Page:The Truth about China and Japan - Weale - 1919.djvu/159

 much right as Russia. When in 1905 this matter was brought up in the Sino-Japanese negotiations, the Japanese plenipotentiaries immediately took exception to the contention, and declared that it was on record that on the only occasion during the period of the Russian lease that two Chinese cruisers had attempted to dock, the Russians had denied the right and therefore the right had lapsed. China was in a position to prove from the logbooks of the two cruisers in question that the Russian harbour authorities had signalled on the occasion in question "docks occupied: no accommodation", and the Japanese negotiators, finally convinced that the point was against them, acted in a manner which sheds an interesting light on their constant professions of friendship for "a kindred Asiatic race". The naval authorities were at once given orders to strip the Port Arthur docks completely and entirely so that there should be no dockyard facilities left; and Port Arthur, which had sheltered a Russian fleet more formidable than the entire Japanese navy in 1904, was made a derelict and rated as a second-class naval station to keep the Chinese out and allow Japan gradually to assume the right of eminent domain. These are the things as they really occur in the Far