would be entailed upon every member of the Triple Entente by even a seven days' war.

If any guarantee were needed for the pacific character of the policy of which Sir Edward Grey is the successful embodiment, it would be found in the common interest which all the three Powers have in the limitation of the Entente to this, its original and permanent object. There is no need to establish this in the case of Great Britain. The greatest commercial nation of the world has more to lose by war than any other of the Great Powers. The imports that are required to keep her population employed, and the food that is required to keep it alive, come for the most part from abroad, and the first sound of war in Europe would put these supplies in jeopardy. That this can only be avoided by never-ceasing precautions against war is quite true. But the difference in cost between precautions against war and reparations after war may be the difference between keeping a navy up to the mark and creating an entirely new navy. The days when "splendid isolation" could be preached with any chance of getting a hearing are over. The spectacle of a Europe in arms is not calculated to make Great Britain live contentedly without allies. The needs of Russia point to a similar conclusion. The war with Japan has imposed upon The Spectator.

her the building of a navy and the reorganization of an army. Neither process can be the work of a moment, and while both are in progress the one aim of her statesmen must be to obtain a breathing time in which the recovery of her strength may go on unhindered. France, happily for herself, is better off in the way of preparation to meet possible attack than either Great Britain or Russia. But before she can meet the world as a perfectly united nation she has much to regain and something to undo, and for such a healing process as this warfare does not supply a beneficent atmosphere. There is nothing, therefore, that can offer any inducement to any of the Powers to withdraw from the Triple Entente. The interests of every one of them are best served by its continuance, because they are best served by the attainment of the object for which it exists. What better justification than this can be desired for the warmth of M. Poincaré's reception among us? The popular instinct sees in him a guarantee for that European tranquillity which we all desire, though we do not all seem to understand how it can best be secured. The visit of M. Poincaré and the promptitude with which he paid it are welcome testimonies to the existence on both sides of the Channel of a desire for peace which is at once genuine and effective.

To the Editor of The Times:

Sir, The three weeks or more of time involved makes it a far cry to criticize from this side of the Atlantic an argument in an English daily, but the communication of Sir Valentine Chirol in your issue of May 19, "Japan Among the Nations: The Bar

of Race," is of such importance to the American world-in Canada no less than in the United States-and also of such enduring interest to the whole community of European civilization, because affecting the political conditions of territories to which their emi1 The Living Age, June 28, 1913.

that it seems expedient to attempt some comment, even though inevitably retarded.

The question discussed by Sir Valen. tine is based by him upon the Alien Land Bill recently passed by the California Legislature. Upon that particular measure I have no comment to make; it is in fitter hands than mine. It is to "the ultimate issue involved," as construed by Sir Valentine, that I direct my remarks. "The ultimate issue involved," he writes, "is whether Japan, who has made good her title to be treated on a footing of complete equality as one of the Great Powers of the world, is not also entitled to rank among the civilized nations whose citizens the American Republic is ready to welcome, subject to a few well-defined exceptions, within its fold whenever they are prepared to transfer their allegiance to it." In brief, this means, I apprehend, whether the attainment by Japan of the position of a Great Power entitles her to claim for her citizens free immigration into the territories of any other Great Power, with accompanying naturalization.

While Sir Valentine does not give a decisive reply to this question, the whole tone of his paper implies an affirmative. In my own appreciation there is no necessary connection between a nation's status as a Great Power and her right to receive for her people the privileges of immigration and naturalization in the territory of another State; and the reasonings adduced in support of the proposition seem to me defective, both in some of their assertions and still more in ignoring certain conspicuous facts.

Primary among these facts is that of the popular will, upon which, in the fundamental conceptions of both British and American government, the policy of a nation must rest. Be the

industrial, social, racial, or all four; and if there be any other motives-the will of the people is the law of the Government. So far as that will has been expressed in America and in Canada it is distinctly contrary to the concession of such immigration. With the question of immigration that of naturalization is inextricably involved. There cannot be naturalization without immigration; while immigration without concession of naturalization, though conceivable and possible, is contrary to the genius of American institutions, which, as a general proposition, do not favor inhabitancy without right to citizenship.

Another tacit assumption is that changes of governmental methods change also natural characteristics, to such an extent as to affect radically those qualities which make for beneficial citizenship in a foreign country. Stated concretely, this means that the adoption of Western methods by Japan has in two generations so changed the Japanese racial characteristics as to make them readily assimilable with Europeans, so as to be easily absorbed. This the Japanese in their just pride of race would be the first to deny. It ignores also the whole background of European history, and the fact that European civilization (which includes America) grew up for untold centuries under influences of which Eastern Asia-including therein Japan-experienced nothing. The "Foundations of the Twentieth Century" are not only a succession of facts, or combination of factors. They are to be found chiefly in the moulding of character, national and individual, through sixtyodd generations.

It is, I conceive, this deep impress of prolonged common experience which constitutes the possibility of assimilation, even among the unhappy, povertystricken mass often coming to us,

are

which Sir Valentine stigmatizes as "ignorant and squalid." Undoubtedly they constitute a problem, but one with which the immense assimilative force of English institutions, especially when Americanized, has been able so far to deal successfully, and I believe will continue able. But there those who greatly doubt whether, in view of the very different foundations of the Japanese 20th century, and of the recognized strength and tenacity of character of the Japanese people emphasized by strong racial marks, they could be so assimilated. We who so think I am one cordially recognize the great progresses of Japan and admire her achievements of the past half-century, both civil and military; but we do not perceive in them the promise of ready adaptability to the spirit of our own institutions which would render naturalization expedient; and immigration, as I have said, with us implies naturalization. Whatever our doubts as to the effect upon national welfare of the presence of an unassimilable multitude of naturalized aliens, the presence of a like number of unnaturalized foreigners of the same type would be even worse.

The question is fundamentally that of assimilation, though it is idle to ignore that clear superficial evidences of difference, which inevitably sautent aux yeux, due to marked racial types, do exasperate the difficulty. Personally, I entirely reject any assumption or belief that my race is superior to the Chinese, or to the Japanese. My own suits me better, probably because I am used to it; but I wholly disclaim, as unworthy of myself and of them, any thought of superiority. But with equal clearness I see and avow the difficulties of assimilation due to the formative influences of divergent pasts and to race. What the racial difficulty entails, even where the past has been one of close contact and common ex

periences, let the present Austrian Empire testify; and Britons, too, may look to the French in Canada and to the Boers in South Africa, though these latter are of the same general Teuton stock.

Let me say here that Sir Valentine is mistaken in the statement that the United States "within living memory waged the greatest civil war of modern times in order to establish the claim of American negroes to equal rights of citizenship with the white population." With the statement falls necessarily his inference from it, that "a color bar cannot be logically pleaded as prohibitive." The United States did not wage the War of Secession even for the abolition of slavery, still less for equal rights of citizenship. Goldwin Smith, as a contemporary, held against us that the war, not being for abolition, was one of conquest. Lincoln said distinctly:— "I will restore the Union with slavery or without slavery, as best can be." Myself a contemporary and partaker, I can affirm this as a general tone, though there was a strong minority of abolition sentiment. The abolition 'proclamation came eighteen months after the war began, and purely as a measure of policy. The full rights of citizenship came after the war ended, as a party political measure, though doubtless with this mingled much purely humanitarian feeling. Concerning this legislation a very acute American thinker, himself in the war, said to me within the past two years, "The great mistake of the men of that day was the unconscious assumption that the negro was a white man, with the accident of a black skin." That is, the question was not one of color, but of assimilation as involved in race character. Now, while recognizing what I clearly see to be the great superiority of the Japanese, as of the white over the negro, it appears to me reasonable

that a great number of my fellowcitizens, knowing the problem we have in the colored race among us, should dread the introduction of what they believe will constitute another race problem; and one much more difficult, because the virile qualities of the Japanese will still more successfully withstand assimilation, constituting a homogeneous foreign mass, naturally acting together irrespective of the national welfare, and so will be a perennial cause of friction with Japan, even more dangerous than at present.

Sir Valentine poses the question, "Must the bar of race be permanent? Is her Asiatic descent permanently to disqualify Japan for the enjoyment of the full rights freely accorded to one another by the great nations, into whose comity she has already gained entrance on a footing of complete political equality?" The reply to this is that "permanent" is a word so foreign to diplomatic experience that it means nothing. No statesman can look so very far ahead as "permanent" stretches. Each generation must settle its own problem, day by day, step by step.

As a conclusion to so much dissent, may I express my full accordance with the admiration which the long experience of Sir Valentine Chirol has brought him to feel for Japan? I myself in early life was in Japan for more than a year at the time of the revolution which immediately preceded the era of the Meiji. I saw much, though superficially, of the old Japan then on the point of passing away. I had experience of the charming

The Times.

geniality and courtesy of her people, which has endeared them to my recollection, and has been confirmed over and over again by the social occasions in which I have met repeatedly their military officers, diplomats, or private gentlemen. In the forty years that have elapsed I have followed their progress with sympathy and gladness, and with all admiration; which has been shared, I believe, by men of science and of politics in all nations, but which in men of the military professions must be peculiarly keen. Should these words fall under the eyes of any Japanese, I trust he will accept these sincere assurances, and will himself sympathize, as far as may be, with the difficulties of the United States in the particular instance. It is not a color question, though that may emphasize the difficulty. It is the recurrent problem which confronts Germany in Poland, Austria in her Slav provinces, Canada in her French population, South Africa in the Boers. Despite gigantic success up to the present in assimilative processes-due to English institutions inherited and Americanized, and to the prevalence among the children of our community of the common English tongue over all other idioms-America doubts her power to digest and assimilate the strong national and racial characteristics which distinguish the Japanese, which are the secret of much of their success, and which, if I am not mistaken, would constitute them continually a solid homogeneous body, essentially and unchangingly foreign. A. T. Mahan.

Quogue, New York.

In attempting to explain and enforce a moral code, the first and most essential need is to formulate definitely to one's self the code which one proposes to enforce and to explain. There is nothing from which children, and subject human beings generally, suffer so much as the incoherence of the thought of those in authority over them. Before you can begin to lay down the law you must know what that law is; and your heart, soul and spirit must not only know it, but approve it, before you can gain a willing obedience to it from those on whom you wish it to be imposed. By this, I do not mean only that we ought to make up our minds whether this, that or the other isolated act is right or wrong, but that we ought to have a clear perception and knowledge of the things that are right and the things that are wrong, and have a standard which we can apply to any new action brought under our notice, that, measuring the new act by our old standard, we shall be able to say, with some sort of rough accuracy, "This is wrong," or "This is right."

And the standard of expediency is not a good one, for this purpose; nor is the standard of custom; nor yet the standard of gentility nor the standard of success in life. Children are not good judges of expediency, and the law of mere custom will not be strong enough to bind them when desire calls with enchanting voice to forbidden things. Gentility and the gospel of getting on will leave them cold. You may at first deal merely with a succession of unrelated particulars saying, "This is right," "This is wrong," beating down the children's questionings by your mere ipse dixit, but a time will come when it will not be enough, in answer to their "Why is

it wrong?" "Why is it right?" to an swer, "Because I say so." The child will want some other standard which he himself can apply, and, in order that you may clearly set before the child your own moral standard, you must first have set it very clearly before yourself. It is not enough to say, "Theft is wrong," "Lying is wrong," "Greediness is wrong." If you feel that these things are wrong because they are contrary to the will of God, you will not find that that explanation is sufficient for a child unless he knows very much more about God than His name, and certain miraculous and incomprehensible attributes of Him. The child will want to know what is the will of God, to which these wrong things are contrary. And he will want very much to know the definite right, as well as the definite wrong. You will have to give the child a standard that can be applied to positives as well as to negatives. There is a very simple rule by which to measure the actions of children-and, much more severely, our own actions. It is set up in the words of Christ: "Do unto others as ye would that men should do unto you,"-a standard so simple that quite little children can understand and apply it, a standard so severe that, were it understood and applied by us who are no longer children, the warped tangled rotten web we call civilization could not endure for a day. There is no other standard by which a child can judge its own actions, and yours, and judge them justly.