The Japan-China War.

Last evening Professor Hollis lectured in the Jefferson Physical Laboratory on "The War between Japan and China." The lecture was illustrated by stereopticon views. A large audience completely filled the lecture room. Following is briefly the substance of the lecture:

Corea has long been a battle ground for China and Japan, and she has received slight consideration from either. For three hundred years the Coreans have paid tribute to China and Japan. In 1875 the Japanese acknowledged Corea's independence, and it has since been a kind of "Monroe Doctrine" that no other nation should control her future. This was one of the strongest motives in the war. Other causes were the maintenance of her commerce and the traditional enmity to China; but the desire to hold the balance of power in the east was sure to bring about war sometime.

In 1884 a treaty was signed between the two countries stipulating that neither was to land troops in Corea without first notifying the other. China violated this treaty in the spring of 1894, when Corea applied to her for aid in putting down a rebellion. Japan at once landed troops at Chemulpo and offered to join China in reforming the government of Corea and establishing their independence. China refused and asked Japan to withdraw her troops.

At the beginning of the war Japan was ready to carry on the war without delay. Her men were well drilled and familiar with European and American methods. The Chinese, however, are not soldiers, but traders and merchants. The army is without system and is full of corruption. Japan, with a population one-tenth that of China, has an available army nearly as large. Her navy is much smaller and consists entirely of cruisers.

Open hostilities began with the sinking of the Kow-Shing, July 25. Soon after the Chinese were crushingly defeated in the land battle of Ping Yan, which gave Japan control of Corea. It will undoubtedly be reckoned among the decisive battles of the world. The next day the Japanese were victorious in the great naval battle at the mouth of the Yalu. This gave them control of the sea and opened the way to the Gulf of Pechili, as the battle at Ping Yan had cleared the approaches to Manchuria. These two battles practically decided the war. The Chinese were left with practically no navy at all. Without one they could offer little resistance.

The campaign from this on develops itself into an attack upon the stronghold of China in two lines - one through Manchuria to Monkden, and the other from some point on the Gulf of Pechili. Field Marshall Yamagala crossed the Yalu and defeated the Chinese at Kin Lieu Ching. His army then advanced a short distance into Manchuria, where the winter stopped their approach to Monkden.

On October 7, a large Japanese force landed at the head of the peninsula of Port Arthur; a similar force had already landed just across the isthmus. These two forces advanced slowly down the peninsula and, on November 23, Port Arthur fell after forty hours fighting. The Japanese then marched along the coast and drove the Chinese beyond the the Siao River. Wei Hai Wei was invested by land and sea in January and finally all the fortifications fell into the hands of the Japanese. This practically opened the way to Pekin.

The failure of China in this war is due to her total collapse as a sea power. She had a fair navy, which should have been used against Japan before the landing of large bodies of troops in Corea. With her sea communication cut off, Japan's army could have been starved out of Corea, and she could never have carried on a campaign in China. The Chinese had not the mechanical turn required for the modern warships. They are not essentially seamen like the Japanese. China is divided into provinces differing from one another in speech and manners. In fact, there is no Chinese nation. Add to this lack of homogeneity and cooperation a total lack of discipline, and you have a hopeless condition of affairs.

The success of Japan is certain to affect our relations in the Pacific vitally. Our chief competitors at sea for a century have been the little islands across the Atlantic and here we have similar competition growing up in three small islands across the Pacific. For the honor of this country, it is to be hoped that we may acquire dominion over the Hawaiian Islands as an offset to the Japanese hold on Corea.

This war will no doubt be followed by a great industrial development. Within our own lives Japan will manufacture for the world at large. Her people have strong taste for engineering and the principal education received by her young men abroad has been either military or civil engineering.

What have we to learn from this war? Have we not the same feeling of security that the Chinese had before the war? Do we not often hear that no country would dare attack us? It is this self sufficiency which is certain to come before disaster-One blessing we have and that is boundless resources for building our defense. May we never be in that helpless condition that will oblige us to buy our ships and munitions of war abroad. In the midst of unexampled commercial prosperity, is not our martial spirit disappearing? Have not a strong tendency to vote business and literary capacity far above the profession of arms?

It can hardly be doubted that national spirit is kept up by the soldiers and sailors in our country's service. It is they who spend their lives beneath the flag. That national spirit means more than a blind worship of the flag with us. When the band is assembled upon our flagships in China to play the national air as our flag is unfurled to the morning sun, every sailor's heart grows warm and sometimes his eyes grow dim, not because that flag represents a nation, but because justice and liberty, peace and rest, the purity and sacredness of his home dwell beneath its folds across the sea.