained endeavour for the maintenance of peace than she did last year, that she actually obtained an adjournment of the struggle for six months, and that at one moment the preservation of the Anglo-Japanese alliance was subjected thereby to a rude strain. How, then, can the present confidence be justified in the avoidance of further complications when no similar potent agency in the interests of peace is at work, and when the uppermost desire of many Continental statesmen is to derive the maximum of their ambitious longings and designs from the embarrassments of the moment? It is in troubled waters that are caught the biggest fish,' says a Japanese proverb. Optimism is a good thing in itself, but in the affairs of States it should never blind the rulers to the possibility of things turning out differently, or be found combined with a condition of unpreparedness.

The Continent is waiting expectantly for the results of the first serious encounters on land to decide the attitude of its leading members. The Japanese success at sea has not impressed Continental races as it has done us because they do not understand the full significance of naval power and the command of the sea, and it may be asserted that the conviction of an overwhelming majority throughout Europe, irrespective of nation, is that on land the Japanese, to use a graphic French phrase, are sure to 'trouver son père.' That is the prevalent conviction, and the nations wait in the expectancy of seeing it soon realised, but until fact has displaced anticipation and prediction the floodgates of Continental opinion remain closed. Once the arbitrament of the god of battles has been clearly pronounced on land they will be opened. If Japan proves the victor it will be the Yellow Peril as the common danger of Europeans; if Japan is the loser, then

it will be England that has sustained a damaging blow which will give her enemies on all sides the opportunity either of injuring her directly or of taking advantage of her ally's discomfiture.

Leaving these general or main considerations aside and proceeding to the study of the particular details that make up the whole problem of international relations, the first subject that attracts notice and requires the closest attention is the relationship of England and France, handicapped as that relationship undoubtedly is by the obligations of the one country to Japan and of the other to Russia. It is perfectly clear that if neither of the Dual Alliances existed the entente cordiale would have a more solid foundation at the present time, but as neither France nor England has any intention of departing from its engagements it follows that we must take things as they are, and estimate, as well as we can, the risks of collision with the view of adopting the most practical and honourable means of averting the dangerous, and, in a lofty sense, disastrous alternative. While French and English are exchanging hospitalities and drinking to toasts of concord, it may seem ungracious and uncalled for to introduce subjects of rivalry, discord, and strife. But if there is any durable basis for the entente cordiale it must be clear that it cannot be jeopardised by a frank examination of the possible perils to its continuance. It is an inquiry, an investigation, that should claim the immediate attention of all loyal and candid minds in the two countries.

Their examination must result in one discovery at the very outset. The terms and the conditions of the Anglo-Japanese alliance are clear. They are also well known, for there are no secret clauses. Japan being at war, if a second Power proceeds to attack her, whether that Power be France or any other, England is bound to go to her help. There is no question that England would fulfil that condition. France, like the rest of the world, must accept that fact. There can be no deviation from and no qualification of it.

If we turn to the other Dual Alliance we find that the obligations of France to Russia are neither so brief nor so simple. They certainly cannot be expressed in a sentence, and if proper allowance is not made for the considerations and facts to which I am going to draw somewhat detailed attention, it may be feared that the loudest protestations of momentary regard between us and our neighbours will not be proof against the strain imposed by a sudden and stormy crisis.

The Franco-Russian bond is, in the first place, a written treaty with set conditions and mutual obligations, some known and others only guessed at. The original text has been amplified by later secret clauses, which, like codicils, do not affect the main purport of the original will. But the Franco-Russian Alliance is a great deal more than a paper union. In the minds of the French people it is the instrument that restored to France her self-respect, her self-confidence. It has been dearly, too dearly, paid for; but that accurate calculation