TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE WAR IN THE EAST.
WE must recur to the Corean War, though there is no exciting fresh news. The British public does not yet realise how complete an overturn of all ideas about Asia, and all policies in which Asia is involved, has been effected by what the Japanese have already accomplished. The central idea of Europe as to Asia was that the brown men and the yellow men were men who had ceased to advance or change, whose movement forward had been arrested by some still undetected kind of moral paralysis, and who would remain as they are, possibly for centuries, certainly for a long period of time, at once immobile and weak. It followed that the white races who are still advancing could deal with . them very nearly as they pleased, could regulate their commerce, punish their departures from Western notions of right, or even, if the necessity were great or the temptation strong, could conquer them as Russia has done in the North, as England has done in India, and as France has begun to do in Indo-China. A few more years, an expedi- tion or two, and some more treaties, and the whole of Asia would be at the feet of Europe to be guided, controlled, and in one way or another taxed at European discretion. So completely was this idea accepted that it was sup- posed to be part of the Providential order of events, and grave men even published pamphlets in which they showed that if Russia and England would but agree, a partition of Asia was by no means incon- ceivable. No one dreamed of serious resistance to a European Power by an Asiatic Power, especially by sea. A small squadron coerced Japan into opening her ports. A squadron as small, broke through the defences of Taku. Bodies of troops were forwarded across the ocean without fleets to convoy them, and the armies despatched were, as compared with the numbers to be coerced, contemptible. In Eastern Asia especially, Europe has never employed on any enterprise however audacious, fifty thousand white soldiers. War in Asia has always been war with limited liability, undertaken when necessary without fear, and without a thought of reprisals. The mere idea of counteraction, of European cities bombarded by Asiatic fleets, of transports destroyed at sea, of com- merce interrupted by hostile vessels commanded bv brown or yellow officers, never entered the white man's head. He was, at all events, except when pursuing a Malay pirate or an Arab slave-dhow, alone upon the ocean.
Suddenly, as it were in a week, the old central idea is dispelled, and all the policies based upon it are shown to be dangerous or worthless. It becomes apparent to the most blind that one Asiatic Power at least is neither dead nor moribund ; that it has not only all the strength, but all the energy of a European Power ; that it can fight effectually at a distance from its own shores; that it can operate successfully by sea as well as by land ; that in future in all warlike operations in Eastern Asia, it must be reckoned with as if its people were white men. Japan cannot be coerced or even bullied any more, for no Power could attack her without all the labour and expense and risk which would attend a European campaign. She has conquered a country nearly as large as herself at a distance of one hundred and eighty miles from her own ports of departure, she has fought with the scientific skill of Prussia, she has a fleet which, before it was injured in the recent engagement, only the British Fleet in the Pacific could have defeated. There is nothing to prevent her, if she should be content with the conquest of Corea, from turning to larger enterprises, from maintaining a policy of her own in Asia, from even stripping the smaller European Powers, like the Spaniards, Dutch, or Portu- guese, of all their Asiatic possessions. Holland, for instance, could not keep Java for a year if the Japanese wanted it, and were at peace with China. Moreover, her opponent, now supposed to be beaten, has also exhibited unexpected though inferior strength. Who would have thought thirty-four years ago of the French and British armies being arrested in the Gulf of Pechili by a Chinese ironclad fleet which might drown those armies, or failing that, might compel the French and British squadrons to steam away to Singapore or India to refit ? If China, unwarned and misruled, could accumulate a fleet like that, what could she not do. in ten years, when she had been warned, and when her misrule had, as regarded means of defence, ben per- fectly, as it has already been imperfectly, brought to a termination ? Let the present war end as it may, and the ablest are hesitating to forecast its result, the light. off the Yaloo of itself overturns all that has hitherto been considered settled as to the Far East. Wholly different ideas, wholly different plans, wholly different methods of action will have to be sought before Europe is restored, if she is ever restored, to her accustomed easy, unbroken, and fearless predominance in Farther Asia. The yellow races are not immobile, but can improve, can develop fighting strength, can use the "resources of science," the enchanted armour in which Europe fancies herself panoplied for ever,—that is the new fact of 1894, and we do not know that it may not prove the greatest fact of this half of the century. One thing is certain, that the new out- burst of Japanese energy abroad cannot be unaccompanied by new energy at home, that the hearts of the whole race will be lifted up, that they will recover originality—the basis of which is self-confidence—and that in a few years Europe may find that her deadliest commercial com- petitors are the yellow peoples. There is nothing a Japanese or Chinese cannot make ; our Consular Agent says of the former that he has already sufficient of the artificer's skill, and he and his rival alike can live happily on wages that, even with bread at its present price, would starve a European. We write of the prospect with no- pleasure or sympathy, for we foresee, if the yellow race arrives at complete independence, an immense set-back to the European morale, and possibly immense economic suffering for Europe ; but the facts are there, and read by the light of history they are great facts.
We are supposing, for the moment, that the war ends in a peace, the Japanese getting Corea, and the Chinese getting time to complete or if you will, to commence the reorganisation of their fighting power. The war may of course take much more surprising turns ; the Japanese may get to Pekin,—though Colonel Maurice, who has not been wrong yet, pronounces that next to impossible ; or the Chinese autocracy may break down under the weight of public scorn, and the whole of the unwieldy Empire be thrown into temporary anarchy. It must be remem- bered that the Japanese, unlike the European invaders of China, really understand the Empire, know where the weak places are, know the personages and people they are assailing, through and through, and may be able to direct their blows as no European General has hitherto been able to do. They cannot affect the forces of nature, or prevent the Gulf of Pechili from freezing, but they may know exactly what would cause an insurrec- tion, exactly what effect the fall of Canton would produce, exactly what the influence of the dynasty difficulty—the dislike between Chinese and Tartars—will be on the war. They are wild with audacity, gratified vanity, and renewed loyalty to Japan, and they may attempt or succeed in enterprises of which Europe, still slightly bewildered, does not yet dream; but there will be plenty of time to discuss the future. Our point to-day is that the result of the war cannot erase, though it may exaggerate or diminish, the effect of what has already been accomplished. The Island Kingdom, we may be sure, will not be conquered, and whether retreats with Corea in its mouth or not, Japan will remain a Power able to create a modern fleet, able to work a modern fleet, able to throw 50,000 or 60,000 troops as good as Europeans upon any point of Asia she pleases. What her policy will be, nobody knows any more than they know what the policy of China will be if she survives the great shock she is receiving, but of her capacity to interfere, as if she were a European Power suddenly i planted in the Pacific, there s no doubt whatever. It is hardly conceivable that she should help either England or Russia to conquer Asiatic States, and if she does not, she must either resist them or begin conquering for herself. In either case, she will be a new obstacle to European ascendency. There is the fact to be pondered by those who thought Asia was dead, who ridiculed Mr. Pearson because he believed her defensive power might yet revive, or who smiled at ourselves because we have held that, according to history, Asia, though always beaten by Europe, always in the end drives Europe out.
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