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tunities in those countries for the commerce and industry of all nations, agreed that if either party should, in defence of its interests in those countries, become involved in war with another power, the other party would maintain a strict neutrality and use its efforts to prevent any other power from taking part in hostilities against its ally, but that if these efforts were not successful it would at once come to its ally's assistance and make war and peace in common with it.

This agreement was replaced by the treaty of August 12, 1905, the objects of which were declared to be (a) the consolidation and maintenance of the general peace in the regions of eastern Asia and of India; (b) the preservation of the common interests of all the powers in China by insuring the independence and integrity of the Chinese Empire and the principle of equal opportunity for their commerce and (c) the maintenance of the territorial rights of the high contracting parties in the regions of eastern Asia and of India and the defence of their special interests in those regions. To this end they agreed that if by reason of unprovoked attack or aggressive action by any other power either party should be involved in war in defence of such territorial rights or special interests the other party would come to its assistance and conduct the war and make peace in common with it. Great Britain then explicitly recognized the paramount political, military, and economic interests of Japan in Korea, while Japan

reciprocally recognized Great Britain's special interests in all that concerned the security of the Indian frontier. As regarded the war then in progress between Japan and Russia, it was, however, agreed that Great Britain would continue to maintain a strict neutrality unless some other power should join in hostilities against Japan.

The foregoing treaty was replaced with a new alliance signed at London July 13, 1911. The same general objects are professed as in the treaty of 1905, but it is stated that "important changes" have taken place since that time. This phrase no doubt embraced the absorption of Korea, where Japan's "paramount interests," which are no longer mentioned, had ripened into territorial rights. And as regarded the "territorial rights" or "special interests" of the allies in eastern Asia and in India, their obligation to aid each other in war in defence of such rights or interests was now declared to become effective upon "unprovoked attack" or "aggressive action" by any power "wherever arising." This obligation was potentially qualified by a stipulation to the effect that, "should either . . . party conclude a treaty of general arbitration with a third power," it should not be obliged to go to war with the power with which such treaty was "in force." This clause is understood to have been intended to refer to a treaty of general arbitration between the United States, on the one part, and Great Britain and France, respectively, on the other, concluded in Au

gust, 1911, which was in process of negotiation when the alliance was signed; but, as this treaty never came into force, the scope of the alliance did not prove to be affected by it.

Korea, the Land of the Morning Calm, continued, long after the opening of China and Japan, to maintain a rigorous seclusion. Efforts to secure access had invariably ended in disaster. On May 20, 1882, nowever, Commodore Shufeldt, U. S. N., invested with diplomatic powers, succeeded, with the friendly good offices of Li Hung-Chang, in concluding with the Hermit Kingdom the first treaty made by it with a Western power. The last great barrier of national non-intercourse was broken down.

Beset

The results that followed were unforeseen. by the rival pretensions of China and Japan to suzerainty, Korea, leading a feeble and uncertain existence, formed the immediate occasion of the war between those countries in 1894. At the end of this war China relinquished her claims, but France, Germany, and Russia intervened to stay the hand of Japan. Subsequently, the Korean government made to eminent Russians large timber concessions on the Yalu River. It was chiefly these concessions, which were regarded as exposing Korea to Russian domination, that precipitated the war between Russia and Japan of 1904.

Immediately after the peace of Portsmouth Japan proceeded formally to absorb Korea. The direction. of Korean external relations was taken over by the

Japanese Foreign Office; and on November 24, 1905, Mr. Root, as Secretary of State, informed the minister of the United States at Seoul that the diplomatic representation of matters affecting American persons, property, and treaty rights was transferred to the American legation at Tokyo, and directed him to return home. Korea as an independent state ceased to exist.

References:

As to "Reciprocity" and the Abolition of Discriminating Duties, see

Moore's Digest of International Law, II, 69-76;

Trescot's Diplomacy of the American Revolution, and his

Diplomacy of the Administrations of Washington and Adams; Schuyler's American Diplomacy and the Furtherance of Com

merce;

The Foreign Policy of the United States, Political and Commercial (American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1899); Johnson's America's Foreign Relations.

As to Diplomacy with the Far East, see

Foster's American Diplomacy in the Orient;

Griffis's Matthew Galbraith Perry (Boston, 1887) and Townsend Harris, First American Envoy to Japan (Boston, 1893); Mahan's Problem of Asia and Its Effect on International Policies;

Roberts (Edmund), Embassy to the Eastern Courts (New York, 1837);

Williams's Anson Burlingame and the First Chinese Mission to Foreign Powers.

See, also, for Diplomatic Relations with China, Moore's Digest of International Law, V, 416 et seq.; with Japan, id., 733 et seq.; with Korea, id., 567.

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VI

NON-INTERVENTION AND THE MONROE DOCTRINE

AMONG the rules of conduct prescribed for the United States by the statesmen who formulated its foreign policy, none was conceived to be more fundamental or more distinctively American than that which forbade intervention in the political affairs of other nations. The right of the government to intervene for the protection of its citizens in foreign lands and on the high seas never was doubted; nor was such action withheld in proper cases. But, warned by the spectacle of the great European struggles that had marked the attempts of nations to control one another's political destiny, the statesmen of America, believing that they had a different mission to perform, planted themselves upon the principle of the equality of nations as expounded by Grotius and other masters of international law. This principle was expressed with peculiar felicity and force by Vattel, who declared that nations inherited from nature "the same obligations and rights," that power or weakness could not in this respect produce any difference, and that a "small

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