to

after a period of inaction in Tibet due to Britain's life and death struggle against Germany, presented Twelve Demands regarding Tibet to China. This was regarded as an opportune moment for Britain to force the Tibetan issue in Chinese politics, and secure a settlement, when China was facing the most difficult question of her entering the World War against Germany. We have pointed out that the previous negotiations of 1913 and 1914 had failed to secure unanimity of action. In 1917 Britain urged China to be more reasonable (!) and made the following demands which were first published in the Japanese press:

"I. Great Britain shall have the right to construct railways between Tibet and India. 2. The Chinese Government shall contract loans from the British Government for the improvement of the administration of Tibet. 3. British experts shall be engaged for industrial enterprises of Tibet. 4. The treaty obligation between Tibet and Great Britain shall be considered valid as heretofore. 5. China shall secure the redemption of loans contracted from the British people by the Tibetans. 6. Neither China nor Great Britain shall send troops to Tibet without reason. 7. The Chinese Government shall not appoint or dismiss officials in Tibet on its responsibility. 8. The British Government shall be allowed to establish telegraph lines in Lhasa, Chianghu, Chamutao, etc. 9. British postal service shall be introduced in Lhasa and other places. 10. China shall not interfere with the actions of the British Government in Tibet. 11. No privileges or interests in Tibet shall be granted to other nations. 12. All mines in Tibet shall be worked by the British and Chinese Governments". 15

The Chinese attitude on the British demands was well expressed by Dr. C. C. Wu, the then Acting Foreign Minister of China, in a Memorandum on the subject:

"China wants nothing more than the re-establishment of Chinese suzerainty over Tibet, with recognition of the autonomy of the territory immediately under the control of the Lhasa Government. She is agreeable to the British idea to establish an effective buffer territory, in so far as it is consistent with equity and justice; she is anxious that her trade interest should be looked after by her trade agents, as do the British, a point which is agreeable even to the Tibetans, though apparently not to the British; in other words, she expects that Great Britain would at least make with her an agreement regarding Tibet which should not be more advantageous to her than that made with Russia respecting Outer Mongolia". 16

15 Reid, Gilbert; China, Captive or Free. (New York, Dood, Mead & Co), 1921. pages 124-125.

16 Weale, Putnam: Fight For the Republic in China, p. 479.

It is clear that, according to the Chinese point of view, the British demands were more exacting than the Russian control in Outer Mongolia. The British demands were more objectionable than those of the Japanese in Manchuria or any other part of China. Japan was opposed to British demands in Tibet. The following remarks of an American observer on the British demands on China regarding Tibet in 1917 may be of some interest, as if presents entirely a new point of view for the occidental scholars and public:--

Remember, over here it is not customary to think of anything but Japanese aggression'. Japan, you see, offers the only stumbling block_to the complete domination of the Orient by Europe. But for Japan, China might possibly become another India." 17

In the past British efforts have been consistently to reduce Tibet to a British dependency, if not incorporating it as a part of the British Empire. However, the Tibetan situation remains still unsettled, 18 although it is the concensus of opinion among many students of world politics that in all probablity Tibet will share the fate of Burma. 19

17 La Motte, Ellen N. Peaking Dust. New York, 1917, page 223.

19 แ

18 Willoughby, W. W.: Foreign Rights and Interests in China; Baltimore, 1920, pages 462-463. Great Britain on the southwest completed the circle of Foreign aggression upon the Chinese soil. Step by step the British had established in their supremacy India, and until late in the nineteenth century they began to look eastward and northward for further conquests. To the east of India lay the kingdom of Burma, rich in forests, in fertility, in minerals. To be sure, Burma was a tributary state of China; but no such consideration weighed upon the British when in 1885 they invaded the country, deposed King Theebaw, and annexed his dominions to the British crown. To the north of India lay the independent states of Nepal and Bhutan; they naturally became quasi-independent proteges of the British. In Tibet, however, the British encountered obstinate opposition on the part of the Chinese, who were determined not to let Tibet slip out of their grasp. Nevertheless, China was unable to prevent the British in 1904 from negotiating directly with the Tibetan Government at Lhasa for concessions to British Indian traders and when in 1912 the Chinese Government attempted to treat Tibet as a Chinese province, Great Britain stated that China was no more than a nominal suzerain of Tibet. Encouraged by Great Britain, the Tibetans rose in rebellinon against China, expelled all Chinese soldiers and officials from their country, and defeated the small expeditionary armies sent out from China. Diplomatic

negotiations led to the formation of a convention in 1914, whereby Tibet was divided into Outer and Inner Tibet, China retaining a mere fiction of suzerainty over the whole territory and engaging not to interfere at all in the affairs of Outer Tibet. Upon the refusal of the Chinese Government to ratify this Convention, Great Britain gave notice that China would be deprived of

whatever advantages remained to her in Tibet. The ultimate fate of Tibet could hardly be in doubt; China would find her nominal suzerainty but the thread whereby to secure Tibet against the mighty attraction which had drawn Burma into the British Empire. "-Hayes, Carlton, J. H.; A Political and Social History of Modern Europe, Vol 2, New York, 1917, pp. 569-570.

IN

N her book, "The Ethics of Opium," Ellen N. La Motte explains why Japan is what it is today, and why India and China are what they are. It is, she claims, because Japan has been free, while India has been seized and dominated by a foreign power and China has been dominated by half-a dozen foreign powers and also drugged with opium. Says Miss La Motte:

"Japan has committed a crime which is hard to forgive; she has disproved the contention that Oriental races are unfit to govern themselves. She has also made another blunder, equally momentous: she has disproved the contention that Oriental races need opium as a part of their daily bread. At the time when the European powers were loading themselves up with the White Man's Burden, Japan was considered too insignificant a burden to be worth picking up. This oversight has had farreaching consequences. For by reason of this omission, this failure to grab Japan while the grabbing was good, Japan has been left alone, to work out her own salvation without being dominated (like India) and without being drugged (like China). The result is that today Japan is on a plane, from a commercial and military point of view, with the great European powers." (Page 129.)

Said the Honorable G. K. Gokhale, of India, Member of the Viceroy's Council, in a speech on the Government's Budget (1906):

"Japan came under the influence of Western

ideas only forty years ago, and yet already under the fostering care of its Government that nation has taken its place by the side of the proudest nations in the West. We, the people of India, have been under England's rule three or four times forty years, and yet we contiune to be mere hewers of wood and drawers of water in our own country, and we have no position anywhere else."

Why does small (comparatively small) Japan occupy so conspicuous a place in Asia and the world? And why does India,

much larger, more civilization, occupy a

a country SO very populous, and older in place so much less conspicuous and less honored?

Is it because the people of Japan are by nature a superior people, and the people of India inferior?

As for myself, I think very highly of the Japanese. I have had much acquaintance with them, both in America and in their own country; and I regard them, whether in their intellectual ability, their character or their civilization, as not inferior to the average white nations, and distinctly superior to some.

as

two

But are they superior to the people of India? And even if they are today, were they when the Indian people fell under British domination, a little less than centuries ago? Or were they when Japan emerged from her long seclusion, some seventy years ago?

If at either of those dates, Englishmen or Americans who were best acquainted with the Orient, had been asked which of the two nations, in their judgment, was the superior,

to their civilization, their intellectual

ability and their character, I think they would have assigned to India a place distinctly above Japan.

Certainly, until recent years Japan has had a very inconspicuous place in the world; indeed, she had hardly been known even by the other nations of Asia. On the other hand, India has occupied a very great place. Let us see how great.

From time immemorial India was known not only throughout practically all Asia, but

in eastern Europe and in parts of Africa. At the time of Alexander the Great she was so famous in Greece that it became the supreme ambition of that great conqueror to lead his armies to India, and add to his empire that most renowned country of Asia. And he did push his conquests to India, where he found a civilization which he recognized as little if any inferior to that of Greece, and great kingdoms with armies so strong that after fighting a great battle he decided that wisdom required him to retreat.

Two or three centuries before Christ the Buddhist religion, which had its rise in India was carried by its missionaries all over Asia, to the very borders of Europe, if it did not even penetrate that continent; and a little later it spread over nearly all eastern Asia, carrying Indian thought and influence wherever it went.

There was much knowledge of India among the Romans, and considerable overland commerce bringing to Rome the valuable products of India-jewelry, precious stones, fine silks and so on. Later, the wealth of Venice, Genoa and and other Mediterranean cities was built up largely by their extensive and profitable commerce with India. For more than two thousand years, up to very recent times, numerous great caravans were

all the while moving between the Mediterranean countries and India.

It was to discover a sea-route to India, SO as to give Europe easier access to Indian products and Indian wealth that Columbus sailed over the Atlantic; and when he found America he thought it was India,-hence the incorrect name, "Indians," given to the natives of the American continent.

The glory that came to Vasco da Gama from his discovery of a passage around the south of Africa came mainly from the fact that it gave the European nations, what they had so long desired, an all-ocean way to India. As soon as that route was discovered all the leading sea-going nations of Europe, Portugal, Spain, France, Holland and Great Britain, became rivals in extending their trade by sea to India, and it was not long before the Dutch, French and English were fighting to gain, first, commercial and then political, dominance in that wealthiest and most renowned country in the greatest of the continents. And when Great Britain drove out her rivals, and became the conqueror, possessor, exploiter, and despoiler of the land, drawing from it a stream of riches

greater than the stream of gold and silver which Spain drew from Mexico and Peru, all the nations of Europe were jealous, and ever since have regarded Britain as having obtained the greatest prize (robber prize!) in all the world.

Surely, such a country thus famous from as far back as history extends, ought today to occupy conspicuous place in the world.

Why does it not? Why is it so far outstripped and over-shadowed by Japan?

Compare the past history of Japan, and her past and present resources and natural advantages with those of India.

Japan is very small in area, only about one-seventh as large as India, and possesses only about one fifth as great a population. Instead of being located centrally in Asia, as India is, it is located far to the east, and not even on the continent at all. Its known history does not go back nearly so far as India's, and the beginning of its civilization is much more recent. During much of its history it has been a sort of hermit land, its people having little to do with other nations. Until Commodore Perry, some seventy years ago, broke up its isolation and compelled it to open its doors to foreign intercourse, it was very little known even in Asia, and had practically no place at all among the nations. of the world. Whatever literature it had created, was unknown to other peoples. Its chief religion was borrowed from a foreign country, India. Its art, although in some of its forms of considerable excellence, was limited and at least to a degree was an imitation of that of China. It was almost wholly an agricultural land its manufactures being few and its foreign commerce very restricted, neither one comparing at all with those of India. It had almost no iron or other mineral resources and its coal was limited, whereas the iron, coal and other resources of India were well nigh inexhausitible. Its wealth was very small compared with the vast wealth which India possessed before her conquest and exploitation by the British.

And yet, within the last two generations, Japan has become the foremost nation in Asia and one of the foremost in the world, while India has lost its leadership in Asia which it had maintained for twenty-five centuries, and has now no recognition at all among the

world's nations.

What is the explanation of this amazing difference which we see between the two countries today,-the splendid advance of

little Japan in almost every respect, and the astonishing stagnation and decadence of great historic India?

Can any intelligent man anywhere, in this country or any other, suggest any possible explanation but one? And is not that one the fact that Japan is and has been free, while India, for nearly two hundred years, has been in bondage to a foreign power?

It is universally agreed today that the today that the prime condition of advance, I may say the prime creator of advance, among nations in the modern world, is education; and that the prime cause of the stagnation and decline of nations, is want of education. Let us how this applies to Japan and India. Has education flourished equally in the two countries? Have the governments of the two been equally interested to promote education?

see

In Japan, as soon as the nation decided to give up its policy of isolation, and put itself into contact with the other nations of the world, the government saw the importance of universal education for its people. As early as 1869 it issued an educational ordinance of a very redical character, which read: "Education is essential for all persons and whereas in the past learning has been looked upon as a means of securing official position, henceforth the whole population of the country, regardless of classes, must be educated, so so that no village shall contain a person devoid of learning, nor any house contain an illiterate inmate.

Accordingly, schools of all grades were established, primary, secondary, and high; as also colleges and universities. Particular attention was paid to agricultural, industrial, and technical education. And, what the government clearly saw the importance of, young men in large numbers were sent abroad to study in the best colleges, universities, and agricultural, industrial and technical institutions, of America and Europe, so that they might become teachers and leaders at home.

On the other hand, from the beginning of British rule in India, the foreign government there adopted an educational policy almost the opposite of that of Japan. It feared and distrusted education, realizing that a people kept in ignorance would be most easily controlled and kept under British power. True, after a while it established an educational system of a sort, but it was very limited in its scope. It reached only a small fraction of the nation; and as for higher educaton, that was

shaped mainly with a view to fitting young men for the service of their British masters. Scientific and industrial education, and all kinds of training calculated to fit young men and women serve India, to develop her material resources, to build up her industrial life, and to put the Indian people into contact with the other peoples of the world-these kinds of education were seriously neglected or wholly ignored. Instead of sending students abroad to get the best training obtainable there, as Japan did, it discouraged everything of the kind. Especially it put obstacles in the way of young men desiring to come to America to study, because it feared the influences of freedom and democracy with which in this country they would be surrounded.

Dr. Sudhindra Bose (Lecturer in the State University of Iowa) has put the whole matter clearly. Says Dr. Bose:

"Although technological institutes and agricultural schools are a prime necessity in the economic uplift of any country, there has not been and is not any adequate provision for the creation of these in India. Had India possessed, like Japan, a national government free to rule its own destiny, the situation would have been very different. Sixty years ago Japan was industrially no better off than India. At that time Japan was a feudalistic agricultural country, with a strong aversion to foreign trade or commerce. The nation was sharply divided (her divisions were quite as great as any existing in India) into many classes and sub-classes, of which the Samurai, the warrior class, was the most powerful faction. With the advent to Commodore Perry, Japan turned over a new leaf. The Japanese government decided to make their country the leading industrial land of the Orient. And how did the Japanese government go about it? Japan had little or no modern industrial knowledge or experience. It was entirely without models for industrial organization and without financial machinery.

At this juncture the government took hold of the situation. It established schools and colleges, where all branches of applied science were taught. Says Baron Kikuchi There were official excursions into the domains of silk-reeling, cement making, cotton and silk spinning, brick-burning printing and book-binding, soap-boiling typecasting and ceramic decoration. Domestic exhibitions were organized by the government for the encouragement of the people in undertaking these products and manufacturers were sent under governindustries: and specimens of the country's ment auspices to exhibitions abroad. The government established a firm whose functions were to Japanese artisans. Steps were taken for training familiarize foreign markets with the products of women as artisans, and the government printing bureau set the example of employing female labor, an invasion which soon developed into large dimensions. In short, the authorities applied themselves to educate an industrial disposition,

*The Open Court, August, 1920