In Shantung we have
a simple and easily-understood repeated performance of the
history of 1905 and the settlement of the Russo-Japanese War.
Placed at the very head of the list of demands, though its
legitimate position should be after Manchuria, obviously the
purpose of Group I is conspicuously to call attention to the fact
that Japan had been at war with Germany, and is still at war with
her. This flourish of trumpets, after the battle is over, however,
scarcely serves to disguise that the fate of Shantung, following
so hard on the heels of the Russian debacle in Manchuria, is the
great moral which Western peoples are called upon to note. Japan,
determined as she has repeatedly announced to preserve the peace
of the Orient by any means she deems necessary, has found the one
and only formula that is satisfactory--that of methodically
annexing everything worth fighting about.
So far so good. The insertion of a special preamble to Group II,
which covers not only South Manchuria but Eastern Inner Mongolia
as well, is an ingenious piece of work since it shows that the hot
mood of conquest suitable for Shantung must be exchanged for a
certain judicial detachment. The preamble undoubtedly betrays the
guiding hand of Viscount Kato, the then astute Minister of Foreign
Affairs, who saturated in the great series of international
undertakings made by Japan since the first Anglo-Japanese Treaty
of 1902, clearly believes that the stately Elizabethan manner
which still characterizes British official phrasing is an
admirable method to be here employed.
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