authorities concluded that Russia alone could not successfully combat Japan, which, however, might be coerced if Russia coöperated with France. An active communication of views now ensued between the Foreign Offices of St. Petersburg, Berlin, Paris, and London. The diplomatic correspondence of the day is still withheld from the public view, but it is well-known that France readily acceded to the Russian desire for a joint intervention, and Germany suddenly changed her former attitude toward Japan and allied herself with the two intervening Powers; while Great Britain, which had more than once acted in favor of China, altered her course to the opposite direction by declining to admit that Japan’s terms of peace were prejudicial to her own interests. The reasons avowed by Germany and France for their assistance to Russia would seem to be rather unconvincing, unless one takes for granted the existence of certain unexpressed motives for the act. Germany claimed to have found in the terms of peace a future menace to the political and economical interests of Europe, for those terms “would constitute a political preponderance of Japan over China,” to use the language of “an evidently inspired article” of the _Cologne Gazette_, “and would exercise a determining influence on the development of China’s economic condition, and of the sway of Japan in that country. From this it is concluded that Japan is endeavoring to post herself as a sentry, as it were, before all the chief important routes of China. As Japan commands, by Port Arthur and Wei-hai-Wei, the approach to the Yellow Sea, and, by Formosa and the Pescadores, the chief commercial route to China, it is taken to be desirous of encircling her with a firm girdle, in order, if necessary, to seclude her completely from the world. The European Powers, therefore, wish to ward off in time any steps prejudicial to their interests.”[128] Nor did the reasons brought forward by France seem to be more germane to her own interests than those of Germany were to hers. The _Débats_ wrote, on April 31, that all the clauses on the occupation of continental territory were impossible for Europe to recognize. Moreover, Port Arthur, with a strip of territory round it in the hands of the Japanese, would be a menace for the independence of Korea, as much as for the security of Peking. The _Temps_ also said that Japan’s predominance over China, which would be the ultimate result of the arrangement, was “a constant menace for the interests of Europe. It was a serious blow dealt at the rights of the immediate adjacent Powers.... A European concert was now a duty toward civilization.” Perhaps it is safe to say that, so far as France was concerned, her desire to oblige her political ally was a more real ground for her coöperation with the latter than any other presented in her press. As for Germany, her Foreign Minister then remarked, it is said, that Japan had never