The London School of Economics and Political Science Japan and the British World, 1904-14 Cornelis Heere A thesis submitted to the Department of International History of the London School of Economics for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, London, October 2016 1 DECLARATION I certify that the thesis I have presented for examination for the MPhil/PhD degree of the London School of Economics and Political Science is solely my own work other than where I have clearly indicated that it is the work of others (in which case the extent of any work carried out jointly by me and any other person is clearly identified in it). The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. Quotation from it is permitted, provided that full acknowledgement is made. This thesis may not be reproduced without my prior written consent. I warrant that this authorisation does not, to the best of my belief, infringe the rights of any third party. I declare that my thesis consists of 98,966 words. 2 ABSTRACT This dissertation analyses the effect of the rise of Japan on the ‘British world’ during the early twentieth century, from the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5) to the outbreak of the First World War. Victory over Russia in 1905 transformed Japan’s international position, elevating it to the rank of a Great Power, and allowing it to become an increasingly significant actor in East Asia and the Pacific. As its presence expanded, so did the scope for interaction with the British imperial system, bringing Japan into closer, and often frictious contact with Anglophone communities from the China coast to western Canada. This dissertation seeks to analyse that process, and assess its significance both for the changing nature of the Anglo-Japanese relationship, and the evolution of the British imperial system. By incorporating sources from Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the China coast within a single study, this dissertation integrates disparate historiographies that have taken either the imperial metropolis or the colonial nation as their object of study. It reaches three primary conclusions. First, it demonstrates that the imperial ‘periphery’ came to play an increasingly central role in how the British relationship with Japan was construed. Second, it showcases that a sense of external pressure from Japan, often interpreted in racial as much as geopolitical or commercial terms, became a prominent factor in how colonial elites came to redefine their position in a wider British world. Third, it shows that diverging racial views, in particular, came to constitute a structural problem in the management of the Anglo- Japanese relationship. The following study opens with an analysis of British assessments of the Russo-Japanese War, and proceeds to scrutinise several contexts in which Japan’s rise presented new forms of competition and rivalry: the British ‘informal empire’ in China; Japanese immigration to North America; and naval defence in the Pacific. Finally, it examines how these new controversies, in turn, forced the Anglo-Japanese alliance to evolve. As such, this dissertation aims to shed new light on both on the internal dynamics of the British imperial system, and its changing position in the world. 3 4 ACKNOWLEGEMENTS This project threw many obstacles in my way, but involuntary solitude was never one of them, and I pledge my sincere gratitude to all those who lent their support along the way. First honours are due to my supervisor, Antony Best, who is an exemplary scholar and without whose guidance I would have stranded at an early stage. This project would not have been possible without the generous support of the London School of Economics, the Fundatie Vrijvrouwe van Renswoude, the Dr Hendrik Muller Fund, the Royal Historical Society, the British Association for Canadian Studies, and the Japanese studies programme of the Suntory and Toyota Centre for Economic Research and Development. I am truly grateful to them all. Every PhD is a journey, and mine took me across three continents and two-dozen archival repositories. All are well served by a dedicated staff, to whom I am duly grateful. My fellow travellers, Jesse Tumblin, Graeme Thompson, Bart Zielinski, and John Mitcham, broadened my intellectual horizons along the way. A particular word of thanks must go to my old hetman Chai Lieven, who has been a constant source of support and continues to be an inspiration. I was fortunate to call the LSE my intellectual home for the past four years, where I shared the company of an exceptional group of fellow scholars. Paul Keenan has been a mentor and a friend since I first arrived at the School. I am grateful to Oliver Eliot, Jin Lim, Scott Gilfillan, Chris Parkes, Zhong Zhong Chen, Jonas Fossli Gjersø, Natasha Telepneva, Simon Toner, Yu Suzuki, Taka Yamamoto, Tommaso Milani, Anne Irfan, Bastiaan Bouwman, Alexandre Dab, Boyd van Dijk, Alex Mayhew, Michael Rupp, Max Skjönsberg, and Eline van Ommen for their peerless companionship. Sharing my idiosyncratic interest in empire with a group of brilliant undergraduate students has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life, and I am very grateful to Joanna Lewis for her unfailing support in this, as in much else. Life in London would not have been the same without the friendship of Anika Mashru, Dominka Gamalczyk, Benjamin Levy, Emma Godden, Fred Potter, and Gemma Fox, all of whom were daily wellsprings of much-needed distraction. Babak Mohammadzadeh, Wesley Stuurman, Ece Aygün, Nilofar Sarwar and Morten Fausboll, and Marianna Ferro have been true friends all, and I apologise for imposing on them with near-endless talk about my research. I’ll stop now, I promise. Above all, I could not have done this without the love and unwavering support of my family: my brother, Thijs, and my parents, Albert and Sophia. My grandmother, Elze Heere-Bijlsma, swore that she would see ‘my book’ finished, and kept her promise. I dedicate this to her memory. 5 6 Voor Elze (1934-2017) 7 8 CONTENTS Abstract 3 Acknowlegements 5 List of Acronyms 10 Introduction: 11 1. A War for Civilisation, 1904-5 30 2. Making Equals, 1905-06 52 3. ‘The merry game of dollar-grinding’: China, 1905-1911 75 4. ‘A well nigh-impassable gulf’: The Immigration Crisis, 1907-8 96 5. The Pacific Problem, 1906-09 129 6. Rethinking the Japanese Alliance, 1910-11 155 7. ‘Must the bar of race be permanent?’: The British world and Japan, 1911-14 174 Conclusion 196 Bibliography 205 9 LIST OF ACRONYMS AWM Australian War Memorial, Canberra BL British Library, London BLO Bodleian Library, Oxford CAPD Commonwealth of Australia Parliamentary Debates CCAC Churchill College Archives Centre, Cambridge CGEM Lo, Hui-min (ed.), The Correspondence of G.E. Morrison, Vol. I, 1895-1912 (Cambridge, 1976) CID Committee of Imperial Defence CL/WDS W.D. Straight Papers, Cornell University Library, Ithaca CPD Canadian Parliamentary Debates CRL Cadbury Research Library, Birmingham CUL Cambridge University Library DUL/AG Albert Grey, 4th Earl Grey Papers, Durham University Library FRBL/JOPB J.O.P. Bland Papers, Fisher Rare Book Library, Toronto HC House of Commons HSBC Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation HR House of Representatives ICS Institute for Commonwealth Studies LAC Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa LHC Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, London LSE London School of Economics LTR Morison, E.E. (ed.), The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, (8 Vols.), (Cambridge, MA, 1951-54) ML Mitchell Library, Sydney NAA National Archives of Australia, Canberra NCH North China Herald NI News International Archive, London NLA National Library of Australia, Canberra NMM National Maritime Museum, Greenwich NZH New Zealand Herald NZPD New Zealand Parliamentary Debates PA Parliamentary Archives SOAS School of Oriental and African Studies SMH Sydney Morning Herald TNA The National Archives, Kew 10 INTRODUCTION Japan joined the great powers on the morning of 27 May 1905, when the Russian Baltic Fleet steamed into the Strait of Tsushima. Seven months earlier, the tsar had ordered the armada to leave its base in Kronstadt and embark for the Far East, in an attempt to wrest back control of the sea from Japan. Its progress had been slow and difficult. Following an incident in the North Sea, where the fleet mistook a group of British fishing trawlers for Japanese torpedo boats, it was barred from taking on coal at British ports. Supplying the fleet during its 18,000-mile voyage had been a logistical nightmare. Exhausted, demoralised, and in desperate need of supplies, it steamed on, hoping to make a dash for Vladivostok, Russia’s sole remaining naval base in eastern waters. At Tsushima, the narrow strait between Korea and Japan, the Russians finally met their Japanese adversaries. By the morning of the following day, it was over. Japan had won a crushing victory: without losing a single major vessel, it had destroyed six Russian battleships and captured the remaining two. Over five thousand sailors, including the Admiral Rozhestvensky, the fleet’s commanding admiral, were taken prisoner. News of Tsushima rippled around the globe. In Britain, Japan’s treaty ally since 1902, and where rivalry with Russia ran deep, it met with general elation. When the Russo-Japanese War broke out in February 1904, the terms of the Anglo-Japanese alliance had allowed Britain to remain on the sidelines, but as London celebrated Japan’s latest victory, the British press made no claim to neutrality. ‘Every Englishman will join in the joy which is felt in the land of his allies’, wrote the North China Herald, the mouthpiece of British trading communities on the China coast.1 In the centenary of Trafalgar, parallels were inevitably drawn to Britain’s own naval past.