[Footnote *: Since this was written a Nobel Peace Prize has justly
been awarded to the President.]
"Peace hath her victories,
No less renowned than war."
The Czar signified his satisfaction by making Witte the head of
a reconstruction ministry and by conferring upon him the title
of Count; and the Mikado showed his entire confidence in Baron
Komura, notwithstanding some expressions of disappointment among
the people, by assigning him the delicate task of negotiating a
treaty with China.
Though the attitude of China had been as unheroic as would have
been Menelaus' had the latter declared neutrality in the Trojan
war, the issue has done much to rouse the spirit of the Chinese
people. Other wars made them feel their weakness: this one begot
a belief in their latent strength. When they witnessed a series
of victories on land and sea gained by the Japanese over one of
the most formidable powers of the West, they exclaimed, "If our
neighbour can do this, why may we not do the same? We certainly
can if, like them, we break with the effete systems of the past.
Let us take these island heroes for our schoolmasters."
[Page 194]
That war was one of the most momentous in the annals of history.
It unsettled the balance of power, and opened a vista of untold
possibilities for the yellow race.
Not slow to act on their new convictions, the Chinese have sent a
small army of ten thousand students to Japan--of whom over eight
thousand are there now, while they have imported from the island
a host of instructors whose numbers can only be conjectured.
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