leaders be able to formulate a policy which will be any improvement on that laid down by the individuality of the chief men in the State, as at present? One cannot say. Meanwhile Japan is lucky to possess at the head of her affairs men like Ito, Okuma, Saigo, Inouye, and Itagaki in these transition days. Whatever may be the defects in the early working of a Constitutional Government in Japan, events have shown that when a national danger menaces the country the simple policy of patriotism, understood by all, educated or otherwise, comes to the front, smothers conflicting opinions and petty jealousies, and saves the situation in Japan—as it does in England, for the matter of that. That is perhaps the most tangible guarantee that we have that Japanese politics in the long-run will work out their own salvation; and when we study the practical effect of a Constitutional Government in Japan up to the present, and notice its weak points, we must not lose sight of the fact that its existence does not yet date back quite ten years. CHAPTER XIII OUTLINE OF STRATEGICAL GEOGRAPHY THE number of islands which go to make up the Empire of Japan is variously estimated. In fact, one authority in giving a number very often will not come within a thousand or so of the estimate of another equally careful student of Japanese geogra phy. This somewhat wide disparity is not necessarily due to either authority being inaccurate in his calculations; it merely means that they differed in their opinions as to the minimum size of rock which could be reasonably dignified with the name of "island." It is not, however, within my province to split straws on the question, as, whatever estimate we may choose to take, a glance at the map is sufficient to bring home to any one in a forcible manner the fact that Japan is made up of quite enough islands to render very difficult the problem of protecting them all adequately in time of war. A study of Far Eastern geography should at once convince those who had considered that Japan is squandering money in a useless manner on her navy, and is unduly subsidizing and otherwise nurs ing her mercantile marine, that in reality in these two sections of her modern development should lie the future salvation of the country. It is doubtless because the Japanese of to-day have realized this fact, that there are not to be found among her politicians any to correspond with our "Little Englanders." In spite of the trouble that Formosa has given the Japanese Government since they took it over, there is not a single politician who would be in favor of giving it back to the Chinese; and there is no one to suggest in a serious manner the curtailment of the naval programme. No! This sort of "Little Japanner" has not yet been born; and, should any embryo statesman, in following out our Western methods, think that such a policy might bring him self-advertisement, he would find that the value of any notoriety thus gained would be more than counterbalanced by the fact that it would place him in a most unsatisfactory position with his countrymen. It is to be presumed that ninety-nine out of every hundred of the Japanese islands would not be worth protecting; for the simple reason that no foreign Powers would find them worth the trouble of taking. But, if we reckon the Japanese islands by tens instead of by thousands, there still remains the fact that the task of adequately protecting such scattered and sometimes isolated pieces of territory could by no means be described as a trivial undertaking. If Nature has ordained that Japan shall be a spreadout island-empire, and vulnerable as such, she has also |