THE GATEWAY A Magazine of the Times devoted to The Gateway does not depend on advertisers for its sole That we are Americans; That Woodrow Wilson is President of the United States; And let us hope PEACE ON EARTH WILL SOON PREVAIL. An authoritative review of the conditions in the Far by JOHN STUART THOMSON. John Stuart Thomson, the Oriental traveler, author of "China Revolutionized," "The Chinese" etc., which books have received the published endorsement of the Royal Geographical Societies of London, Scotland, Belgium; our own National Geographic Society, the National Chambers of Commerce of Siam and Indo-China, ex-U. S. Secretary of State, John W. Foster and Chinese statesmen, lived for years in the Far East, where he knew generals, admirals and diplomats, who are now prominent in the European situation, and where he had unusual opportunities of seeing the fortifications. General Wheeler, who had charge of Britain's Ordnance Department in the China wars and who is now at the head of the Woolrich Arsenal,which is arming the Belgian campaign, was Mr. Thomson's table vis-a-vis at Hong Kong for over a year. He also knew Admiral Sir Percy Scott, the inventor of the big gun "dotter," which solved accurate marksmanship; the British chief, Admiral Jellicoe, who was then second onthe Far East station, and such diplomats as Governors Blake and May of Hong Kong; Governor Lockhart and Colonial Secretary Johnston of Wei-Hai-Wei, et al. For years Mr. Thomson was schooled in the plans of international war and trade at Britain's great naval dock and arsenal headquarters in the Far East, Hong Kong. REAT BRITAIN, the naval arbiter of peace and commerce in Europe, and largely the protector of the world's maritime lanes for America's foreign commerce, has for decades looked upon the autocratic German Kaiser, not as the guardian of unselfish peace, but as the provocative member of European discord and over-armament. In his ambition to at once push Pan-Germanism as far as the Mediterranean and Suez, he has for years kept 2,000,000 German soldiers practically on a mobilized warfooting, and urged, or permitted the Austrian Emperor to encroach three times in the Slavic Balkans, tearing treaties of neutrality to shreds. When Austria "gobbles" up the Balkan Slav, the Kaiser plans to then gobble up Austria, as Frederick the Great once tried, and push German railways through to the Persian Gulf, which is the Inner Gate of India, in the meantime blockading Britain's outer food gate, Suez. Favors German People. I personally am pro-German in this railway extension, if it is to be an investment and not a provocative occupation. I of course have more sympathy academically with our second cousins, the Germans, as a people, ¶ The Knocker has his place-but what a place! than I have with the partially Oriental Slavs. "Scratch a Russ and find a Tartar." However, I agree with the British diplomats and economists that German expansion must be by the peaceful methods of emigration and investment, and not by a general war of aggression, which will destroy the peace of Europe, and disturb world-trade and economical industry. Germany can never righteously or successfully occupy French countries like AlsaceLorraine, Hungary, Slav or Polish. countries. Britain, the most powerful peacepoliceman on the high seas, has been ready for decades, with a preponderating navy, to compel Germany to cease her provocative attitude, and continual conscription and war-mobilization, which has so often threatened civilization with an Esdraelon and the Deluge, really aimed, like the old Holy Alliance, at Anglo-American constitutionalism and democracy. It is inspiring to Americans to know that the head of the British naval defense policy, the First Lord of the Admiralty, is by blood half an American, for Winston Churchill is the son of the lady who was Miss Jennie Jerome of Madison Square, New York City. Just as America struck Spain hardest in the Far East and not in Spain, so Britain will give Germany one of her first reformatory and punitive lessons in far-away China. Hong Kong is Britain's impregnable naval, dock and arsenal base there. I know every foot of the fortified mountainous island, which holds the ten commercial seas safe for Britain and America. There Britain keeps a navy at all times at least one battleship stronger than Germany's and Austria's Far East fleet. Britain relies on Japan as the second line of her defense in the Far East, and the protector of China from general disintegration. Germany's Loss In China. Britain has encouraged Germany to invest hundreds of millions in the shipping, railways, mines and cities of the Far East, so as to endeavor to lead the Teuton democracy to ways of peace and industry, instead of mobilization and aggressive war. Germany has hundreds of millions. invested in the railways and mines of Shantung, Kiangsu and Honan provinces of northeast China. Britain may not be able to restrain China from declaring war on Germany and seizing these railways and mines, in revenge for what the Chinese call "the crime of 1897." Britain will send Japan in to seize the colony of Kiaochau, and Tsingtau port and city, and suspend the "Non-Partition of China" dostrine, and revive the "Spheres of Influence" doctrine for a season, The action is pregnant with vicissitudes. One of them is the possibility of Japan seizing the German Pelew and Caroline islands, on the flank of the Philippines, but this is not a danger as long as Britain holds her restraining influence upon Japan by the Anglo-Japanese alliance, which has been extended recently. Loss of Germany's Marine. That Germany recognizes that her goose is similarly cooked by Britain's navy on the Atlantic, I quote the significant and epochal advertisement in the New York newspapers of August 1st, reading as follows: "Special announcement. In view of the uncertainty of the present European situation, we have decided to postpone the sailings of the S. S. Vaderland from New York; the S. S. America from Boston; the S. S. Imperator from Hamburg; and for the same reason we have ordered the S. S. President Grant, which sailed from New York on Thursday, to return back to New York. Signed, Hamburg-American Line." If Germany did not feel that the invincible British fleets, small as ¶ Discontent is simply another name for Ambition. Britain is, would sweep Germany off the Atlantic as well as the Pacific, the Kaiser's favorite steamship line, in which he is a personal stockholder, would never insert such a significant and humiliating advertisement at the very beginning of the conflict. The Kaiser can clank his heavy sword and rattle glave and gun, but this advertisement of his Hamburg-American line clanks out common sense, and naval and marititem defeat at the very dawn of the haughty conflict, launched against the rights of man to be free to trade in peace. Most of these costly German ships of a tonnage of 2,300,000 will, under Article 56, of the London Naval Conference of 1909, which America signed, eventually fall as a prize to the allies, and Germany's immense foreign commerce and shipping, as well as her colonies in the Far East, Africa, etc., will depart from the earth, as a tragic memory of the folly of the personal wars of kings, oligarchism, and the egotism of a modern Attila, cursed again as "The Scourge of God." Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad. President of Hansa Bund Quoted. BRITAIN, like America, busy al ways in industrialism, sincerely wants uninterrupted peace; the open trade door and civilization; but if Germany persists in egging on, in race pride, mobilization, over-armament and war, Britain, without any major loss to herself, is quite prepared on every sea of the globe, to put a check to German belligerent activity, dynasticism, conscription and provocative over-armament. Only last May, the leading business man and financier of Germany, Dr. Jacob Riesser, President of the Hansa Bund of bankers and exporters; member of the Reichstag, and Professor of Finance in Berlin University, wrote ne in intimation that Germany was Soon may Germany covet a place in the shade, where to cogitate, and resolve on the limitation of absolutism and feudalism. Britain does not oppose Germany's peaceful advance to the Mediterranean. through Austria, when Germany has the emigration to populate those countries with a majority of Teutons, who will keep the peace, and allow minorities to live, but Britain does oppose Germany's warlike incursion into Slav, Polish, French, Belgian and Netherlands countries, as it can be for no other purpose at present, except war, intimidation, provocation and disturb ance. Autocratic kings, who take their decree from Jupiter, and their uniforms from the histories of absolute Rome, are disturbers and not sincere peacemakers. They are always clanking the saber and over-arming. Those who follow them as blindly as Germany is now doing, are as quick to visit upon them revenge for defeat, whereas a defeated people clings the more closely to a constitutional king, who has not forced, but followed a national issue. ¶ The former monarch is an egotist; the latter is a patriot. May the day soon come when our cousins in Germany will have a real Parliament which alone can declare war, and which will listen to the rights of minorities to live; in other words, not destroy men for opinion's sake. Then the German people, the British people, and the American people, will use their restricted war forces as policemen merely, and regulate peace and the open trade door over the whole globe; thus bringing in world-civilization, and possibly world-Christianization. However, as I explained, if the ¶ Theory leads to practice. Without theory we would have no practice. |