Unfortunately a great deal is lost in their
official translation, and the menace revealed in the Chinese
original partly cloaked: for by transferring Eastern thoughts into
Western moulds, things that are like nails in the hands of soft
sensitive Oriental beings are made to appear to the steel-clad
West as cold-blooded, evolutionary necessities which may be
repellent but which are never cruel. The more the matter is
studied the more convinced must the political student be that in
this affair of the 18th January we have an international coup
destined to become classic in the new text-books of political
science. All the way through the twenty-one articles it is easy to
see the desire for action, the love of accomplished facts,
struggling with the necessity to observe the conventions of a
stereotyped diplomacy and often overwhelming those conventions. As
the thoughts thicken and the plot develops, the effort to mask the
real intention lying behind every word plainly breaks down, and a
growing exultation rings louder and louder as if the coveted
Chinese prize were already firmly grasped. One sees as it were the
Japanese nation, released from bondage imposed by the Treaties
which have been binding on all nations since 1860, swarming madly
through the breached walls of ancient Cathay and disputing hotly
the spoils of age-old domains.
Group I, which deals with the fruits of victory in Shantung, has
little to detain us since events which have just unrolled there
have already told the story of those demands.
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