but to make their power felt in the counsels and contests of the nations. Russia, Germany, and France had combined to rescue China from Japanese control, and Great Britain, separated from the great continental powers, found in Japan a convenient and useful ally. The British government was not slow to realize the situation. Even before the war had fairly begun and when the triple alliance in Asiatic affairs was still inchoate, it had taken the step which was essential to an alliance with the Japanese empire.
The highest ambition of that empire was to secure release from the bondage in which it was held by the treaties with the Western powers. No nation could be its friend and ally which was not ready to yield that point. The British government signified its readiness to take up the revision, and, from being the recalcitrant power, it became the one most prompt to accept the conditions proposed by Japan. The latter, also, had changed its position. It no longer thought of foreign judges in its courts, as it proposed in 1886. When it declared war against China and marshaled its army and navy for the contest, it was not alone to settle its differences with its neighbor, but to achieve its independence and sovereignty among the nations of the earth. Great Britain recognized that Japan had at last reached the goal of its twenty-two years' diplomatic struggle, and in 1894 entered into a treaty whereby the practice of exterritoriality was to be completely abolished, the whole country was to be opened to foreign residents, and the statutory tariff of Japan was to control the imposts, from and after 1899; and
