“The future of Japan, the future of the East, and, to some extent, the future of the world, lies in the answer to the question whether the militarists or the party of peaceful expansion gain the upper hand in the immediate future (in Japan).  If the one, then we shall have harsher rule in Korea, steadily increasing aggression in Manchuria, growing interference with China, and, in the end, a titanic conflict, the end of which none can see.  Under the other, Japan will enter into an inheritance, wider, more glorious and more assured than any Asiatic Power has attained for many centuries....  Japan has it in her to be, not the Mistress of the East, reigning, sword in hand, over subject races—­for that she can never permanently be—­but the bringer of peace to, and the teacher of, the East.  Will she choose the nobler end?”