A GREAT CHANGE IN FOUR YEARS.
By T.
“DIPLOMATICUS,” in the Fortnightly Review for February, says:— “Four years ago it was possible to speak of the Far Eastern Question as a problem reserved for our children. Indeed, even at a late date, Lord Rosebury’s eye detected it only as a shadow lurking ‘in the dim vistas of futurity.’ To-day, however, the question is already definitely posed, and the most sanguine of statesmen will not refuse to recognize that it has introduced a new peril into the field of international politics.” Is it not perfectly evident that the nations of earth are being plunged with mad fury deeper and deeper and ever more and more swiftly into complications that involve universal war? Who could have predicted three or four years ago that the beginning of 1898 would find the whole of Europe embroiled in a quarrel over the division of the Chinese Empire? The wisest of statesmen, as indicated in the foregoing quotation, until very recently looked upon the necessity of grappling with the “Far Eastern Question” as something a very long way in the future. But how suddenly is it sprung upon the world! And what universal and portentous issues are involved in it! And the Far Eastern Question is not the only problem that is disturbing the peace of Europe. Before this question came in to demand immediate solution, it seemed as tho the Old World had about all she could attend to in grappling with the complicated Turko-Eastern Question, together with the various more private quarrels that many of the leading nations were having one with the other. But the very suddenness with which the Chinese complications involved all Europe and threatened to embroil the whole of the world, is truly alarming. It clearly shows the pent-up spirit of war that there is in the world. With such marked examples before our very eyes, how can any one be misled by the false idea that we are about to enter the era of universal peace? The terrible weapons that are being devised, the large armies and navies that are being built up and assembled, are colossal evidences that the spirit of this age is war, cruel, bloody war, and not peace. The Word of God plainly tells us that the “spirits of devils working miracles, . . . go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.” Rev. 16:14. We need only open our eyes and look at what is pervading the world to-day to see the most literal fulfilment of this prophecy. T.