Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 5.djvu/95

 moment to show mercy to a savage enemy; but when the troops of great Occidental States deliberately reverted to mediæval fashions of warfare, a feeble remonstrance, followed by discreet silence, was the measure of public condemnation. There could be no mistaking the import of this contrast: "one law for me, another for thee" was to be the governing principle of the Occident's attitude towards Japan.

The climax of the drama was reached when Russia planted her foot in Manchuria, and when Germany pretended that an agreement made by her with England concerning the integrity of the Chinese Empire could not be construed as applying to Manchuria, though Manchuria is as integral a portion of the Chinese Empire as Prussia is of the German. Japan was able to congratulate herself on having been mainly instrumental in preventing a convention by which China, helpless and blind-eyed, would have virtually added that huge territory to Russia. But although Russia failed to obtain documentary sanction for her occupation, she remained in occupation none the less, and no one, least of all a person conversant with her historical respect for engagements, could be so sanguine as to suppose that her disavowal of permanent occupation would ever be translated into evacuation. Thus, whereas the tenure of a portion of Manchuria by Japan had seemed to Russia, Germany, and France in 1895 such a menace to the security of China and