Weekly Arizona journal-miner., 1904-03-09
WHY TAPS WENT TO WAR.

WHY TAPS WENT TO WAR.
 In the last issue of the Nogales Oasis Editor Bird has a lengthy edi- toriaI in which he argues that Amer jeans sympathy, in the struggle now going on in the far east, should be with Russia instead of Japan. He ad vances some good arguments but on the whole his article is faulty. The Kan sas City Star, in a recent issue, has the following succinct article on the war:
 The total area of Japan is but little more than the combined areas of Kansas and Missouri. Japan is small CT than Texas. Alaska would make three of her. California is nearer her exact size than any other political division on the earth's surface. Yet where Kansas and Missouri think they are bit crowded with their combined population 4, 800, OOU, Japan has a pop ulation of 41,OOO, 900, not counting those who have spread over into For mosa, Korea, and other neighboring provinces. But this is not the whole story. Despite the common impress sion that Japan is the garden spot of the world, she has only one tillable acre out of eight, the greatest portion of her territory being mountainous, rocky and unfit for any species of ag- riculture.
 Perhaps there is no other place in the world where the problems of life are figured so close as in Japan. Every foot of suitable soil is made to yield every ounce of food that can pos sibly be taken from it. Japanese farms average about the size of Amer ican town lots. The waters of the country are cultivated as carefully as the soil. Fish, in fact, is the greatest food production of the island. Yet with all this the kingdom is wholly unable to produce enough to keep this population alive, and this fact brings us to the really significant feature of the present Japanese Russian war-to the thought that what Japan is fight ing for is the right to live.
 For centuries Japan has relied upon Korea as a food source. Korea is to Japan in an agricultural sense just what the western states are to the At lantic seaboard. If Russia is permit ted to take Korea away from her-that is to close the territory as a sphere of Japanese trade and infiuence-it will menace her national existence.
 We have come to speak of Japan as a warlike nation. Still in one thou sand years Japan has engaged in con- f1ict only three times. The first of her wars was with the Kublai Khan, the Mongol cOnqueror, who was repulsed from an expedition of conquest near the end of the thirteenth century. The second was in l592-S. when her armies made conquest of Korea, the present bone of contention. The third was the struggle with China a few years ago. In the last two wars the essence of the struggle was for room to expand. In the war with Ko- req, it was the aim of the Jauanese statesmen to extend the political v,omar of fha Topanala +brona o-o, ,n China, but the underlying purpose wa to secure territory iB which the Jap anese civilization might find room to grow. This, too, was the underlying purpose of the recent war with China The war was made with the idea of taking Chinese territory on which to plant Japanese colonies and thus re- lieve the over crowded condition of the island proper. When Europe stepped in and ompelled Japan to satisfy her self with the island of Formosa and a cash indemnity it was making cer- tain the war of today, for there is no logic which can conceive of Japan re- Inaining content with her pent up condition while virgin territory like Korea lay close to her view. Still the war might have been averted for years had not Russia greedily sought that which Japan had been deprived of by the concert ot the powers. So long as Japan was permitted to dominate the l commerce of Korea, as she did and to | draw her agricultural supplies from that rich province, she perhaps could l afford to remain at peace and await 1 the developments which time might | bring forth. But not so when Russia l moved from Manchuria on Korea. No statesman in the world can justify 1. Russia on that move and condemn Ja- | pan for seeking to block it. If Japan | had remained peaceful under the cir ! cumstances it would have been at the | risK of national dissolution.
 We believe that the best sentiment l of the world is willing that Japan ] should have Korea and her chance to | grow. The island people have shown | themselves to be the most capable and . most progressive of all the orientals They have astonished the world, in fact, by the facility with which they have taken on the ways of modern civilization. No one can doubt that the future of Korea will be far more satisfactory under the rule of the progressive Jap than under the rule of the coarse and barbaric Russ. And