Page:The Truth about China and Japan - Weale - 1919.djvu/104

 the war has been fought is at stake—to be honoured or disavowed.

For in the economics of modern communities, communications have acquired such vast significance that it may be truly said that they constitute to-day the most tangible evidence of sovereignty; and that if they are left in the hands of aliens, surrounded by their own troops, what you have is a de facto military occupation, which can be followed only by more war or by open annexation. No one with any acquaintance with recent history can deny this elementary proposition; and all arguments that the Chinese administration is unfitted to assume control are placed out of court, seeing that the number of foreign railway experts employed in the National Railway Board is constantly growing and that British-constructed railways in China have for a generation been peacefully administered on a system which has never brought the conflict which is inevitable whenever Japanese interests are involved. No matter what attitude is officially adopted by the Great Powers at the Peace Conference—no matter how much they may wish to avoid any discussion at all, the Chinese railway issue will be irrevocably forced on the world's attention in the near future, as there are ten thousand