development of the fighting strength of the Bulgarian army in western Europe last year. In two decades of secret preparation the lesson was told to an incredulous world and then forgotten. Since Japan sprung to modern military efficiency in two decades, how much more efficient may it become in two more decades?

Japan will be the real cause for the cessation of the United States evasion of international responsibilities. The causes for this war even now outweigh the causes for peace, hence the reason for the former.

With nations of similar religious, political and sociological conditions, diplomacy might answer, but here the Occident and the Orient are at variance. Traditions of thousands of years are opposed to the political chicanery of a few decades. Hence permanent diplomatic adjustment is impossible.

Great Britain would not ally itself with the United States as against Japan because of its treaty with Japan. The treaty of 1905 between Great Britain and Japan agrees on:

"The maintenance of the territorial rights of the high contracting parties in the region of Eastern Asia and defence of their special interests in the said regions."

Article II. Should either . . . . be invaded in war in defence of . . . special interests, the other party will at once come to the assistance of its ally and both parties will conduct a war in common with any power or powers involved in such war."

Article VII. "The conditions under which armed assistance shall be offered by either power will be arranged by the naval and military authorities of the high contracting parties, who will from time to time consult one another fully and freely on all questions of mutual interest."

The treaty is for ten years and continues indefinitely in effect after that period subject to one year's renunciation by either party. The ten years expire August 12th, 1915.

Germany is too busy in Europe to bother. France is also too busy in Europe and Africa. Russia has no Pacific interests. Great Britain has an offensive and defensive alliance with Japan, and the only reason for peace is

commercialism.

The common argument is that Japan has not the money wherewith to make war. It is interesting to know that Japan pays its interest and has good credit, whereas many States of this Union have defaulted interest and repayment of capital to foreign creditors in sums amounting to millions. Not only defaulted but repudiated. In Europe, Japan can borrow colossal sums if forced to do so.

The factors, of the fundamental principle, that are causing Japan to change are invisible at the moment. The change is unconscious and extends over decades, but will stand out sharply defined later in history as having culminated, perhaps, between 1880 and 1940.

Political transformations and war have not always been the precursor of the fall of empires, nor have the sparkling events in history, nor the violence of them, solely impressed the world. It has been the modification of ideas. and the change of thought that has chiefly determined the historical events which have crystallized into substantial history, in the looking backward on their full develop ment.

Japan is in the epoch of transition and has been so for forty years and the collective psychological law of mental unity prevails in Japan, antagonistic in its relations and attitude towards the United States.

Individual opinion counts for nothing when the masses

mentally or physically collect. The psychology is such that mental unity is collective in masses and forms in its entirety a new and powerful creation.

The mind of the Japanese is peculiarly sensitive to such phenomena and the day that incubation matures will be the day for preparedness. The nature of the suggestion will make Japan of one mind regardless of the superior intelligence of individuals apart from agglomeration.

Count von Reventlow, a noted writer on naval matters and one of the mouthpieces of the German land barons and who has great influence with the German government, said in April, 1914:

"It is undeniable that President Wilson's Mexican policy has caused much ill will in influential commercial circles in Germany and the United States no longer enjoys the sympathy of Germany as it did in the past."

Count von Reventlow advocates a closer understanding between Germany and Japan. The newspapers are taking up the subject of the relations of the United States and Japan. The Deutsches Tagezeitung in an editorial article issues a strong warning against Germany allowing herself to be played against Japan during the present dispute between the latter country and the United States over the alien land question.

The Vienna Journal, one of the most influential newspapers at the Austrian capital, editorially reviews the events between Japan and the United States which have led up to the present situation, and says the danger of war between these two countries is greater than ever before. The paper points out that in case Japan decides on war it would be to her advantage to act before the Panama canal is opened. The indications are, it said, that Japan will secretly assist President Huerta of Mexico

with war materials and money. The paper concludes by saying Japan will shut out the United States and send her emigrants to Mexico, which will create a new danger for the United States.*

The understanding between Japan and the Huerta Government was appreciated by the United States Charge d'Affaires at Mexico when he sent the following cable to the Administration at Washington in March:

"The officers of the Japanese battleship will reach Mex-. ico City next week and will be entertained in Mexico officially by Huerta and his government with extravagant expressions of welcome and friendship. The incident at this time is significant and unfortunate. I think I see in this carefully timed incident the fine hand of Sir Lionel Carden."

This cable aroused the State Department from a condition of lethargy.

*Especially so in the event of military combination.

CHAPTER XIX.

This Republic is oblivious to the vast military and naval power of Japan, to the hereditary militant character of its people, who for a thousand years have lived in the shadows of their armored war ideals. It is oblivious to the black cloud of the tempest that is rumbling in the West and to preliminary flashes of that tempest, personified in the Japanese secret service emissaries who are occasionally caught in the fortresses on the Pacific Coast with United States military data in their possession; to the shipments to Japan of high class war material such as is not in practical use in any military or naval arsenal of this government; Vanadium steel deck plates, gun shields and projectiles for instance. It is oblivious to the fact that 91,000 Japanese today occupy the Hawaiian Islands; 59,000 Japanese, 98 per cent men of between 18 and 40 years of age are on the west coast of Mexico, a large percentage conscript trained, and 130,000 on the Pacific Coast between the Canadian and Mexican frontiers. The nucleus of an excellent army on mobilization for Pacific Coast occupation.

Los Angeles is defenceless to a landing in its vicinity, the occupation of which means the submission of all smaller towns from the Coast, east to the boundary line of the desert and from San Diego to within gun range of San Francisco.

These smaller towns are defenceless because they are dependent on Los Angeles which has the majority of wealth and population of Southern California.