Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 5.djvu/83

 thing indicated that its signatories were prepared to enforce their advice by an appeal to arms. Japan found herself compelled to comply. Exhausted by the Chinese campaign, which had drained her treasury, consumed her supplies of warlike material, and kept her squadrons constantly at sea for eight months, she had no residue of strength to oppose such a coalition. Her resolve was quickly taken. The day that saw the publication of the ratified treaty saw also the issue of an Imperial rescript in which the Mikado, avowing his unalterable devotion to the cause of peace, and recognising that the counsel offered by the European States was prompted by the same sentiment, "yielded to the dictates of magnanimity and accepted the advice of the three Powers."

The Japanese were shocked by this incident. They could understand the motives influencing Russia and France; for it was evidently natural that the former should desire to exclude warlike and progressive people like the Japanese from territories contiguous to her borders, and it was also natural that France in the East should remain true to her alliance with Russia in the West. But Germany, not directly interested in the ownership of Manchuria, and by profession a warm friend of Japan, seemed to have joined in robbing the latter of the fruits of her victory simply for the sake of establishing some shadowy title to Russia's good-will. It was not known