"Yes," he answered, with impressive emphasis. "Russia will not pay indemnity in any form. The Czar's final instructions on that point are explicit. No cession of territory and not a kopeck for indemnity, direct or indirect."

As the Japanese differ from the Slavs, so Baron Komura is Sergius Witte's physical and mental antithesis. But the Russian is something more than a characteristic Slav. His hearty, vigorous, democratic manner towards all is quite American. It explains his popularity here. As one sees Baron Komura walking through the corridors of the Hotel Wentworth one notes at first only a small, shy, retiring, refined-looking, alert man; but one soon discovers that he is taciturn, secretive, impenetrable. Meet him in his own parlor alone for a half-hour's talk, however, or sit with him at dinner in a private house, and he is a vivacious, instructive companion. He is earnest in his desire to make all things clear, and he certainly does so, with a charm as great as that of his antagonists-and no foreigner can be more agreeable than can a refined, educated, traveled Russian.

The impression which often obtains here, among the less well informed, that Japan's success in civilization is mostly due to the education which, after 1875, her bright young men received in America and Europe and to the suggestions given in Japan by foreigners resident there, is deprecated by Baron Komura, as it is by his old friend and college chum, Baron Kaneko. The Japanese have had many centuries of training in precaution, exactness, discipline, despatch. Theirs is no mushroom growth. Theirs is the slow, permanent education of the age in the essential, elemental, national traits, no matter what may have been welcomed from the outside in the way of information, suggestion, and consequent expansion. Theirs is an intense patriotism and love of country; they are proportionately sensitive to hasty and inaccurate generalizations and criticism.

The opinions of Baron Komura and some of his colleagues are expressed in perfect English, and with an exact precision and nicety of language which reveals a characteristic Japanese trait. An

artisan in Osaka makes a tiny box-so tiny, indeed, that one can hardly see it. Then he makes another, a little larger, so as to fit exactly around the first; then another to fit exactly around the second, and so getting larger and larger, until he has made twenty or thirty. Exactness seems to characterize the Japanese in all their affairs. It was, then, natural for them, with their precision, to make by prearrangement," to quote Mr. Kennan's happy phrase.

war

As secrecy in working out the detail of any project seems to be a salient Japanese quality, I ventured to call the attention of a Japanese of high station to its apparent absence among the Russians. This was recently shown. After agreeing to keep the Japanese terms of peace secret, they "leaked out,” in a somewhat distorted form, from the Russian embassy. Not only was no apology forthcoming from Mr. Witte, the ranking Russian plenipotentiary, but the statement which he did make almost seemed to some of the Japanese a cynical defiance of the ordinary rules of courtesy and even honor in such matters. It is, of course, in the Russians' interest to excite as much sympathy as possible for themselves by an immediate exhibition of Japan's drastic demands as precedent to peace.

The writer regrets, however, that one exception has not been made to Japanese taciturnity. It would not have interfered with the progress of diplomatic detail, to which secrecy is, of course, necessary, though the end to be attained may be known. So I said to my Japanese friend: "I could wish that some reply might have come from your embassy, even if made unofficially, to Professor Martens's statement the other day concerning the payments of indemnity. Now, Professor Martens is one of the most eminent authorities on international law, and everything that he says is received with great respect and deference throughout the world. His influence is second to no one's in his own field."

"I recognize the force of your suggestion," replied my friend. "Some reply ought to be made, and, later, a reply will be made. But not now. We do not want these negotiations to become en

tirely the property of the public before they are concluded.”

"But would they?" I rejoined. "It seems to me that Professor Martens raises a question of past history rather than of present politics. He cites the events of 1807, 1815, 1871, and 1878 as proving that indemnity is paid only when a nation is entirely vanquished as well as beaten."

"As a matter of fact," declared the Japanese authority, "in every instance cited by Professor Martens, indemnity was paid, not so much because of lands occupied by the enemy as because of the fear that he would occupy other and more vitally valuable lands. The inference is obvious. If Russia reimburses us at all for the cost of the war, it will be largely because she does not wish to lose all her Pacific possessions.

"Mr. Witte says that Russia will pay for the good Japan has done to his country—as in our care of Russian prisoners -but not a kopeck' for the evil we have done. Yet I have felt that the Power morally responsible for the war should pay the cost of hostilities, into which we were forced for self-preservation. Six months before the beginning of hostilities, Baron Komura, as Foreign Minister, proposed to Russia a reciprocal recognition of respective rights in Korea and Manchuria. That proposal was fair to both sides. Moreover, the acceptance of such a proposal was essential to our national integrity, ever increasingly menaced by Russia. If Mr. Witte had been in power, the proposal might have been accepted. But it was not.

"We have now gained that for which we rightfully contended in Korea and Manchuria. We have saved the national integrity. But we must do more than this. We must secure the future. must rearrange the map of eastern Asia so as to make another Russian advance impossible."

We

Mr. Witte has shown that Russia has larger resources than has Japan on which to raise money. But in the matter of taxation the Japanese affirm that their rates bear only half as heavily on the people as do Russia's on the Russians. Concerning this I consulted Mr. Henry Willard Denison, who occupies a position.

in the Gaimusho, or Japanese Foreign Office, as legal advise, similar to that occupied in the Russian Foreign Office by Professor Martens. Mr. Denison-said: "The rupture with Russia made it necessary to find the funds for meeting the extraordinary expenditures for war purposes. Accordingly, the imperial taxes already in existence were increased in rate. Many others were newly imposed. Thus the burden on the nation may appear to have become heavy. But the rate of local taxation was restricted. Moreover, in view of the present situation, the municipal authorities have been making every effort to curtail local expenditure by postponirg the ccmparatively less in portant among the varicus public undertakings. Hence the local taxes, formerly almost equal to the national im posts, have been greatly reduced, with the result that the increase of the Lurden on the nation is not really so heavy as might be inferred from the increased rate of imperial taxation. Besides, the agricultural classes, which form a large majority of the population of the country, have had their wealth materially augmented by last year's abundant rice harvest, and the nation as a whole, imbued with a high spirit of patriotism, has been practicing great economy."

On February 12, 1902, a treaty was signed by which the Ergland of the West and Japan, the Ergland of the East, became allies. As I left Baron Komura, I could not help hoping that the hand of the Japanese Foreign Minister, under whom that treaty was drafted, may also sign a Treaty of Washington. The first is the most momentous foreign document to which Japan ever became a party, and now, by reason of its renewal on another basis, is stronger than before, not as benefiting the two nations alone, but also as security against general conflagration. The second treaty, however, more dramatic in its making, and the first between two foreign powers to be negotiated in America, would be a greater triumph for humanity. The blessing seems so near: it is so far. Despite the physical nearness of Sergius Witte and Jutaro Komura, it is a far cry from St. Petersburg to Tokyo via Portsmouth.

E. F. B

don't you load?-Hold on! Wounded, eh? Get off there-hospital wagon l'

"So I went stumbling over dead fellows and live ones.

'Then, for a week, or a month, or a year-I don't know how long-I lay in jolting wagons, or walked on dusty roads, or lay in railroad cars for cattle. Those cars were worse than battles-always groans. The worst fellows kept whispering to the others to stick a knife in them because they couldn't bear the aches. I've seen so many men die I get them all mixed up in my dreams; all the faces keep tumbling together.

"Well, and now in a few hours I'll be in my village. That will be the worst. There will be thirty-four widows who don't know it. I was with their husbands. I saw them all tumbled at night into the long ditch. What can I tell the women? I must lie, and say, 'My girls, your husbands are feeling fine!' That's the lie I must tell to thirty-four women. And if you were living in my shirt, you would feel what a hard thing it is to get your tongue and your soul ready for such lies. Every minute I keep thinking what I'll say.

"The meanest part is what the Government will say to these widows. They will say, 'Heigh, you! step up! Number 250,301-husband dead here is two and a half rubles [$1.37] for you and your family for the first month. Next month come back and get two rubles. Third month, one and a half rubles. So

After that, don't come!' off goes the poor woman, shivering and bawling like a baby. She has five or seven children-most of them do. Well, what is left for her? Nothing but to become a bad woman. My wife wrote to me that already five widows in our village have gone to the town to get bad.

"So now I must tell the othersthirty-four widows! That's why I took vodka at the last station. But now it is all out of my head, and I have to begin thinking again what I'll say. Well-I'll put on my shirt."

He drew it down painfully down over his head, and then sat leaning forward, pounding one hand into the other, staring In his big, anxious eyes you could see how hard he was thinking.

at us.

"Tell me this." He stood up and spoke slowly. "Why did they send at first hardly any Cossacks or regular soldiers to the front, but only us militia? These Cossacks-two hundred thousand of 'em-they just ride around here in Russia and beat our peasants. They laugh and tell us, 'We Cossacks must stay here to guard our Czar from the enemy inside.' And who is this enemy? Us- -us peasants! It's all so mixed up I can't think it out. None of us fellows can get it straight. We used to lie in our tents and say, 'Devils! No use to think! They want us killed to-morrow! That's all there is to it !'

"All militia. Even old men with long gray hair. Do you know how old? Why, they had even men who served from 1871 to 1876-men sixty years old! It is against the law, but they broke the law, they dragged the old men out, three right from our village. And in that battle I saw gray heads tumble." He struck his chest. "I-I saw it! Listen! One of them that tumbled he had a grandson fighting right near me! A red-headed boy! And the old one was dead by night!

"Why did he have to die? Did our fellows have anything to say about starting this war? Ah!" The man leaned far back, laughing bitterly; the dim light fell full on his eyes and showed them red with hatred and revolt.

"Look here ! I see now that you fellows are all right, I can talk out to you just the same as I think. I will tell you something I didn't dare to tell you at first. You thought I was drunk. I was—a little-but only a fool talks out when he's drunk with fellows he don't know. But I know you now-I know by the way your eyes look. So I'll tell you how our fellows feel about this.

"In that battle, when old men and boys yelled and tumbled, when some fools even shouted 'way up to God for help, and we all ran around, and no fellow knew what to do next-then General Orloff galloped right through on his big gray and black horse and shouted, 'I will hang you all! You canaille! Cowards, devils, fools! This is how you fight, how you guard the Holy Cross against the heathen, how you guard your God and your Czar. Beasts l'