This is an attempt to present in a verifiable form some of the issues and the historical causes of the war now waged between Russia and Japan. Powerfully as it appeals to me, I would not have discussed a subject so strange to the proper sphere of my investigation, had it not been for the fact that no one else has, so far as I am aware, undertaken the task in the same spirit in which I have endeavored to write these pages. Although I deeply regret that I do not read the Russian language and cannot do full justice to the Russian side of the question, the impartial reader will observe, I trust, that this work is neither a plea for the one side nor a condemnation of the other, but a mere exposition of the subject-matter as I comprehend it. When the author offers what he considers a natural explanation of a question, the reader should not read into it a moral judgment. Indeed, I earnestly wish that the kind reader would thrash out of these pages every grain of real prejudice. Nor can I welcome a greater favor from any person than a more complete and just statement of Russia’s case than I have been able to make. After having said so much, it is unnecessary to tell the reader how, when the substance of the introductory chapter to this volume was published last May in the Yale Review, some of its critics ascribed to the writer motives utterly foreign to himself. One of those alleged motives was that I had sought to prove that the American trading interest in Manchuria and Korea would be better served by a final victory of Japan than by that of Russia. I neither proved nor disproved such a theme, but I did state that Japan’s interest demanded the maintenance in those regions of the principle of the impartial opportunity for all nations. Whether the result of this policy would prove better or worse for the interest of any one nation than the effect of an exclusive policy, did not concern me. It did not and does not belong to me to appeal to the commercial instinct of the reader, or even to his sympathy with, or antipathy to, either of the present belligerents. My only plea is that for truth.

The substance of the introductory chapter, as has been said, and also a brief summary of the body of the volume have been published in the Yale Review for May and August of the present year. I am greatly indebted to the editors of the Review for allowing me to use the material in the preparation of this work. I also wish to express my sincere thanks to my friends who have encouraged me in the publication of this volume.