That policy is open. The principles underlying it, always tenable, were never more so than since the Peace Conference set the Great Powers to direct the lesser states. Moreover, Japan, it is argued, knows by experience that China has always been a temptation to the Western peoples. They sent expeditions to fight her and divided her territory into zones of influence, although China was never guilty of an aggressive attitude toward them, as she was toward Japan. They were actuated by land greed and all that that implies, and if China were abandoned to her own resources to-morrow she would surely fall a prey to her Western protectors. In this connection they point to an incident which took place during the Conference, when Signor Tittoni demanded that Italy should receive the Austrian concession in Tientsin, which adjoins the Italian concession. But Viscount Chinda protested and the demand was ruled out. To sum up, the broad maxim underlying Japan's policy as defined by her own representatives is that in the resettlement of the world the principle adopted, whether the old or the new, shall be applied fairly and impartially at least to all the Great Powers. Every world conflict has marked the close of one epoch and the opening of another. Into the melting-pot on the fire kindled by the war many momentous problems have been flung, any one of which would have sufficed to bring about a new political, economic, and social constellation. Japan's advance along the road of progress is one of these far-ranging innovations. She became a Great Power in the wars against China and Russia, and is qualifying for the part of a World Power to-day. And her statesmen affirm that in order to achieve her purpose she will recoil from no sacrifice except those of honor and of truth. FOOTNOTES: [244] _Novoye Vremya_, June 13-26, 1915. [245] Cf. _The Problem of Asia_ (Capt. A.T. Mahan), pp. 150-151. [246] The late President of the Chinese Republic. [247] These demands were (1) an apology from the Chinese authorities; (2) an indemnity for the killed and wounded; (3) the policing of certain districts of Manchuria by the Japanese; and (4) the employment of Japanese officers to train Chinese troops in Manchuria. [248] Minister of Foreign Affairs. He repudiated his predecessor's policy. [249] November 8th. [250] May 25, 1915. [251] On May 6, 1915. [252] On September 24, 1918. [253] On August 7, 1914. [254] Cf. _Le Matin_, April 25, 1919. [255] _Le Matin_, April 23, 1919.