CAUSES OF THE WAR BETWEEN CHINA AND JAPAN.
ALTHOUGH it has generally been assumed that Corea will be the theater of war between China and Japan, there are several factors in the struggle which tend to make such limitation impossible. The first is the bitter race hostility between the two nations, which, if reports may be credited, is now at fever heat, and so points to a real Asiatic war, in which the combatants will fight to conquer and enslave each other. In such a war neither belligerent will be reasonable or conciliatory, nor refrain from pushing its advantage to the utmost through any fear of public opinion, and if one destroys the fleet of the other, the victor is well-nigh certain to extend hostilities to the coasts of the conquered. Again, the motives of the combatants in entering upon the struggle constitute a most important factor in the problem, and the motive of Japan in precipitating the war now is very largely political,—the desire of the present ministry to rally the nation to its support. The second general election within a year is approaching, and had not the government appealed to the patriotism of the people by declaring a war against China, it would probably have been defeated, and constitutional government in Japan given a serious if not fatal blow. A contest with China, for which the military party in the empire has been clamoring for years, and especially a contest over Corea, to which Japan has historical claims and has longed to punish, was certain to be popular, the more that, with the development of their army and navy, the Japanese believe that they can defeat their great rival. The necessities of politics, race hatred, and confidence in the superior efficiency of its fighting departments, thus combined to favor the course of the government, and, with the popularity of the war, to render it the easiest solution of the domestic difficulty in which it found itself. Whatever other reasons Japan may have for declaring war, there is no doubt that the motive which prompted her to precipitate it at this time was largely to win the support of the people in the general election. But this fact, so far from promising a speedy or easy ending of the war, militates against it, for, as the object of the government is to strengthen its position with the people by maintaining a vigorous foreign policy, it must continue the struggle until it has secured some real advantage by its military operations. It is not likely, therefore, to give up the contest easily, or to refrain from pushing any advantage it may gain, and if it is victorious in Corea, or by any chance destroys the Chinese fleet, is nearly certain, unless prevented by the Western powers, to advance on Pekin. On the other hand, the motive of China in entering upon the war—the bulk of testimony goes to show that she deliberately provoked it—was to prevent any possibility of a Japanese occupation of Corea, an occupation which she cannot with safety permit on the part of any aggressive power. A glance at the map will show that the northwestern coast of Corea forms the eastern coast of the Gulf of Pe-Chili, China's closed sea, on the western shore of which, at a short distance up the Peiho, stands Pekin, a city the possession and safety of which is far more important to the Manchu dynasty than is that of any European capital to its sovereign. The Manchu is an alien Tartar dynasty, hated by the real Chinese, and the capture of its capital by any foreign power, or even the menace of its insecurity, would be followed by a revolution which might end the Tartar sovereignty for good and all. With Pekin open to attack from the sea, the occupation of Corea by the Japanese would constitute such a menace, for only the Bay of Corea and the Gulf of Pe-Chili would lie between the capital and the Mikado's fleet, while the Japanese army at Seoul would be within 500 miles of Port Arthur. To illustrate how sensitive China is with respect to its capital and the gulf of Pe-Chili, it may be stated that Port Arthur, at the entrance of the Straits of Pe-Chili, is the headquarters of her fleet, that the whole squadron is now ordered to concentrate there, and that the Northern Chinese army, the most efficient in the empire, is always spread along the shores of the gulf. China is thus likely to fight to the last man rather than allow Japan to permanently occupy Corea, the more that the only railroad in the empire runs along the coast of the gulf of Pe-Chili, and can be attacked from the sea, in which event the supply of coal from the Kaiping mines would be cut off and the Chinese fleet rendered useless. Still another potent factor in the situation is the difficulty of waging war on any large scale in Corea, owing to the rugged and almost uninhabited character of the country, and the difficulty of transporting supplies and munitions. A writer in the London Times says that "a less suitable country than Corea for warfare on an extended scale can indeed scarcely be imagined," the peninsula being a "succession of mountains covered with dense covert and valleys, with a scanty population, and villages and towns few and far between." Whether any of the conditions mentioned will prevent the limitation of the war to Corea, however, has yet to be made known, for, while the intensity of the race hatreds points to a war of conquest, the Western powers cannot be left out of the count, and they are likely to insist upon a war of limited liability.—New York Observer.