The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1894-10-22


We believe in {diSSez,Jdire principle
only to a certaid extent. We have no
right to interfere in our neighbor's
right when they believe in religions
not our own, when they are engaged
in trades not like ours, when they
have tastes different from ours. But
we hare right to interfere, and We
ought to, when they are dying of hun
ger, when they are attacked by rob-
bers, when our plain common sense
shows us that they are rapidly going
Sez-fdire is q viscious principle if it
means total indiffence to our neigh
boris woes. Christ and Buddha, Liv-
ingstone and John Howard would
never have been, were L0fSSeS.faire
in this sense the heathen-establishe
law of society. Where it should
end and where interference should
begin is not always easy to tell;
but that there are intolerable woes be-
yond tolerable, no sane man can doubt.
We interfere with Korea because
her independence is in jeopardy; be.
cause the worlds most backward ma
ton is grasping 1T in her benumbing
coil, and savagery and inhumanlty
reign there when light and civiliza-
tion are at it's very doors. A right we
have not Of disturbing her healthy
peace, much less of degrading her; but
to save her, and to free her from evil
too glaringly apparent, our sacred
right of neighborhood compels us to
vigorous Interference in her behalf.
=. We first sent our troops to Korea
in strict accordance with the letters
and spirit of the Tientzin Treaty of
1885. Herein we are legally justifia-
bic, and no voice should be raised
against this conduct of ours. But If
an objection is made against us that
the troops we sent were altogether too
large for the protection of our citizens
there Gas expressed in our manifesto
to China), we have but to ask our
critics to examine the number of
troops China sent there for the sup
preston of a paltry rebellion, as well
as the barbarities committed by the
Chinese soldiery in 1884. And if we
are still questioned as to the propriety
of our occupying Seoul at once when
the Chinese camped at Aasan, our
plain reply is that we knew too we'll
by our past experience of the insidi-
BUSINESS of the Chinese politicians, and
that we have right to guard against
knaves, in this case as in any other.
If we are still criticized that our pro-
cedures could not but invite doubts
How would you manage yourself If
you were in our positions" We yet
fail to see wherein we erred in our
late military movements in Korea.
8. It is vet to be settled which side
opened the fire first in the recent naval
engagement near Ginsen. We believe
that China did but patriotism may
bias us in this our judgment. But
that is a minor question to decide the
Justice of either side in the war.
Which provoked and which avoided
the war? That is the all important
question.
Let it be noticed that it was we'll
nigh two full months from the begin
ming of the complication to the final
rupture of peace. We on our side
maintained the independence and in
tegrity of Korea, and through our
long telegraphic correspondence with
the Chinese court our constant efforts
have been to prevail upon that nation
to Join as IN united efforts to reform
the state of affairs i7a the peninsula.
How our pacific proposal was haught-
lily rejected; how its emissaries to the
Korean court tried to foil all our ef-
forts for reform; how all this while
they were briskly arming themselves
to meet us upon the land and the sea,
these we know, and any fair judge
can know, beyond any possibility OF
doubt If the well-knOwn propensity
of Cinnamon to cheat foreigners had
it's most conspicuous exercise, it was
during the two months that preceded
the first day of August of 1894 1.-The
day of the declaration of the warl.
Our neighbor was treacherOus to
the last degree, and civility failing
to carry our point, we decided upon
war. We feel confident that never in
its history was China allowed to cheat
more freely than in her recent inter
course with Japan. Imagine she had
some Western power to deal with in
stead of her good-natured Eastern
neighbor; she would have learnt long
before this how costly it IS to cheat
so long. The land that gave Confucius
to the world knows his morality no
more; and the civilized world knows
of but one way to deal with this peo-
pie so destitute of faith and honor
of s'blood and iron," and justice only
by that.
But leaving all legalities aside, (and
we by no means disregard,) ls not
decisive conflict between Japan and
China an unavoidability,-w might
almost say, a historical necessity? A
smaller nation representing a newer
civilization lying near larger ma
tion representing an older civilization
was there ever such a situation in
history without the two coming to a
life and death struggle with each other
at last2 And in the upward progress
of the human race, Providence hath
always wilIed that the newer be rep
resented by the smaller, evidently we
believe that Spirit be tried against
Flesh, and Quality against Quantity.
And once more in history, here in the
Far East,the same grand lesson is to
be taught by bringing the newer and
smaller Japan into conflict with the
older and larger China. The Korean
war is to decide whether progress
shall be the law in the East, as it has
long been in the West, or whether re-
PROGRESSION, fostered once by the Per
sian Empire, then by Carthage, and
again by Spain, aud now at last Qast
in the worlds history we hope) by the