Magellan, as she controls, to-day, the turning-points of Europe, Asia (at Singapore), and Africa. In view of what has been stated it is hardly probable that she will readily forego the pleasure of participating in the control of the Nicaragua Canal, by means of which North and South America, long politically insulated by the Monroe Doctrine, will, broadly speaking, become converted into gigantic island-continents.

Trinidad, finally, the last of the three insular possessions acquired during the eighteenth century (1797), is likewise typical of a group; being the first representative of that long list of islands and partly insulated cities which may become operative as valves, completely regulating the ebb and flow of commerce. With the acquisition of Trinidad, England obtained easy access to all the gateways of the Orinoco; in 1807 she seized the island of Heligoland, at the mouth of the Elbe, and held it for eighty-three years, crippling the commerce of Germany during that period. In 1815, she made a bold dash for the partially insulated city of New Orleans, at the mouth of the Mississippi; and to-day she practically controls the Nile and the Niger-the only drop of bitterness in her cup being the absence of a tight little island at the mouth of the Congo.

The colossal contribution of the nineteenth century to the evolution of islands may be epitomized in a single sentence: steam and electricity, by shortening distance and facilitating communication, enforce the rapid consolidation of the British Empire, and reveal islands, at last, as the primary factors in a most ingenious and perfect system of dominion, based upon the entire geographical configuration of the globe - as the indispensable strands of a webwork, to-day completely encircling the earth. We perceive the central hubs, each different in character, and we can form a conception of the great strategical lines which unite the fabric, and which, in the event of attack or interference, may be drawn together like the snares of that great constructive and mathematical genius, the spider. The comparison may be carried still further. The world-wide commerce of England, with its universal radii of influence, with its enormous fleet, armed in time of war, and furnishing innumerable means of transportation and communication, may be not inaptly compared to the more intricate network of the web, supported by the strands or cables, it is true, yet knitting all these together into a composite fabric.

The possibility of becoming an integral unit of so vast a scheme — a factor which may materially affect the complexion of the political chessboard-has, within an incredibly short time, invested every avail

able island with an extraordinary importance. I well remember that, about twenty years ago, we students at college used to repeat a sort of lugubrious rhyme about the far-away Sunda Islands - so far away, indeed, that whenever we arrived at the beginning of the fourth line, where the location was stated, we were obliged to halt and begin again:

Sumatra and Java,

Borneo and Celebes,

Are the mighty Sunda Islands
In the

Yet these islands, to-day, are our "next-door" neighbors in the Philippines. Even Micronesia, with its geographical nebulæ, is rapidly being brought distinctly within our circle of vision; while every contribution to the literature of this subject is welcomed with extraordinary enthusiasm. Why? Because, deep within the heart of Briton and Yankee alike, we may still find a touch of the eternally youthful spirit of our race the spirit of our dearest and earliest acquaintance, Robinson Crusoe.

JOSEPH SOHN.

THE ETHICS OF THE LAST CHINA WAR.

THE July number of THE FORUM contained an article on "The Ethics of Loot," concerning which some have sarcastically remarked that there was in it much of loot and little of ethics. Even if so, its statement of facts was ethically correct. In spite of a supposed deterioration of moral sense, I now enter on a consideration of the larger question, the ethics of the war itself a question calling for that delicate discrimination which a knowledge of the facts can alone furnish.

But, first, we must examine the ethics of the casus belli, direct and indirect. The real casus belli, as announced in the imperial declaration of war, was the demand by foreign admirals, on June 16, 1900, for the surrender of the Taku forts. IN THE FORUM for January last I referred to one of the edicts, dated June 21, 1900, which reads in part:

"Yesterday a despatch was sent by the doyen of the consuls in Tientsin calling on us to deliver up the Taku forts into their keeping; otherwise they would be taken by force. These threats showed their aggressions. With tears have we announced the war in the ancestral shrines. . . . They rely on crafty schemes; our trust is in Heaven's justice. They depend on violence; we on humanity. Besides the righteousness of our cause, our provinces number more than twenty, our people more than 400,000,000, and it will not be difficult to vindicate the dignity of our country."

At first sight, it certainly seems as if war would have been prevented if the admirals had made no such threatening demand, and the foreign ministers had more strongly appealed to the better judgment of the imperial authorities. Several of the officials had intended, to my knowledge, to exert themselves for the restoration of order and the maintenance of friendliness with the Powers; but as soon as the ultimatum of the foreign admirals reached Peking, these intentions were transformed into indifference for the foreigner's security, if not into open and stubborn enmity. The Chinese Government, if at all anxious to retain its self-respect, could not very well hold aloof from a declaration of war. All the anti-foreign elements were consolidated; and where without the challenge there was only attack from Boxers, after the challenge there was the strong combination of Boxers and imperial troops. One of the consuls at Tientsin, on first hearing the proposition

to seize the Taku forts, exclaimed: "If you do you will be signing the death-warrant of every foreigner in the interior.” In fact, the suddenness of the threat and the shock of collision took away all chance of escape from many helpless men, women, and children in the northern provinces.

The action of the admirals and ministers, viewed in this light, appears as altogether too precipitate, rash, and inconsiderate. Admiral Kempff stands out as the one man who did not "lose his head." If the foreign ministers had been men commanding respect by strong personality, fair-mindedness, and discriminating good sense; if as a body they had, as was once contemplated, boldly, firmly, and justly argued the peril, wrong, and folly of the existing situation, before the Emperor and the Empress-Dowager; and especially if the rising wave of fanatical Boxerism had been checked at an earlier date, I believe that the awful catastrophe that cast its shadow over the whole world, the necessity for an ultimatum, and the impulse to war might have been avoided. Taking circumstances even as they were, I am ready to say that perhaps the issue would have been for the best, if the surrender of the Taku forts had not been demanded, but that a careful calculation of the probabilities, with the accompanying sense of obligation, necessitated the ultimatum, serious and fatal as it was.

What, then, were the facts on the other side? As early as June 12, 1900, I presented to the princes and ministers of the Foreign Office, at their request, a statement on the necessity of dealing vigorously and promptly with the Boxer rising. I was given to understand that they were powerless, and that the Empress-Dowager could alone act. On June 17, before the action at Taku was known in Peking, an imperial edict was issued containing the following significant suggestion:

"If the ministers and their families wish to go for a time to Tientsin [what of the rest, and the native converts?], they must be protected on the way; but the railroad is not in working order. If they go by the cart road it will be difficult, and there is fear that perfect protection cannot be given. They would do better to abide here in peace."

And, oh, such peace!

In brief, the Boxers, unchecked by the Government, had already massacred two English missionaries half-way between Peking and Tientsin; the missionaries in Pao-ting-fu had been hopelessly cut off from escape to the coast; a chancellor of the Japanese legation had been butchered outside the gates of Peking by imperial soldiers; all foreign property in Peking, outside of the legation area and the North Cathe

dral, had been destroyed; Boxers had begun their attack on Tientsin; hundreds of native converts had already been massacred, and others had deserted their homes and were in hiding, while the purpose seemed more and more real to exterminate every disciple of Western teachers; communication between Peking and the sea was effectually broken; and the foreign ministers, thwarted in every argument of reason, had sounded out the alarm: "Situation extremely grave; unless arrangements are made for immediate advance to Peking, it will be too late."

What is of more significance, mines were being laid around Taku, and 7,000 Chinese soldiers, under General Nich, with sixty field-guns, were ordered on June 16 to come up to Taku by train from the military rendezvous at Lutai, to oppose further foreign relief from outside. Considering what the military strength of the Chinese was, in and around Tientsin, it certainly seemed probable that if Taku was held by the Chinese and relief for foreigners should be cut off in approach by sea, the foreigners in Tientsin would be overcome and massacred, and after that there would easily follow the massacre of all foreigners in Peking. There was no time for delay. Prompt action was required. The admirals, with the exception of the American, saw that it was their duty to warn, to check, and to forestall the Chinese by informing the commander of the Taku forts that, as a matter of safety, those forts must temporarily be occupied by foreign troops.

A second and minor casus belli was the attack which the legation guard and civilians made on Boxers prior to the siege. This complaint is not referred to in imperial edicts, but was made by Prince Tuan, Duke Lan, and others, in a Grand Council of all the nobles and high ministers of state, on June 16, and again on June 20. have killed our Boxers; we must help the Boxers and

"The foreigners kill the foreign

The facts were these: After the foreigners in Peking had deserted their premises for combined defence, it was reported that bands of Chinese Christians were being surrounded and cut to pieces by the Boxers. With a laudable feeling of compassion, relief parties went out to rescue the converts, and, in so doing, killed several Boxers who were caught in the act of fiendish slaughter. Once or twice Boxers were fired upon as they drew near to assault the legations. Once Boxers who had gathered for their incantations had a few shots fired into them from the city wall behind the German legation.

It should be remembered that neither the Chinese soldiers nor their authorities had done anything whatever to restrain, inside the capital itself, the incendiarism, bloodshed, plunder, and anarchy which thou