Many as are the pitfalls into which Japan has fallen in pursuance of her Asiatic policy, it may confidently be asserted that the road she has trodden has, on the whole, been straight. She can face with a clean conscience the verdict of history. When Far Eastern history, from the China-Japan War to the conclusion of the Versailles Treaty, is carefully examined and rightly understood, it will be conceded that the course which Japan has adopted, so far as its general principles are concerned, is the one which any nation of self-respect and right motive would pursue. Fundamentally Japan's Asiatic policy is the policy of self-preservation, the policy of defense, and never of aggression. The Anglo-Japanese Alliance, which was and still remains the cornerstone of Japan's Asiatic policy, was formed for purely defensive purposes, in order to maintain peace in Asia and safeguard mutual interests vested therein of the two Powers. Only the "inexorable march of events" has brought Japan into Korea, Manchuria, and East Siberia. None of the statesmen who took part in the Meiji Restoration could ever have dreamed that their country would in the course of time be driven through sheer force of circumstances to plant its flag on the Asiatic mainland. It was solely in self-defense that Japan took up arms against China and Russia. Once enmeshed in continental politics, however, it became imperative for her to take such measures as would ensure and consolidate the position and gains that were won through enormous sacrifice of blood and treasure. Herein, in short, is the genesis of Japan's present status in Korea and Manchuria.
Even at the present time, the heavy arming of Japan is a case of necessity, so long as the Far East remains in such an unstable condition as exists there to-day, and is not free from the menace of the Bolsheviki, who, professing pacifism, are not slow to emulate the military machine of Imperial Russia. Nothing could be more welcome to the Japanese people than to see the curtailment of their naval and military equipments, for the maintenance of which they have to bear the burden of crushing taxes, and to behold the day when they can, without fear of interference by force of arms, win their spurs in the Far East by engaging in the peaceful enterprises of farming, trade, and industry.