It will not matter then what assurances and sentiments the Japanese may have had for official personages in Great Britain. For we are dealing here not with a matter of agreements but with a kind of moral gravitation. If there is a conflict the British masses will want to come in on the American side, and if it seems likely to be in the least an inconclusive conflict they will certainly come in. If the rulers of the Japanese dream that any other combination is possible in the Pacific they are under as dangerous a delusion as ever lured a great nation to disaster. But there are many signs that if ever the ruling people of Japan entertained this delusion they are being disillusionized and that they begin to realize that a war with America in the Pacific will mean a war with America, Britain, and possibly—to judge from the recent astonishing remark by that able writer “Pertinax”—France. France may use her influence at Washington on behalf of Japan in certain matters, but that is all Japan will get from France. The Japanese, I believe, now fully realize this, and the trend of recent Japanese utterances is all in the direction of discussion and the disavowal of any belligerent dreams. Yet, Japan continues to arm, and though she now disavows war as her method, she sits very proudly and stiffly in her weapons at the parley. She may have limited and restrained her dreams, but there is still some minimum in her mind beyond which she will not retreat without a struggle. What is that minimum which will satisfy her without war? Will it satisfy her for good, will it seem so permanently satisfactory to her that she will be willing not only to set aside the thought of and preparation for an immediate war, but—what is of far more importance—enter into such a binding contract for her future international relationships as will enable her to beat the swords of her Samurai into ploughshares for good and all? Is Japan peculiarly an obstacle to the practical, if informal, federation of the world to which we all hope that things are moving?