Europe has never been in joyful mood over the rise in Japanese prestige, and she was more than reluctant to recognize the New Japan as the dominant force in the East. That a yellow people should claim fellowship with European countries guided by houses of lofty lineage was never believed to be possible. Continental Europe was unprepared to admit that Japan's triumph proved anything beyond a genius in the art of war that was nothing short of a menace to the rest of mankind, and that luck and geographical position helped the Mikado's legions in all ways. The great Hohenzollern spoke of the Japanese as the "scourge of God"; in France the "yellow peril"--a phrase really made in Germany--was seriously debated; while Russia many times sought sympathy from the Christian world on the ground that she was fighting the white man's battle against paganism. Solitary in her preference for the Japanese, expressed in the form of an astute and fortunate alliance, England gloried when her Oriental ally revealed the weakness of the vaunted power of the north that had dared to cast covetous eyes at India. All these nations hold Asiatic possessions, each has aspired to have a say in Chinese affairs, and each confesses to having a panacea for the innumerable ills of the Celestial Empire--each is hungry, likewise, to extend her trade with the awakening Orient. Japan intruded, and deranged the plans of all and sundry for rousing China to a realization of her greatness; and in all human probability Japan will do for herself what several European powers wanted to do for Asia. Japan can always justify her claim that she was driven to war to preserve her national existence, by pointing to her rapidly-increasing population, existing in an archipelago incapable of producing food for even two thirds of her people, since every possibility of obtaining a foothold on the adjacent continent had been cut off by self-imposed Russian rule. There was no room for expansion, that was clear. When Japan shattered the strength of Russia she gained many coveted advantages. One of these was the opportunity to commercialize neighboring Korea, a goodly section of Manchuria, and practically the whole of China--enough to recoup the war's outlay; and once entered upon, why not perfect and extend the enterprise wherever she might, thereby providing occupation for her increasing millions of people?