Evening star., 1905-10-07

Written for The Star.
ION the knees Of the gods lies War"
When they toss 1T to the world again
on what nations will the red fate fall?
Some day, not In ours, there will be
peace-peace on every parallel, peace on
every meridian But the fields Of that
peace lie beyond fields of great battles still
to come. Before the final arbitrament of
love shall be, men will call, perhaps many
times, on the ancient arbttrament Of the
sword.
With the far-reachng costs of the war
that is past. beginning to clamor for pay
ment at the doors of every nation Of the
world. big and little, there is none just
now that wishes war, or, indeed. views
it with anything except great fear. 1t the
next war comes soon, 1t will not come be-
cause any nation would have it.
Nations, like their individual units, learn
sharper lessons from experience than from
reasoning. Reasoning told US all that mod
ern war would be fearful thing, econOmi-
cally and morally; but until Modern War
actually made Its own ghastly demonstra-
tion the nations were only accidentally
averse to war. The "firebrand'' for which
Europe is proverbially ready would not
have met the earnest efforts to extinguish
1T that 1t Will meet now.
Bursting Its Fetters.
But the old world-and that means all the
white mans world, America as well as
Europe-is straining and aching to burst
fetters of geography and politics. Its house.
vast as 1t is, and still containing vast
empty spaces as it does. is too small for 1t.
1t can no more help growing than a boy
can; and short of annihilation there Is noth-
ing-peace. congresses, arbitrations, ALL
ances or mutual good will-that can stop
that growth any more than a boy can be
stopped by any method short Of killing
him.
The nation that does not get room is
doomed and they all know it.
Where lies the future? In the purple
east, in the sea discovered by Balboa, in
the lands of Marco Polo. In the realms of
Sinbad the Arab.
The future lies there, not merely because
there is wealth still ungathered. dominion
still untouched, empire still unmade. 1t lies
there because there is no elsewhere.
And SO even now, before the battlefields
of Manchuria have ceased to shoulder, the
great and real struggle is on in the open as
1t has been for centuries in the dark and
in secrecy-the fight for the hope of the
white world, the Pacific ocean and its
golden lands, and that means not only
Asia and Polynesia, but Africa well, for
the gate to Africas treasure house is IN
the east
That fight is and will be wa--gri-n Bit
ter, remorseless war, whether it be fought
out with dollars and polite alliance pacts
and commercial treaties, or with the more
plainly read utterances of artillery How
soon 1t may pass from one form of war to
the other none may say.
The fire of battle may leap forth at
breath that fans some obscure spark some
where in an unmatched quarter. That is
the present fear of every government en-
earth; for the great game Is only begun,
and none is ready to grasp for the stakes
by violence until the hazard shall have
been better weighed.
But 1t is a very present danger-much
more so that 1t has been in many decades;
for the settlement of the issue between the
Russian and the Japanese has made the
prize tangible. There is little tine left for
the Slow and subtle methods of diplomacy.
Who wants his share of the stakes must
play a. quick game and bold one.
Playing for Life.
Russia, with one great stake gone is sit
ting at that board, playing game now
that means life for her, fighting a fight
far more desperate than was that with the
japanese The world that looks on may
think that this is a player who, having
played madly and lost. is doomed to lose
still more; but the governments that play
with the Bear know better. They know
that the clipping of empire in the east has
merely made Russia a vastly more danger
Gus neighbor in the west, because Russia's
game now is prompted not by mere ambi-
ton for empire, not by traditional land
hunger, but by absolute necessity Russia
must get to the sea to live-to the Pacific
through the Indian ocean if she is blocked
in the farthest east; to the Atlantic across
the north of Europe If she is blocked in
the Baltic, or to both oceans through the
narrow gate of the Bosphorus.
Austria-Hungary is playing, with a grand
stake to lose and little to win, knowing that
sne cannot cease to play and yet that every
is hers Indeed, in way In this game
that Is on now 1t is the European world
against the Hungar crown of st. Stephan
and the Germanic crown of Austria
France is playing, already a loser check
mated in Fashoda and Morocco, and now
Durdened by the knowledge that she has
been the partner of a defeated nation in a
losing game. during which she barred her
vitals by lightly casting off the armor of
neutrality-an act that has established prec-
edents which may well cost her dear In a
war of her own
The brown Japanese sits there smiling
and polite, ''ehildlike and bland, lflre q
fellow Asiatic in a certain famous jnterna-
tional game of poker in the west He wants
no sudden riots in the east now-not until
ne has the house in order again after the
fearful houseceaning.
With modest generosity he has placed his
stakes on the table and with uplifted palms
bids the players take them all-tbe tmpos
stakes of the open door,
A Worthless Stake.
When those stakes are won the winners
may we'll look to find them worthless. The
door will be open. indeed: and all Will be
invited to enter. But the room will be full
of Japs.
The brown man has not played against
the bear in order to give the winnings to
the white man. He knows perfectly we'll
that when 1t comes to dealing with the
Mongolian and the other men of Asia, the
Asia'tic Japanese is the one who will have
the benefit of race, the advantage of inti-
mate acquaintance, the superiority of con-
tiguity and the prestige of dazzling mill
tary success.
So he laughs In his fist as the white world
talks wisely of yellow peril, of a coming
attempt at making great Asiatic attack
on the rest of the world
II he even dreams of such an alliance IT
is a dream afar. What he wants now is not
to combine the other Asiatic nations, but to
exploit them. What he wants and must
have now is not war with the white world,
but friendship. during which he may uri-
dersell 1t inside of the open door and. when
he cannot undersell.s control the trade by
every method knott TO Assatic subtfIity,