Weekly Nome industrial worker. (Nome, Alaska) 1918-1919, 1918-12-21
THE CLOUD IN
The FAR EAST

| to operate then, but it does mean that
the change in human thought, which
had been slowly terminating, for ap-
| preaching half century, suddenly
| manifested itself in a very marked
| form in the first decade of the Twen-
| tieth Century. This aroused political
morality made it impossible for Ger
| many to do, in 1914, what she had
done with impunity in the winter of
Seven Days War, in the Seven
Weeks War, and in the Seven
Months War. In precisely the same
way Japan might claim that she was
not doing anything mare in China
than had been done by the powers
who forced opium on the. Chinese
! government and insisted on the
Treaty Ports. But as in the case of
Germany, so in the case of Japan,
time is inexorably against them The
political morality OF 1914 was not
the political morality of 1740 or even
of the Nineteenth Century in Europe
and China.
1t is this fact. unfair perhaps as it
may seem to Japan, that is bound to
influence the settlement with respect
to the Far East when the peace con-
ference meets, and it because of this
it is no use for the Great Powers to
shut their eyes to facts. On the die
tum of all he Allies, from Washing
ton to London, and from Paris to
Rome, provinces are no longer to be
treated as farms, or people as cattle
Therefore, the peaceable penetration
of Manchuria is a question, not for
Japanese generals to decide, but for
the people of that province, and there
can scarcely be any doubt that the
people of that province are in no hurry
to exchange the colored stripes of the
flag of the Republic for the Chrysan-
themum of Japan. That the question
here rises is no mere academic ;ssue
is made positive by the announce
ment that Japan has sent troops into
Manchuria to proect the border
against disturbances in Eastern Rus
STA. Now to begin with, the Man
churian frontier is in no danger what
ever, and to end with, if it were in
any danger, after the landing of AL
lied troops at Vladivostok the Chinese
Army is perfectly competent to pro-
tect it. But the fact is Japan is ex-
ercising this right under the military
convention concluded with China,
which arranges for the interchange
of military information, of officers of
the navy and army, and of the move
ment of troops. None the less any
body who knows anything about this
military convention, knows that is
was no more desired by China than
was the now notorious Group Five"
The Chinese Government, after vain
ly turning it's eyes towards the Great
POWERS Oh tUe west, WHO were ldT 100
preoccupied then to come to her as
sistance, accepted the demands OF
Tokyo as something which could not
be avoided, in exactly the same spirit
of resignation with which it has ac-
cepted those loans, which have only |
got to be automatically forced on it |
in sufficient quantity to make the
country as economically subject to
Japan as she is, from a military point |
of view, unable to quarrel with Japan.
The simple truth is that the China
man of today, who is not officially |
openly proclaims the fact
that. if the war goes on long enough,
the peaceable penetration of his coun-
try by Japan will have been so effec-
tual that it will be almost impossible
to escape from it's consequences. This
would eventually mean the practical