Page:The empire and the century.djvu/790

 Until a little more than ten years ago—i.e., until the war between China and Japan—our position in the Far East was one of undisputed ascendancy. The preponderancy of our commerce and shipping was overwhelming; our settlements in the Treaty Ports open to foreign trade set an example of orderly self-government and prosperity; our language had become the accepted lingua franca of the coast and the chief medium of intercourse between the more educated natives and the world of Western thought; and the commanding naval force we maintained in the China seas, resting on such strategical bases as Hong Kong and Singapore, amply sustained our prestige as a great Asiatic Empire. Our diplomacy, it is true, conforming to the laissez-faire attitude of the British Government, often hesitated to push these advantages, and, in China especially, the innate obstructiveness of the Peking Government and the awakening rivalry of European competitors were often treated with improvident supineness. But the enterprise of our fellow-countrymen held the field in spite of this handicap. With the disclosure of the unfathomed weakness of the Chinese Empire in its struggle with Japan, and with the aggressive intervention of Russia, France, and Germany against Japan at the close of the war, the whole situation was, within a brief twelve-month, completely revolutionized to our detriment. We had failed to avert the war; we had failed to stop it; and in the end we had failed to prevent a compulsory settlement being effected by others which we ourselves avowedly disapproved, but did not venture to oppose. We could no longer pretend to any primacy of influence either at Peking or at Tokio. We had obstinately closed our eyes to the development of Russia's power in Eastern Asia ever since Ignatieff snatched the Maritime Province from China under cover of the Anglo-French Expedition to Peking; and just as, in spite of Khiva and