For Japan, the question is one of national existence. With Russia established in Manchuria and dominating the Yellow Sea, the absorption of Korea becomes a mere matter of time; and then the very independence of Japan would be subject to a perpetual and intolerable menace; while the new life which has dawned for its wonderfully gifted people would be crushed at the outset. But if Japan is fighting for her life, Russia is fighting for something almost as precious--the consummation of an ambition which has been the dream and the fixed goal of her statesmen for more than a generation. The expansion of the Russian Empire has been steadily eastwards; and the further conquest and dominion have spread, the more has the necessity been felt for an outlet to the navigable seas. Unless all the labor and sacrifices of years are to be in vain, and the great Siberian Empire is to remain a mere gigantic _cul-de-sac_, Russia must establish herself permanently in the Gulf of Pechili, and find in its ice-free ports that natural outlet for her trans-continental railway which will enable the life-blood of commerce to circulate through her torpid bulk. The struggle, therefore, was one between two irreconcilable destinies. [Sidenote: Progress v. Stagnation] But if the issue was immediately of such paramount significance to the two combatants, it was only less charged with import for all Asia, Europe and America. The victory of Japan would incontestably give her the predominance in the Far East, commercially as well as politically. Not only would she be a formidable trade rival to the European nations whose methods she has so successfully adopted, but she would be able to influence the conditions under which that trade was carried on. The immensely valuable and as yet imperfectly developed market of China would be practically within her control; and European Powers would no longer be able with impunity to seize naval bases and proclaim exclusive spheres of influence in Chinese territory. On the other hand, if Russia were to emerge victorious from the war, the whole of China would become a mere vassal state, if indeed its integrity could be preserved. Trade would be discouraged and finally extinguished by the exclusive methods of Russian policy, and except on sufferance no other Power could obtain a footing in the Far East. The whole future of this vast region, therefore, hung in the balance, for the battle was between freedom, progress and enlightenment, as represented by Japan, and obscurantism, oppression and stagnation, as represented by Russia. [Sidenote: Europe's Danger]