In the Orient American diplomacy has had a somewhat freer hand than in Europe. Commodore Perry's expedition to Japan in 1852-1854 was quite a radical departure from the general policy of attending strictly to our own business. It would hardly have been undertaken against a country lying within the European sphere of influence. There were, it is true, certain definite grievances to redress, but the main reason for the expedition was that Japan refused to recognize her obligations as a member of the family of nations and closed her ports to all intercourse with the outside world. American sailors who had been shipwrecked on the coast of Japan had failed to receive the treatment usually accorded by civilized nations. Finally the United States decided to send a naval force to Japan and to force that country to abandon her policy of exclusion and to open her ports to intercourse with other countries. Japan yielded only under the threat of superior force. The conduct of the expedition, as well as our subsequent diplomatic negotiations with Japan, was highly creditable to the United States, and the Japanese people later erected a monument to the memory of Perry on the spot where he first landed. The acquisition of the Philippine Islands tended to bring us more fully into the current of world politics, but it did not necessarily disturb the balancing of European and American spheres as set up by President Monroe. Various explanations have been given of President McKinley's decision to retain the Philippine group, but the whole truth has in all probability not yet been fully revealed. The partition of China through the establishment of European spheres of influence was well under way when the Philippine Islands came within our grasp. American commerce with China was at this time second to that of England alone, and the concessions which were being wrung from China by the European powers in such rapid succession presented a bad outlook for us. The United States could not follow the example of the powers of Europe, for the seizure of a sphere of influence in China would not have been supported by the Senate or upheld by public opinion. It is probable that President McKinley thought that the Philippine Islands would not only provide a market for American goods, which owing to the Dingley tariff were beginning to face retaliatory legislation abroad, but that they would provide a naval base which would be of great assistance in upholding our interests in China.