a satisfaction to be given to private views of one State, ought not to enter into the common programme of the collective demands, which had as their object the interests of all the Powers collectively and the reëstablishment of a normal state of affairs in the Celestial Empire.”[326] “In the Chinese question it is advisable,” said the _Official Messenger_ of St. Petersburg, “not to lose sight of the necessity of distinguishing clearly the questions which interest each of the Powers in particular and those which affect the interests of all the Powers in general.”[327] This distinction had been fundamental in the Russian diplomacy in China since 1900, for, if one question of the former class was allowed to be dealt with in the common deliberation of the Representatives of all the Powers, why should not another question of the same class be similarly treated? Or, in other words, if the Sugiyama affair was referred to the collective council, the argument that the Manchurian problem should be solved solely by Russia, without intervention of the other Powers, would lose much of its force.[328] The ultimate failure of Russian diplomacy—for diplomacy has failed when it ends in a war, and, if Russia does succeed, her success will be that of force, not of diplomacy—may be said to be largely due to the evident contradiction of this fundamental distinction between North China and Manchuria, upon which she sought to build her entire diplomatic structure in this crisis. As a matter of fact, it was as impossible to deny the profound interest felt by Great Britain and the United States, and, above all, by Japan, in the economic development of Manchuria, as it would have been to exclude Russia from the community of the Powers in North China. It should be remembered that Russia herself persistently maintained that the principle of the integrity of China applied also to Manchuria, and she would have hardly antagonized other Powers had she expressed an equally clear adhesion to the principle of the open door, and made efforts to carry out pledges regarding both principles.