Page:The Truth about China and Japan - Weale - 1919.djvu/103

 dred kilometres, very valuable extensions of which Japan has claimed as an inheritance from the original German concessionaires. This state of affairs, if left untouched by an International Act such as has been proposed, will gradually create a railway enclave on the Manchurian model in the heart of old China. For along the course of such railways, new railway towns inevitably spring up, bringing all the complications which conflicting jurisdiction creates. To solve this conflict the stronger Power first employs force; then, to give its authority a deeper meaning, it sets up its own courts; administers so-called justice; and sends its police-officers far from the zone of the railway to satisfy its judgments. This is already what has happened in Shantung; infallibly it will happen wherever Japanese railways go.

Here, then, is international business of the first importance which cannot be brushed aside. It is absolutely essential that when this test-case comes up stout defenders be found who will realize that a drama as real to the Chinese people as Kaiserism has been to the European peoples is in process of being enacted; and that beneath the surface every principle for which