The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1898-02-12
DANGER TO THE WORLD.
China q Menace TO the Civilization
OF All LandA


Sir Edwin Arnold il warm partisan
OF the Japs, but he had the privilege OF
witnessing the grand army maneuvers
of some two or three years since, and
no one will deny to him knowledge
of the interior economy OF the country.
Sir Edwin Arnold, says the London
Daily Graphic, will not countenance
the belief Of Mr.. Curzon that the jap
anese government Is desperately occu-
pied with domestic politics.
81 am surprised that 20 intelligent IN
observer should not have known how
little the japanese houses OF parlia-
ment count socially or politically
against the policy Of those ministers
whom the emperor appoints and whom
he removes at his sole pleasure. When
the deputies make Themselves impossi-
BILE they are simply sent home; when
they refuse supplies public funds are
taken quietly on account; and when
they bring things to . deadlock the
emperor and his advisers carry on the
business of the country, after dissolv-
ing parliament, which, amid all these
vagaries-the lively working OF new
and generous wine-remains stead1ast'
ly loyal and ardently patriotic.
That the two countries had equal
rights in Corea, and that when one in
creased its force the other was bound
to do the same, was the writer's con-
tention-in short, that Japan has done
and is doing precisely what England
would have done under the same cir
cumstances. ''In the present struggle
Japan unquestionably stands the cham
pion of progress, Of justice, and of In
ternational development, 30 that the
partisanship shown in certain quar-
ters against her has in it an element OF
stupidity which cannot, therefore be
easily excused" Mors interesting than
this, though, is Sir Edwin Arnolds re-
minder Of one of the forces (which
more potently tends to hold China to-
pether in her intense and exclusive ma
tionality," namely, the extreme anx-
iety of the Celestial to be buried at
home. "But If some high ecclesias-
tical authority, or the Vermillion Pen
ell itself, should decree as they well
might, that Confucius should be sat-
isfied if a pinch of Chinese dust were
thrown into the foreign grave-then
the hoodgates would be open to gen.
eral Chinese immigration into all lands.
Zone perceives how heavy the obliga-
ton is, and ut the same time how bind
ing, when again and again, at San
Francisco and other ports of embarka-
ton, Chinese passengers are stopped
carrying in a carpet-bag or hat-box
the bones of their relatives. But when
any such general emigration of China
men occurs as that which l am fore
casting, it will be social and industri-
al deluge. The markets of the world
win be literally swamped with the
most industrious, persevering, fearless
and frugal specimens of mankind who
will everywhere underbid labor and
monopolize trade, as they have done In
Singapore, Penang and many other
spots. The danger to civilization that
China represents consists in this rather
than in her unwieldy strength and
slothful resources, the inefacacy Of
which for actual service Japan has al
ready exposed by the brilliant COM
mencement of the present campaign.
ssFor these and other reasons 1t Is to
the interest of the civilized world that
China should not become more homo
geneous or any larger than she Is 1t
present, and above all that she should
not intrigue with the second colossal
standing menace to human progress,
the Russian empire, against the free
dom Of the Pacific. That German jour
nal had the true instinct in scientific
politics which lately wrote that, in the
war just declared, the sympathies and
rood wishes of civilization were due en-
tirely to the side Of Japan"