CHAPTER XI
JAPAN AS A WORLD POWER
Outline of Topics: Standards of world-power; conscription; draft and exemption; army; arms and ammunition; officers of the army; navy; types of Japanese war-vessels; coal supply; "Blue-jacket Spirit"; Japan as a sea power; growth of cosmopolitan spirit; Anglo-Japanese Alliance,—natural, guarantee of peace, confession of England's weakness, admission of Japan's strength; Japan's responsibility; meaning for Christianity; the United States a silent partner.—Bibliography.
It is a sad commentary on the present standards of civilization that a consideration of Japan as a world power requires special attention to military and naval affairs. It is rather a strange coincidence that it was not until little Japan in 1894 showed that she could easily overcome immense China that the "Great Powers" were willing to revise their treaties with her on terms of equality and admit her to the comity of nations. And it is another strange coincidence that it was the Boxer troubles which gave Japan another opportunity to display the efficiency of her military and naval organizations, and win such laurels side by side with troops of the other "Powers," that Great Britain, the mightiest of them all, abandoned her time-honored policy of "splendid isolation" and sought Japan's assistance by means
