LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
BRITAIN AND JAPAN
Snt,—I studied during my spare time in recent weeks the history of the relations between Japan and Britain. The turning-point in this history is the British-Japanese Alliance of 1902 (which, by the way, marked the end of our " splendid isolation "). This alliance seems to me a remarkable instance of the wise foresight and policy of The Spectator. Popular feeling was almost unanimous in favour of the alliance. The Times, as an example of the vox populi, wrote on February 12th, 1902: " The country will receive with great satisfaction the important
agreement between Great Britain and Japan. . This is a policy which threatens no one. . The gallantry, the efficiency and the humanity displayed by the naval and military forces of Japan during the recent operations in northern China justify the assur- ance that should the necessity ever arise, the KING'S soldiers and sailors will find in their Japanese allies comrades with whom they will be proud to fight shoulder to shoulder."
The Spectator stood almost alone in expressing strong doubts .and misgivings to the trustworthiness of Japanese assurances and treaties. The following reads as if it were written very recently, it appeared, however, in The Spectator of February .5th, 1902:
" We cannot express anything approaching satisfaction with regard to the agreement with Japan. Indeed, the more that alliance is studied . . . the wore it seems to us to be fraught with danger and difficulties. What Japan gains is, of course, clear enough. What we gain from it is far from manifest. We object to the treaty not only because it is an open declaration of hostility to Russia . . but because . . it meets the case in the wrong way. ... Japan at any time during the next five years has it in her power to light a flame of war which will burn in the English Channel, in the Baltic, in the Mediterranean and wherever Russia, France and England are in contact. . . Japan has too lately become a civilised Power, and has too lately been endowed with political institutions, to make it possible to say that her Government is one which can wisely be trusted so absolutely as we have trusted it We know far too little about Japan to make it safe to commit ourselves unconditionally to her leads in the politics of the Far East. . . ."
r6 Warwick Street, Rugby.
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