From the Peace of Shimonoseki in 1895 the progress of Japan has been marvellous. In 1900 she appeared as one of the civilised Powers which invaded China with a view to impress upon that Empire the duty a semi-civilised Power owed to the world of maintaining internal order. In 1902 she entered into a defensive and offensive alliance with Great Britain, by which she was guaranteed a ring clear from interference on the part of a European combination in the struggle with Russia which she contemplated. The treaty was a triumph of diplomatic wisdom. Appearing to get little, Japan in real truth got all that her circumstances required. A treaty binding Great Britain to come to her aid in any war would have been hopeless to ask for, and not very useful when obtained, for the Japanese attack on Russia might then have been the signal for a general European war in which possibly a European combination would have crippled Great Britain and then turned its united attention to the destruction of Japan's nascent power. A treaty which kept the ring clear for a single-handed struggle with Russia was better than that risk. In return Japan gave nothing in effect except a pledge to make war on her own immediate enemy, Russia, for the assistance of Great Britain if necessity arose. The conditions created by the Anglo-Japanese treaty of 1902 developed naturally to the Battle of Mukden, the culminating point of a campaign in which for the first time for many years the Yellow Race vanquished the White Race in war. That Battle of Mukden not only established Japan's position in the world. It made the warlike awakening of China inevitable, and restored to the daylight again the long-hidden yet always existing arrogance of Asia. Asia has ever nurtured an insolence beside which any White Race pride is insignificant. That fact is made patent during recurring epochs of history. The Persian Darius sent to the Greeks for earth and water, symbols to acknowledge that "Persia ruled the land and the oceans." The Huns later looked upon the White Men whom they conquered as something lower than animals. The Turks, another great Asiatic race to war against Europe, could compare the White Man only to that unclean beast, the dog. The first European ambassadors who went to China were forced to crawl with abject humility to the feet of the Chinese dignitaries. In his secret heart--of which the European mind knows so little--the Asiatic, whether he be Japanese, Chinese, or Indian, holds a deep disdain for the White. The contempt we feel for them is returned more than one hundredfold.