WHAT THE OCEAN MEANS TO GREAT BRITAIN 331 



sea now, in whatever form it may come. I have very 

 much more reason to dread the persistent and scientific 

 efforts of a much later entrant into the lists of the 

 struggle for sea-power in the direction of commerce. 

 I mean Japan. I foresee a day not very far distant 

 when Japan will rule the Pacific by sheer ability. 

 The same intensity of industry, of attention to detail, 

 and of national devotion to a national ideal which 

 Japan has manifested, in a degree never before wit- 

 nessed, during her wars with China and Kussia, she 

 will show, she is showing, in her application to com- 

 merce. Japan is a small nation, but she has at her 

 hand, and amenable to her tuition, a vast unknown 

 quantity, China. She will undoubtedly energize 

 China; will utilize the almost appalling capacity of 

 the Chinese for patient labour and imitative ability ; 

 and, without the necessity for shedding one drop of 

 blood, she will dominate the East in the interests of 

 the yellow races. Here is the real yellow peril, if 

 peril it really be. Not that the yellow race will carry 

 fire and sword Westward, destroying all the evidences 

 of Western civilization, but, by the most peaceful 

 of methods, by bettering the teaching they have 

 received from the Western nations, they will simply 

 crush the Westerner back to his own countries, and 

 defy him to do any trade with the Far East at all. 

 In this gigantic struggle all the Western nations will 

 suffer alike ; but the most direct antagonism will be 

 with America, which is perhaps the most hated of all 

 the white races by the yellow man for the restrictions 

 placed by the United States upon Mongolian immigra- 

 tion. But America will, doubtless, owing to her 

 enormous population and wealth, be able to speak 



