Japan is unlikely to seek any territorial aggrandisement beyond the frontier of Korea; but she does wish to attain and maintain a position which will allow her to dictate absolutely in what manner the two southern provinces of Manchuria and the Ussuri province of Siberia shall be occupied and exploited. If she has a strong military force at Harbin she will be able to effect this end. It is, I believe, a part of Japan’s policy. It means that Japan will control the sea board from the southernmost point of Korea to the mouth of the Amur, if not still farther north to the sea of Okhotsk and Kamtschatka. Japan views as rightly within her sphere of influence all the territory eastward of the Liao river, the southern branch of the Eastern Chinese Railway, and eastward of the Sungari from Harbin, the northern boundary being the River Amur. In this territory Japan hopes to see Russia’s influence wane and ultimately vanish. It is to that end she is working. Japan may have to be content with very much less. Russia will give most grudgingly ever so little, and only the force of very adverse circumstances would compel her to grant so much. Possibly Japan must be satisfied with a dominion which does not extend far north of Mukden, but certainly will reach to the Liao. Beyond Korea, therefore, certain portions of Manchuria will be won from the Russians by the Japanese. It may be assumed that the territory extends to the Amur, or the Sungari, or the Liao, or any other point. What are the intentions of Japan with regard to such territory? As conqueror she may, presumably, annex and occupy it absolutely. For several reasons she has no intention of occupying Manchuria permanently. She intends that the territory she wins back from Russia shall revert to China, upon conditions. The first condition is that the provinces ceded shall not again be invaded by Russia; that there shall not again be any possibility of Russia threatening Korea and Japan. Russia must not have an ice-free port, not a naval base, not a dock, or repairing yard, nor must she be allowed to occupy any fortified post which from its position may be regarded as dangerous to Korea or Japan. Port Arthur will be dismantled; the earthworks will be demolished; the dockyard cleared, and the place reduced to an unimportant railway terminus and fishing village, with some commerce coastwise in small native craft. The fame and the value of Port Arthur are wholly artificial. It is not the proper situation for the terminus of the trans-continental railway; as a naval base it is useful only to Russia, or some other European power having a forward policy in the Far East. It will sink again to the obscurity from which Russia raised it--not until then will it be handed over again to China.