The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1907-05-25

tries. Whatever it is that is thus
linked with peace as it's foundation
and motive, it is something sound,
something advantageous in the long
run to large majority of those d.
rectly and indirectly concerned, and
something that has on it the hall
mark of justice in contrast with peace
on any terms. In other words, it is
something really worth while when
measured in terms Of war-it being
thus conceded that war is the final
and the most dreadful appeal that
man can take for the rectification of
human affairs. 1t is peace on the
merits of the question that such men
as Grant and Kuroki stand for; and
it is peace at any price that Carnegie
and Stead stand for, so far as their
fluent utterances can be made to APP
ply as practical rule of society.
The affairs of this world are not
bounded by New York city, or Pitts
burg, or even Skibo castle. The pres
ence among us of General Kuroki is
significant evidence of the broad
sweep of human interests; of how the
varied races of men are from time
to time brought face to face with
those mighty tides of injustice and
self-conceit which are outside the do
main of reason and amenable only to
physical force. What would Carne-
gle and Stead do in such case with
their peace at any price? What would
they have done with Alexieff, and
Lessar, and Pavloff, as these men and
their associates at st. Petersburg ar
rogantly and confidently planned the
acquisition of northeast China and
Korea, and the ultimate control of
Japano Those Russian gentlemen
would have been delighted to find in
Japan desire for peace at any price
nothing would have served their
own purposes better, or gone further
to tighten their task. They would
have chuckled with glee as they look
ed toward the forests of the Yalu,
the mines of Manchuria, and the sea
gates of Peking All for the asking,
they would have said to one another
or, to state it in the Carnegie-Stead
formula, all for peace at any price.
The dream Of the car about plant
ing civilization and christianity in the
far east is not a dream, they would
have said, but a work as good as done,
so soon as We can get our armies
through Siberia and our ships into the
seas of Japan and China; and with
that populous far east in her hand
Russia would have dominated Europe,
and Russian civilization with all it's
ignorance and incapacity, would have
been the crest of the highest wave in
current history.
The actual course of far eastern
history has produced a different re-
suit. The people and government of
Japan had no idea-no faint conjec-
ture-of peace at any price, Their
single determination, from the Mikado
down to the most obscure rice-grow-
er, was to defend and protect their
own; and Kuroki, Nogi, Oku, Nodzu,
Oyama, Togo, and their devoted COM
rades on the land and on the sea,
made that determination good. Has
peace thereby been lost? Oh, no;
peace for the far east has been won
and made secure.
General Kuroki understands all
this, as all modern soldiers do They
all know that they are merely the
agents of supreme conviction of ne
cessity, just as are the magistrates,
and the prison keepers, and all the
other instruments made use of by So
ciety for its security and protection.