but however protracted might be the struggle, however unbroken the course of Japanese victories, it was not to be for a moment expected, nor indeed was it to be desired, that the might of Russia, who is a great European as well as a great Asiatic power, should be crushed. It would have been rash even to assume that her ambitions would be permanently arrested even in the Far East, and still less in other parts of Asia. Nothing would, at any rate, have tended more than a dissolution of the alliance between the two Powers who represent the forces of conservation in Asia, to revive the hopes of those who represent the forces of disintegration.
In these circumstances the British and Japanese Governments wisely decided that the true guarantee for the maintenance of peace in the future was not to loosen but to strengthen the ties uniting the two countries. As the result of their friendly consultations a new Agreement was signed in London on August 12 last. Its purpose, like that of the Agreement of 1902, is purely defensive, but it brings both Powers immediately into line if the interests which it is designed to protect are attacked by another Power. It is concluded for a term of ten years instead of five; and it covers not only the Far East, but the whole sphere of British and Japanese interests in Asia from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean, and opposes a practically insuperable barrier to the restless ambitions which have disturbed the peace of the Far East ever since the adventures of Kiao-chau and Port Arthur, and still threaten, as they have done for generations past, the peace of the Middle East.
This alliance will fulfil in Asia the same purposes which the Dual Alliance was originally intended to fulfil in Europe, and no more than the latter can it be rightly regarded as an aggressive alliance. It will be a powerful combination for the maintenance of the status quo in Asia; and Russia, one may even hope, will in the face of it, gradually be brought to a more
