bold front against the United States was and is, like all their objects, purely commercial. They hoped to stir up in the Japanese mind an ill-feeling that would prevent the award of any more contracts to American ship-yards, and even this characteristic stratagem is not likely to have more than a temporary effect.

Thus I think it may be assumed that Japan's immense naval preparation is not made with the United States in hostile view; certainly not mainly.

Assuming these conditions to be beyond dispute, and considering that the completion of the Trans-Siberian railway will at once make Russia a great Pacific power, politically and commercially, her naval situation in those seas must become a matter of prime importance; perhaps not of equal importance with that of the United States now, but at once sufficient to challenge the best efforts of her statesmen.

Having all these facts in view, and being in a position to judge with some accuracy of the significance and value of preparations which came under my own observation during a recent tour of Europe in my professional capacity, I could not help remarking the vast difference between the naval activity of Japan and that of the other two first-rate Pacific powers, Russia and the United States. The existing situation in Russia and the United States, relatively speaking, can hardly be called more than the merest perfunctory progress, whereas the activity of Japan is really marvelous. If she were simply meditating another attack on China alone or unsupported, no such fleet as Japan is now building would be needed; certainly not the enormous battleships and the great armored cruisers. It must therefore be assumed that Japan's purpose is the general one of predominant sea power in the Orient.

Japan may, and probably does, meditate a renewal of her efforts to establish a footing on the Asiatic mainland. Possibly, she may have in view the ultimate acquisition of the Philippine Islands. But, whatever may be her territorial ambitions for the future, it is as plain as an open book that she intends, before she moves again, to place herself in a position to disregard and defy any external interference. This may be the true meaning of Japan's extreme activity in naval preparation at this time.

I may say without violation of confidence that a Japanese gentleman of distinction not long ago remarked in conversation

on this subject that "while Japan was forced by circumstances to yield much at Shimonoseki that she had fairly conquered, she still secured indemnity enough to build a navy that would enable her to do better next time!"

In view of all these facts the question at once arises: Are Russia and the United States prepared or are they preparing to meet such conditions, and to maintain their proper naval status as Pacific powers? My answer to that question, based on observations of Japan's naval strength already in sight and on what I know of her intended programmes for further increase in the immediate future, as compared with the relative conditions of Russia and this country would be in the negative.

Just now Russia is trying the experiment of reliance on her own Imperial dockyards, while the United States has halted completely. The Russian dockyards are efficient, as far as they go, and turn out good work, judging from such specimens as I have seen. But their capacity is not adequate to the task that is presented by the situation which I have delineated. No other nation relies wholly on its own public dockyards for new naval constructions. England, with public dockyards almost equal in capacity to those of the rest of the world combined, builds over 65 per cent. of her displacement and 97 per cent. of her horsepower by contract with private shipyards and machine-shops. France, with very great dockyard facilities, builds a large proportion of her hulls and machinery by contract. The same is true of Germany, Italy, and the United States. But Russia has no great private shipbuilding facilities, and there are no visible signs of the immediate development of resources of that description.

Japan, on the contrary, though she has some facilities of her own, is drawing upon the very best resources elsewhere to be found; she is drawing on the shipbuilding power at once of England, France, Germany, and the United States. Not only that, but more than that; the vessels Japan is building in the shipyards of England, France, and Germany are superior to any vessels those nations are building for themselves, class for class.

Hence, viewing the situation from any point at will, the conclusion of any one qualified to judge must be that, in the race for naval supremacy in the Pacific, Japan is gaining, while Russia and the United States are losing ground.

It requires little prescience to discern that the issue which is to settle that question of supremacy as between the powers may not be long deferred.

Though Japan's naval activity is primarily significant of a purpose to secure general predominance in Oriental seas, and though, as I have suggested, there is no immediate reason for, or prospect of, trouble between Japan and the United States involving naval armaments, yet, in the broad general sense of dignity on the sea, our country can by no means safely ignore or be inattentive to the progress of our Oriental neighbor toward the rank of a first-class sea power in the Pacific Ocean. The completion of her fleet now building will, inside of three years, give Japan that rank, and the future programme already laid out will accentuate it. The superior quality of Japan's new navy is even more siguificant than its enormous quantity. She has no useless ships, none obsolete; all are up to date.

Meantime, the attitude of the United States seems quite as supine as that of Russia. It is not necessary to go into minute detail on this point. Suffice it to say that, taking Russia, Japan, and the United States as the three maritime powers most directly concerned in the Pacific Ocean, and whose interests are most immediately affected by its command, Japan at her present rate of naval progress, viewed with relation to the lack of progress of the other two, must in three years be able to dominate the Pacific against either, and, in less than ten years, against both.

I have heard the question raised as to the character and quality of the Japanese personnel; I have heard the suggestion that, magnificent as their material may be, their officers and men are not up to the European or American standard. It is not my intention to discuss this phase of the matter. But it is worth while to observe that, if the Japanese officers with whom we are in daily contact as inspectors of work we are doing for their government are average samples, they have no odds to ask of the officers of any other navy whatsoever as to professional ability, practical application and capacity to profit by experience. it should also be borne in mind that they have had more and later experience in actual warfare than the officers of any other navy, or of all other navies. While all other navies have been wrestling with the theoretical problems of war colleges, or encountering the hypothetical conditions of squadron evolutions,

And

fleet manœuvres and sham battles, the Japanese have been sinking or taking the ships, bombarding the towns and forcing the harbors of their enemy. I do not know how others may view this sort of disparity in experience, but in my opinion it is the most portentous fact in the whole situation, and because of it no navy that has not done any fighting at all has the slightest license to question in any respect the quality of the personnel of the Japanese navy that has done a good deal of extremely successful fighting.

On the whole the attitude of Japan among the powers is in the last degree admirable. Her aspirations are exaltedly patriotic, and her movements to realize them are planned with a consummate wisdom, and executed with a systematic skill which nations far older in the arts of Western civilization would do well to emulate.

CHARLES H. CRAMP.

THE CLAYTON-BULWER TREATY.

BY MAYO W. HAZELTINE.

THE September number of this REVIEW devoted some fourteen pages to an article by Mr. James Gustavus Whiteley on the diplomacy of the United States in regard to Central American canals. The article is, substantially, a plea for our adherence to the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, and, as such, it must be acknowledged to be, perhaps, the most effective argument on that side of the discussion which has yet been published. It is worth while, therefore, to examine the points made by the writer, and inquire what weight they ought to have with the present administration. It has been, undoubtedly, the disposition of the Republican party during the last thirty years to regard the treaty either as having been extinguished by lapse of time or as deserving of abolition by a declaration on our part that we will be bound by it no longer. In other words, the treaty has been pronounced either void or voidable, and, in the latter case, it has been urged that the proper proceeding to annul it ought to be promptly taken. A different view of our duty or interest in the premises was indicated by our State Department during the two administrations of Mr. Cleveland. Will Mr. McKinley adopt the opinions of his Republican forerunners or those of his Democratic predecessor touching the vital question whether a canal cleaving the Nicaragua Isthmus shall be controlled exclusively by the United States, or whether, in pursuance of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, it shall remain forever.under the joint control of this country and Great Britain ?

I.

The Clayton-Bulwer treaty contained no denunciation clause, but, on the contrary, declared itself to be of perpetual obligation. For this reason the British Foreign Office has proceeded on the