(Cornell JUntoeraitg Eibratg atiraia, New $arb CHARLES WILLIAM WASON COLLECTION CHINA AND THE CHINESE THE GIFT OF CHARLES WILLIAM WASON CLASS OF 1876 1918 The date shows; when this volume was taken. Cornell University Library DS 9.H32 The obvious Orient 3 1924 023 061 736 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023061736 THE OBVIOUS ORIENT THE OBVIOUS ORIENT BY ALBERT BUSHNELL HART, Ph.D., LL.D., Litt.D EATOH" PROFESSOR OF THE SCIENCE OF GOVERNMENT IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY NEW YORK AND LONDON D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1911 JDS? COPYRIGHT, 1911. BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY Published March, 1911 Printed in the United States of America TO WILLIAM CAMERON FORBES GOVERNOR GENERAL OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, INSTRUCTOR OF HIS FORMER TEACHER PEEFACE The world abounds in sketchy books upon the East, and the title chosen for this volume is the writer's admission that no one can learn all that there is in the most ancient and inscrutable of the continents in an eight months' experience. On the other hand, the Orient is so unlike the western world that it still has the stimulating effect of novelty and variety. It is astonishing how the books that one reads beforehand on the East fail to include the things which instantly come before the eyes the moment one lands in Asia; even the hasty traveller's record, therefore, adds something to the knowledge of the bewildering and picturesque detail of Oriental life. For this study of the East I have had some advantages in the way of previous investigation and reflection, and the friendship of former students and others now settled in the Orient. Americans in that part of the world never lose their nationality, and the travelling American finds liimself welcomed to a partnership in their experiences. Among the many friends who have helped me by pre- cept and introduction to understand the conditions of the East, I wish especially to thank Professor Ernest H. Vickers of Kiogijiku University, Tokio; Mr. Edward B. Drew, formerly of the Chinese Customs Service; and vii viii PREFACE W. Cameron Forbes, Governor General of the Philippine Islands. In preparing the material for its final form, pains have been taken to verify statistical and other state- ments of fact, in which I have been much aided by Mr. David M. Matteson. Albert Bushnell Hart. Cambridge, Mass., December 10, 1910. CONTENTS THE COAST CHAPTER page I. The Point of View . 3 II. Globe Teotting 9 III. The Canadian Northwest . 31 IV. The State of Oregon . 32 V. The State of Washington . 41 VI. Transportation Problems of Coast 51 VII. Scenic Alaska . . 63 VIII. Practical Alaska . . 71 n. japan IX. External Japan 83 X. The Foreigner in Japan . 93 XI. The Japanese in Japan . 103 XII. Japanese Contradictions 111 XIII. Japanese Education 120 XIV. EuLERs OF Japan 131 XV. Japanese Ambition . 139 XVI. Korea and Prince Ito 150 XVII. Will Japan be Westernized? . ix 159 CONTENTS CHAPTER XVIII. XIX. XX. XXI. XXII. XXIII. iii. china Athwart China Chinese Cities A Day in a Chinese Court Eealities of Chinese Government Alien Influence in China Will China be Westernized? . PAGE 173 185 197 208 221 231 IV. AMERICAN COLONIES XXIV. Conditions in the Philippines 245 XXV. The Insular Government . .256 XXVI. Problems of the Philippines 270 V. BRITISH colonies XXVII. Oriental Pax Britannica . 285 XXVIII. The Paradise of Ceylon . . 397 XXIX. Delusions of Egypt . . 308 XXX. Asiatic Guesses . 321 INDEX .... . 341 I THE COAST CHAPTEE I THE POINT OF VIEW IN these days of swift steamers and swifter land transit, the world has seemed to draw in ; distances contract ; time of communication is annihilated; the remote suddenly appears on the adjoining estate. As late as fifty years ago respectable people could still refuse to credit the Mountains of the Moon, Thibet was unvisited, and the in- terior of Japan a. myth. The most matter-of-fact Ameri- can still feels a thrill when for the first time he sights the Lizard and knows that he is at last gazing on England. The previous occupant of a hundred Pullmans suddenly finds his world enlarged when his steamer glides into that bairbor where the X/ion Eock looms above the anchorage, and the bare-footed Arab lies in wait at the landing. To this psychological geography, however, most of the globe is indifferent. South America is for diplomats and creditors: Chile, Eio and Buenos Ayres are in ease and frequency of approach more distant than Constantinople or Yokohama; Australasia is a new man's land, interesting as Manitoba is interesting, because the seat of a sudden civilization; and the states of the Australian Common- wealth are much the same as Nebraska and Oregon in their newness, their want of inherited interest in ancestors, their remoteness from the romance of an ancient civilization. 3 THE POINT OF VIEW As for Africa, it is a hunting-ground, where you catch dia- monds, giraffes, or the sleeping-sickness, as the case may be; but outside of Egypt (which is substantially an Asiatic land), the whole Dark Continent bears the stamp of newness. That leaves only three continents to arouse the adventur- ous son of the United States. North America is our native village, so to speak; but Europe is our father and our mother, the source of our government, literature, art, and civilization. Hence, every true American looks on himself as the discoverer of Europe — and applies to himself the enthusiasm of the German orator at a Liszt banquet at which the Abbe was present : "Beethoven was a great com- poser, but what would the world now know of Beethoven, had not Liszt arisen to interpret him?" Of what use would the Pantheon be, or the walls of Nuremberg, or Westminster Abbey, if the American tourist did not put in an appearance to venerate them? Travel, a cosmopoli- tan interest in literature, and the moving to and fro in America of masses of Europeans, have all contributed to make Americans feel the near kinship of Europe. The British. Islands and the Continent have been ransacked; the Man from Home appears on the visitors' book of John O'Groats, buys old books in Warsaw, photographs the ruined cities of the Baltic, and afterwards gives smoke- talks with slides. Those who never cross the ocean go to the Burton Harrison lectures, and have a six-franc photo- graph of the Milan Cathedral in their front parlor. He who seeks a sensation in travel must go farther afield. The great wonderland of the world nowadays is Asia — that hive from which have swarmed countless le- gions of men on horseback, beating like the waves of the sea against the eastern frontier of Europe; breaking in on 4 SENSATION OP ASIA Eome; submerging the second Eoman Eastern Empire; overrunning the Balkan Peninsula; knocking imperiously only two centuries ago against the gates of Vienna. Asia is the great source of mankind, from which the Persian, the Hun, the Avar, the Ottoman and Seljuk Turks, and the Arab have repeatedly burst forth, and have all but Orienta- lized Europe. For the historian, the ethnologist, the stu- dent of civilization, the philologist, Asia is still the matrix of mankind ; back to the Indian, the Babylonian, the Assy- rian, the Phcenecian, the Persian, Europeans and most Americans must go to find the roots of their own being. Art, letters, religion, as we know them to-day, could never have existed, and could not now be understood, without a knowledge of Asia. Still, Asia is rather out of fashion nowadays : the school- boj'^ looks down upon it because some twenty-four centuries ago the Greeks overthrew the invading Persians ; the mili- tary man remembers how only a few years ago SkobelefE conquered Askhabad and reversed the triumphs of Tamerlane; the administrator thinks meanly of the Asiatic because the British have for a century and a half held India with its hundreds of millions of people; and the diplomat records seventy years of Chinese weakness and supposed impotence of government. Then the white man, the world over, profoundly believes himself superior to men of all other colors; and it has been a part of his creed that the yellow races are deficient. The visitor to Asia in most places shares in this sense of being a power, a part of a conquering and governing race — he always feels himself Gulliver in Lilliput. A glance at the map of Asia suggests some ground for this quiet confidence: from end to end of that vast conti- nent there is now only one Asiatic continental power, 5 THE POINT OF VIEW China; only one Asiatic insular power, Japan. Bather by the jealousies of European powers than by any virtue of their own, Siam, Thibet, Persia and Afghanistan still ex- ist as nominally independent nations. Not one of them has the military power or the political sagacity to maintain itself a single year against any European country which may be allowed by the other European powers to invade. The vast northern fourth of the continent is Russian; Arabia is Turkish ; India and Burmah are British ; Cochin China is French; the great Asiatic islands are Dutch and English ; the Philippines belong to the United States. Ap- parently there is no longer an Asia; it is transformed into a mosaic of dependencies of external powers. The band seems to draw tighter every year ; for more than a century the Eussian frontier has been undulating southward, the British line northward; even China has lost territory or authority in the south, west and north, and accepts several areas of European occupation on her eastern coast. The world's affairs go forward without the consent, often with- out the knowledge, of that mighty continent which is the traditional home of empires, the mother of majestic civi- lizations, the field of splendid cities and unrivaled temples and palaces. For the most part Europeans resident in Asia con- sider the peoples whom they find there as weaklings, if not decadents; the whole tone of the official society of ministers, consuls, residents and colonial officials is that the old Asia is extinct. Naturally the governor of a province, or the minister to a weak power, feels that the present European regime is the normal and desirable thing, and looks forward to an aeon of Asiatic dependen- cies. On the 'other hand, the hasty visitor, especially the American, is predisposed to think that all colonizing 6 IS ASIA PEEMANENTLY DEPENDENT ? nations (except, of course, the United States in the Philippine Islands) are predatory; that they are sucking the blood of helpless people over whom they have, by military force, established their power. Mr. W. J. Bryan, after a brief stay in India, came home with the profound conviction that the English were exploiting the people of that country. Between these two views it is hard to form a judgment without some knowledge of the conditions as they appear on the ground. The writer has, therefore, sought an opportunity of seeing for himself such conditions as reveal themselves to the traveler; and in the fall, winter and spring of 1908-1909 spent a number of months in Asiatic countries. What he saw, he analyzed, and tran- scribed in a series of letters to the Boston Evening Tran- script, a revision of which constitutes the greater part of this volume. The title "Obvious Orient" has been chosen because one who is simply a passenger from place to place, cannot expect to penetrate far into the spirit of the Asiatics; but it is not meant to suggest that the book reflects nothing more than surface impressions. Without following the sequence of the chronology of his visit, or sketching what he saw from day to day, the writer has analyzed and grouped experiences gained from a variety of sources : from association with former friends and students, found in every country; from discussion of problems with local administrators; from reading the foreign press in the various cities, which abound both in text and advertisements in things unfamiliar to the western man; from the daily sights, picturesque and entertaining, of street and harbor life. All these make up parts of what is here set forth. The direct and perhaps the most interesting road to 2 7 THE POINT OF VIEW the Orient is through the most -western part of the Occi- dent; for the Paeifie coast faces, and Alaska approaches, Asia. The future relations of the United States with the East will be conditioned to a considerable degree by the physical and moral forces of the western rim of the American continent; hence chapters on the Canadian Northwest, Oregon, Washington and Alaska are included. The most interesting thing in Asia is the question of westernization; to that topic every chapter of this volume tends more or less directly, and in the final chapter that question will be summarized as it appears to the writer in the light of his opinions on the various countries which he has visited. CHAPTEE II GLOBE TROTTING MYSTEEY, distance, romance, myths, are the portion of the East. The moment the traveler passes the capes of the Bay of San Francisco or of Puget Sound and points westward, there rises a bank of historical cloud which envelopes all the seas from the Pacific coast to Eastern Africa. A few strong and vigorous historical navigators from time to time emerge from the mist, of whom the most reliable are Sinbad the Sailor and the veracious Captain Kidd — -"as he sailed." There was an earlier time when the sea was ploughed by European vessels, when the ships of Hiram, king of Tyre, brought "gold, and silver, ivory, and apes and peacocks" from Ophir, which is on the east coast of Africa and the south coast of India, and the west coast of Ceylon, and the north coast of Sumatra. There was a time, a couple of thousand years ago, when Eome and China propelled embassies at each other across Asia. But the Turk, the traditional bad man of history, seven cen- turies ago applied the protective system by squeezing out Asiatic commerce; and for four hundred years, between Europe and China, now within twelve days rail of each other, hardly a traveler penetrated, and no through voyage was made. The writers of elementary text-books are never weary of pointing out how, in the effort to travel to the East, the much better continent of America was discovered. 9 GLOBE TEOTTING Magellan in 1520 established the first Pacific Mail line from continent to continent, and in due time he was followed by the Yankee shipmaster, who carried the first tourists from America to the Orient. The story of those enterprising men and their owners at home still remains to be written. Time was when you could find a Yankee clipper ship in every Oriental port. In many cases the captain, who usually began his training before the mast, was the business manager in such a voyage. Men like Captain Putnam of Salem and Captain Coffin of New Bedford, became familiar with Mozambique and Aden and Muscat and Calcutta and Canton; they bought the cargoes, traded with the natives, felt their way along uncharted coasts and brought home profitable cargoes to their owners, and attar of roses, ostrich eggs, pearls and Persian rugs to their families. Sometimes a young man, perhaps only a boy, was sent out by the owner as super- cargo to act as business agent. Then grew up the American commercial houses in the East such as the great hongs of Eussell & Company, Desat & Co., Oliphant, and Heard, in China. The late Professor Charles Eliot Norton served an apprenticeship in such a house in Cal- cutta. By small merchant vessels the few passengers to the East were carried; the voyage from New York or Boston to the Orient might take six months, and few except commercial men and missionaries tried to travel from place to place. In the East hotels were next to none; people were ordinarily not allowed to go into the interior, and often were forbidden to land; and weeks and months of one's life might be passed, waiting for a ship. The man who came back from such experiences was looked upon as another Marco Polo. 10 SEA FARING Witness the experience of a ISTew England clergyman, who about fifty years ago renewed his health by a voyage to China. Arrived at Canton he left the ship, which shortly proceeded northward, and within a few days was captured by Chinese pirates who killed part of the ship's company and i&ade the rest captives. Mr. Hutchins then took passage on another ship to San Francisco, and on the voyage the captain took such a fancy to him that he offered to carry him westward around the world as a guest and companion; but the New Englander's face was turned homewards, the ship sailed without him, and was never heard of again. The young man's friends then besought him to remain a few weeks in California so as to take the crack steamer Golden Rule down the coast; but he felt that he must sail earlier, and got to Panama in safety on another steamer; the Golden Rule was wrecked on the following voyage^ with the loss of three hundred lives. On the Atlantic side he took a steamer to New York, which (it was during the Civil War) was then turned over to the Government. She was lost in her first official voyage. Linked with the travels of this one man, covering less than two years, were four destructions of ships, three on the Pacific. Such dangers have almost ceased to be; Chinese pirates are not extinct and vessels disappear, but Pacific commerce and travel have been revolutionized by steam. There are still many sailing craft, and in October, 1908, entered the harbor of Yokohama the largest sailing craft, an iron five-master, on the quickest sail voyage recorded from New York to that port. The greatest part of the business, and almost all of the passenger travel goes by steamer lines, of which there are seven from America and two more impending. The Pacific ships have been much 11 GLOBE TROTTING improved of late years; besides Jim Hill's Minnesota of 21,000 tons, there are two large Pacific Mail steamers, the Manchuria and Mongolia, 18,000-ton ships, which have been expanded by the liberal use of hot-air to 28,000 tons in the advertisements, since it would never do that a ship sailing from Seattle should be larger and more com- fortable than any ship out of San Francisco. Next in size of trans-Pacific ships are two other Pacific Mail steamers, the Korea and Siberia, nominally 18,000 tons, really, about 12,000 or 13,000. Several of the T. K. K Japanese line are new ships of 11,000 gross tons. The ships of the other four lines, the so-called Oriental line from San Prancisco, the N. Y. K. Japanese steamers from Seattle, the Blue Funnel line from Tacoma, and the Canadian Pacific from Vancouver, are all below 8,000 tons. But the Canadian Pacific promises to transfer two Empress steamers of 14,000 tons from the Montreal service, and will probably add others of like capacity. The Chicago, Milwaukee & Puget Sound Eailway is arranging with the 0. K. K., a Japanese company for a new service of 9,000-ton steamers; and there will be also a line from Prince Eupert,- the Pacific terminus of the new Grand Trunk Pacific. The Government also maintains a line of transports from San Francisco to the Philippines, in which it is possible for civilians through influence to get passage. Freight steamers are frequent, and sometimes very comfortable for a few kindred spirits. The three present San Francisco lines have a joint schedule giving a steamer about once in ten days; the N. Y. K. and Canadian Pacific sail fortnightly ; otherwise the steamers are somewhat irregular. Except for a few staterooms with special conveniences, a first-class trans- Pacific ticket entitles the holder to the best accommodation 12 PACIFIC STEAMEES vacant, on the principle "first come, first served"; and agents are complaisant to families and others requiring special accommodation. All the steamers carry second- class at about half or two-thirds of the first-class fare, and some of the second cabins have comfortable rooms and good deck space. Most of the steamers provide a European steerage, and also an Asiatic steerage, both of which in ships like the Minnesota are clean and provided with good air and eatable food; the Minnesota even advertises an opium den. While none of these steamers boast such luxury of fittings and table as on the crack Atlantic liners, they are comfortable, well-found, and almost always provided with such an outfit of traveling missionaries as gives moral insurance against the dangers of the deep. The traveler around the world may provide himself on leaving home with a round-the-world ticket, good for two years ; but there is no advantage of expense or convenience over ticketing from home to Yokohama and then from Yokohama back to America. The normal fare to Yoko- hama is the transcontinental fare, plus the ocean passage, which is $300 first-class on the best steamers; but one may travel to Seattle via San Francisco or to San Fran- cisco via Seattle on such through tickets, and may carry more than tvdce the usual allowance of baggage. At sea nobody bothers to count trunks or to weigh up baggage for globe trotters. Custom-house examinations east of Italy and Eussia, for bona-fide travelers, is a formality, except, of course, in the Philippine Islands. From Yokohama to New York via the Suez Canal is nearly twice as far as the direct line across the Pacific and North America; and in order to induce travel to go that way concessions of fare have to be made. By any 13 GLOBE TEOTTING of the first-class steamer lines a ticket to New York through the Mediterranean, good for a year, could in 1909 be bought for $341, which literally is less than for a ticket by the same steamers to London. By paying about $20 more, the traveler may proceed to Southampton or Hamburg or Bremen, and take ship from one of these ports to America. As the steamer fares to points west of Suez are the same from all the East Asiatic ports, most people take tickets from Yokohama. For the Asiatic voyage there is a bewildering choice of lines; the Kavigazione Generale Italiana sails small steamers to Bombay and Genoa, and thence to New York. The Austrian Lloyd runs to Trieste. The Hamburg- American line carries freight but, by agreement with the North German Lloyd, refrains from the through passenger traffic. From Japan several lines connect with the net- work of coast-steamers represented by the two great ship- ping firms of Jardine, Matheson & Co. and Butterfield & Swire. The ordinary traveler will make his choice from one of the four fortnightly lines through the Suez Canal. The first is the Japanese N. Y. K. steamers to London, about 6,000 to 7,000 tons, said to be well navigated and well found, and they make a lower round-the-world fare than anybody else. The Messageries Maritimes to Mar- seilles possess some of the steamers once cracks in the Atlantic service, and still jaunty. A French steamer always has an appetizing table, but the line carries chiefly people of its own nationality, who are not numerous in the East. The most pretentious line is the Peninsular & Oriental, the beloved "P. & 0." of the English world. Though it sends few direct steamers from Yokohama, it has a 14 ASIATIC STEAMEES connecting steamer to Shanghai, so that by changing there and again at Aden, and again at Port Said for Brindisi, you can get a quick passage. In addition, the line runs so-called intermediate steamers, somewhat smaller and with a reduced fare to Europe, though not on through tickets to America. The P. & 0. is primarily a line from London and Marseilles to India, and is much affected by Anglo-Indian officers. Plain, common Englishmen outside this charmed circle find the P. & 0. ships chilly even on the Eed Sea. The P. & 0. is the Cunard Line of the Bast, and its handbook is one of the wonders of the tourist world, a collection of "Don'ts"; Don't try to pay your chits in any currency except English money. If you are drowned, don't sue the company, for in print it denies any respon- sibility for the lives or the baggage of passengers, even in cases of negligence by the servants of the company. Don't carry any money or valuables (though the com- pany denies any liability), for if you leave them in your luggage and the company finds it out, they -^ill take them away and make you pay express charges. Don't ask for electric fans, except at one pound extra. The easy-going American finds it hard to live up to such naval discipline and does not by his patronage add much to the undoubted success of the line, which has steadily added ships, till it has now in the "M. Class" (the Malta, Mooltan, and so on) a little fleet of 12,000-ton ships, which, however, are seldom seen east of Bombay. The other great Oriental line, and the most familiar to the American globe trotter, is the ISTorth German Lloyd, which has been at work for years building up its service from. Bremen, Hamburg, Antwerp and South- ampton, to Hong Kong, Shanghai and Yokohama. On its 15 GLOBE TEOTTING whole business in 1908 the North German Lloyd lost money, after setting apart $3,500,000 for depreciation. Only those on the inside know how much of this deficiency can be charged to the Asiatic and Australian services, but full holds and full cabins seem to show that its Oriental service is prosperous. The company owns a small fleet in the Yangtse Eiver, which brings down freight to Shanghai, and a larger fleet carries rice from Siam to Hong Kong, and tobacco from the neighboring islands to Penang. For passenger travel the line has far and away the best fleet sailing east of India, having replaced all but one of its 5,000 and 6,000-ton ships with new vessels of from 8,000 to 11,000 tons. Toward the traveler the attitude of the line is quite the reverse of that followed by the P. & 0. If a man cannot sleep in his cabin on a tropic night, the officers think it natural that he should drag a mattress out on the deck and sleep there. In landing, in coming on board, in stop-overs, in reservations, in table assign- ments, in the use of the decks and public rooms, the theory o# the line is that the comfort of the passengers is the end in view. Experience of four different steamers of the Oriental line, the Goeben, Derfflinger, Luetzow and Prinzess Alice, shows that they were all good sea- boats, especially comfortable in the tropics, clean, with good service and good table. The latest ships of the fleet have the great convenience of separate tables. Life on board ship in the tropics is much less formal than on the North Atlantic. The only religious obligation is that the men shall wear dinner coats to dinner, and within this definition is included the ridiculous abbre- viated white mess-jacket, which has put itself forward as tropical full dress. The same gentlemen who at 7 p. m. pay their homage to the "frack," may be 16 ox SHIPBOARD seen at 7 a. m. walking the deck in unceremonious sleeping suits, this man in pajamas and Japanese heelless slippers, another in Malay trousers of a pink-struck-by- lightning color ; the next in a sarong, and bare feet. Some of the passengers pass the day on their steamer chairs, in similar costumes, but a man is expected to wear trousers after the ladies begin to circulate. The passengers on the ships are very cosmopolite. About a third are Germans, another third are Americans, and the rest English, Dutch and of other nationalities. A few high-class Japanese and Chinese are usually among the passengers. As most people on such a ship have laid in a fancy costume somewhere, it is usual to hold a costume party during the voyage. N"ever were such Japanese ricksha- men, such Chinese mandarins, such Indian ayahs, such Singalese boys, such Philippines ladies. On one of the ships was a baby which sported a genuine African nurse- maid, who was clad from day to day in the most brilliant skirts and top pieces. When the evening came for the party, there appeared in the cabin a graceless youth who had got himself up in imitation of this lady, and led by the hand a baby about sixty years old. There was immense fun when the pseudo nurse and the real nurse were brought together. What sort of weather must one expect in the Orient? It is safe to look for something resembling Mark Twain's description of New England weather probabilities; snow, rain, fog, mist, wind, gales, adverse monsoons and typhoons are fashionable in the East. But experience may be very different from expectation; for instance a family of four people which in fifteen months, from June, 1908, steamed twenty-three thousand miles in twenty 17 GLOBE TROTTING different steamers, never saw two hours of rough weather, except the tail of a cyclone, which the big Minnesota rode like a duck; and not one of the party was seasick. Out of eighty-nine days or parts of days at sea, not over five or six were rainy and two or three more foggy. Practically the first fog whistle we heard was sounded by the Fall River boat after landing in New York. Furthermore, with the exception of the three days spent in rounding the Malay Peninsula, within sight of the Equator, there were no excessively hot days or nights, even the Eed Sea was courteously cool. This experience is to a large degree luck, but is in part due to crossing the Pacific in summer and sailing from China to Aden in the winter and early spring, when the monsoon blows from the northeast and east; the voyage in the contrary direction at the same season is by no means so easy; and in the same direction a few weeks later would encounter southwest monsoons, with a heavy head sea. The Eed Sea is also subject to strong north winds, and disagreeable head seas. In the Mediterranean there was bad weather all winter and up to the middle of April. In the large steamers seasickness loses half its charms because of the open air which is almost always to be had in the promenade and saloon deck rooms, and the good service. Until very recently this great seaway from China and Japan, sweeping around the three Asiatic peninsulas of the Malay States, India and Arabia, was the only comfortable connection from the Far East to Europe. Since the Eusso- Japanese War the Trans-Siberian Eailway has become a well-traveled road. Now that the Japanese railroads are completed through Korea, it is possible to travel by rail from Yokohama to Paris, except for a ferry of one night from Moji, in Japan, across the strait to Fusan. 18 SHIP AND BAIL From Hankow the weekly express connects at Peking with a train de luxe around through Moukden and Harbin to the Trans-Siberian; and a short-cut is now in con- struction from Peking northwestward. By the all-rail route letters have reached Shanghai in eighteen days from London. This northern route is by reputation tedious, for it traverses an uninteresting region, while the sea route takes the traveler within easy reach of Canton, Bangkok, Manila, Eangoon, Calcutta, Bombay and Cairo. Apparently before many years a through rail route will reach most of these places. The Germans just before the disturbance in Con- stantinople got their long-desired railway concession from the Mediterranean across to the Euphrates, and so down to the Persian Gulf; the link from Constantinople to Alex- andretta, to connect with this road, is almost completed. The English have lines from Kurachee across northern India, which by the building of an expected bridge across the Ganges near Calcutta will soon reach around the Bay of Bengal to Burma. From the northeastern ter- minus of the Burmese railways at Bhamo it is only ten or fifteen miles to the Chinese frontier. Thence a few hundred miles would connect with Canton, from which place a railroad is now in progress to Hankow. By the building of the missing links from China to Burma, and from India through Persia to the Euphrates — with a total in mileage and cost much less than that of the Grand Trunk Pacific, which is being pushed through by the gallant little country of Canada — the Yellow Sea and the Black Sea can be connected by a line nearly every mile of which will run through famous lands and past splendid cities. The future rounder-of-the-world will thus lose half the pleasures of travel — the approach 19 GLOBE TEOTTING to a new port, the canoes pushing off to meet the ship, the boys diving for coins, the picturesque junks and coasting vessels, the freedom of broad decks, the interest in the ship's run. A through Pullman from Shanghai, via Canton, Bangkok, Eangoon, Calcutta, Teheran, Bas- sorah, Bagdad, Antioch and Ephesus to Constantinople will hardly be more thrilling than the journey from New York, via Washington and New Orleans, to the Pacific Coast. The time to efujoy travel round the world is while it is unlike home experiences. However reached, the Asiatic tropics are like the snowpeaks of Switzerland ; once seen you will never be satisfied till you see them again. On shore the demands of the European and American travelers have caused the hotels to respond. In all the great ports — Yokohama, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Manila, Singapore, Penang, Eangoon, Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, Colombo — ^there are large and comfortable hotels. Tn situation and comfort and unique Oriental service the Galle Face at Colombo is probably the best house in Asia. For the modest traveler in most ports exist smaller houses with measurable comfort. On any scale, travel in the East is not much more expensive and difficult than in the Mediterranean, or the Gulf of Mexico. CHAPTEE III THE CANADIAN NORTHWEST THE people of the United States have so long been accustomed to a steady inflow of foreign immi- grants, that it is an unpleasant shock when scores of thousands of people drift across the American border into the western part of the Dominion of Canada. Of what purpose is it to be "the land of the free and the home of the brave," if the free and the brave take themselves and their taxable personal property out of the jurisdiction of the United States. Everybody knows that the Canadian Northwest is frosty, cold, frigid, congealed, arid and remote; when in 1866 the Hudson Bay Company was seeking a renewal of its charter after two hundred years of profitable existence, the officials declared on oath that the valley of the Eed Eiver of the N'orth was unfit for human habitation, and that the only thing to do with the whole region was to keep it as a preserve for Indians hunting wild animals for the sake of selling the skins to the company. To-day, in that region, thus reputed to be unfit for human habitation, stands Winnipeg, a city fourth in population in the Dominion of Canada, a halfway station on one of the three railroads reaching, or soon to reach, across the Continent. For into the distant Northwest are now pushing lines which reach almost to the Arctic Circle. Where the Indian trapping the fox was almost the only inhabitant a few years ago 31 THE CANADIAN NORTHWEST now lie the prosperous provinces of Manitoba, Assiniboia, Alberta and British Columbia. A new empire is arising above the forty-ninth parallel, and the people are bending every energy to provide railroads which will take care of the products of this bountiful land. The reason why this great change has come about is very simple; the Canadian Northwest is the last area left in North America in which a great body of prairie land can be had almost for the asking. Though Uncle Sam still owns hundreds of millions of acres of land in the Far West, almost no tracts of natural farming land are left in his hands; railroads, ranch corporations and individuals do still hold immense areas which in course of time will be subdivided into farms, but nobody can get that land without paying the owner's price; and even the limited areas which are capable of irrigation are sold by the Land Office at many times the dollar and a quarter an acre which for ninety years has been the. standard price for Government arable land. Without being clearly aware of it, the United States is approaching the condition of foreign countries in which farms are not a gift, but an accumulated capital, the rent of which, or interest on the cost of which, has to be deducted before the farmer can make a profit. The rich lands of central Pennsylvania have long been in this con- dition, and now the States farther west are experiencing it. Farmers in Ohio, when their land comes to be worth a hundred dollars an acre, may sell out and move to Indiana where they can get the same kind of land for seventy-five dollars; the Indiana man from whom they buy, goes out to Iowa and looks out for forty-dollar land ; the forty-dollar man finds twenty-dollar land in North Dakota; and the North Dakotan, after a hard winter, 22 SETTLEMENT treks across the line into Alberta and takes up virgin soil at a nominal price. As he comes in, the railroad trundles after him to get his crop and prepares the way for a new invasion of settlers. Ten j'ears ago Winnipeg was on the frontier, a few years ago Edmonton was the northern verge of civilization; now people are going hun- dreds of miles farther north into the Peace Eiver Valley, and beyond Great Slave Lake and the Mackenzie. Nobody knows what the climate of such a country is, unless he has himself summered and wintered it; reason- ably candid residents are firmly convinced that the winters are milder than in the Dakotas ; and why not ? It would be a misfortune if there were no part of the earth where the winters are milder than in the Dakotas. The main thing is, however, that the Canadian summers are long enough and warm enough to ripen the crop of wheat which is now the great staple of the Northwest, as it used to be of Wisconsin and then of Minnesota and the Dakotas. The Canadian Government employs experts to go about and hold a kind of agricultural revival services, in which bodies of farmers are brought together and informed of the most recent and scientific way of treating wheat land. A great authority on that subject declares that the secret of wheat culture is to keep the upper soil pulverized so that it will hold moisture; he goes so far as to say that wheat is not an exhausting crop, and may be raised every year indefinitely, if his prescription be followed. Be that as it may, prairie turned for the first time will raise a number of good successive crops; and here in this distant country is being reenacted the drama which began with the first colonists in Virginia; the settler brings money enough to pay for his land or at least to make a first payment; perhaps he buys tools and food 3 23 THE CANADIAN NOETHWEST on credit; but his first crop will lift part of the burden; in a few years he has his farm paid for; then for twenty years or so he puts his energies into improvements, and finds himself in middle life a man of property. This has been the miraculous opportunity of American life, for a man with only a will and a pair of hands, the chance to make a livelihood, to raise a family and to acquire a competence. What are frost bites and twenty miles from a country store to a settler in the face of such a prospect ? That is why farmers, often of the most energetic kind, leave their American homes and cross the border into Canada, especially since there they find their own language, their own religion, their own type of laws, and nearly their familiar government. The greater number of people in the Canadian North- west, however, are immigrants from Eastern Canada or the British Islands or the continent of Europe. The Scan- dinavians like the country, and Finns, Slavs and even Syrians find plenty to do, in railroad work and in the building of towns and cities. The entrepot of the country is Winnipeg, a city of over 100,000 people, on an unprepossessing fiat along the Eed Eiver. In spirit, wealth and business enterprise it is rather Yankee than English — much such a place as St. Paul was thirty years ago. Like all the Northwest, it is enlivened by the red coats of the mounted police, who are one of the institu- tions of the country. It seems extraordinary that a body of six hundred men should be able to keep order in so new and so broad a country; they suggest what ought to be done in every State in the Union, in the way of a State police, with military training, promotions and honors and the skill and esprit de corps which comes from long service and mutual acquaintance. 24 TOWNS AND CITIES Most of the other towns east of the Eocky Mouatains are still small; Calgary, just at the gateway which leads up to Banff Springs, is a neat and thriving place, but otherwise the line of the Canadian Pacific for fifteen hundred miles, from the Eockies to Lake Superior, is unattractive, not like the rich continuous prairies of the Mississippi Valley, but more like the plains of western Nebraska. The country along the line of railway is not the highly fertile part of the Dominion; most of the great wheat lands lie several hundred miles north. At the eastern extremity of the Canadian interior lie the twin towns of Port Arthur and Fort William, which seem destined to be the second city of the region in importance. -'At first sight there seems little reason for such large buildings and spacious docks; but it is the exchange point between the railroads and a fleet of lake steamers which run down through Sault Ste. Marie and Lake Huron to Goderich and Owen Sound on Lake Huron, where they again reach rail that carries them to Montreal ; and there is also direct through water shipment via the Welland Canal. If the plans be carried out for a canal from Lake Huron across Ontario to the St. Law- rence, and eventually to tidewater, the Canadian route will attract large shipments from south of the international boundary. The railroads dominate the Northwest, and they are put to it to handle the grain crop, which at present can reach market only via the Canadian Pacific, or Lake Superior, or the American roads to St. Paul and Minneapolis. In the four hundred miles of rocky, barren, largely hope- less country between Fort William and Winnipeg there is hardly a town of much consequence; but three trunk lines of railroad stretch along it. The Canadian Pacific 25 THE CANADIAN NOETHWBST is double-tracking its line, to accommodate the traffic; the Canadian Northern reaches from Fort William not only to, but far beyond, Winnipeg into the interior; and the Grand Trunk Pacific is now operating its line from beyond Edmonton to Winnipeg and soon will reach Lake Superior at Eort William. The Grand Trunk Pacific is an extraordinary under- taking. Till a few years ago, the whole stretch of country from Lake Ontario to Puget Sound was the happy hunting ground of the Canadian Pacific Eailway, a bold and ambitious line which has joined the two ends of the Dominion together, and incidentally has made a splendid profit. The western provinces have been uneasy at their dependence on the one link, and the stretch of country lying north of the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes is at present almost inaccessible, while the great wheat country of the interior can easily supply profitable business for additional railroads. Hence the ambitious scheme for a railway from the lower St. Lawrence to the Pacific, paralleling the C. P. E., but for the most part lying several hundred miles north of its main line. The Doniinion Government has practically taken the respon- sibility for the construction of this Grand Trunk Pacific Eailway, over a course of more than 3,000 miles. The sections most likely to earn their way have been subsi- dized with land and money; the stretch north of Lake Superior, which no sane railway man would think of building with a view to profit, is to be constructed by the government. During the last three years a vast amount of work has been done on the road and the main line from Winnipeg northwest to Edmonton is in operation. What this enormous undertaking is to cost is a subject of speculation. The estimates seem something like the 26 GEAND TEUNK PACIFIC report of the Confederate secretary of the treasury during the Civil War on the state of the public debt, which he withdrew the next day because he had discovered an error of four hundred million dollars. Nobody knows what the Grand Trunk Pacific will cost^ except that it is certain to be a good forty millions above the original estimates. The eastern section of the Grand Trunk line beyond Lake Superior runs through a rather poor country, and its construction may be postponed; but work is steadily proceeding on the section west from Edmonton, by the Yellow Head Pass to the sea, where the new port of Prince Eupert is beginning to rise around a splendid harbor a few miles south of the boundary between British Columbia and Alaska. To establish a great port twelve degrees north of the latitude of Boston seems at first sight impossible; but Dixon Entrance, the connection to the Pacific, is always open in winter; and the climate is not noticeably severer than that of Vancouver, where a flourishing city has grown up. As an outport Prince Eupert is several hundred miles nearer Japan than is Puget Sound. People are reticent about the line across the mountains; but if the Canadian Pacific can be kept open in winter anything can be. Certainly there is a mighty force in a people with a population less than that of the State of Pennsylvania, who undertake to construct a great world highway across a region most of which twenty-five years ago was a desert. As the Canadian Northwest fills up, and its wheat crop increases, the problem of transportation grows more serious. Winnipeg is about as far from Montreal as Omaha is from New York; and just as the grain from the middle Mississippi is now being deflected to nearer 27 THE CANADIAN NOETHWEST ports on the Gulf of Mexico, so the people of Manitoba look longingly toward Hudson Bay, from which a radius of five hundred miles includes Winnipeg, and a good part of the wheat country now under cultivation. Great pressure is being put on the Dominion government to build or heavily subsidize a railroad to Hudson Bay, and it has been authorized. By all accounts it will be a hard matter to make a satisfactory port on a water so shallow; and navigation could only be maintained a part of the year; but the shallows of the Gulf of Mexico do not prevent shipments that way, and there is an enormous area which could be made tributary to the Bay, though much of it is of little value for farming. With a view to sharing the privilege of Hudson Bay traffic the internal boundaries have just been adjusted so that the provinces of Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba all have a Hudson Bay front; and it is not unlikely that the barren stretch north of Lake Superior may prove to be so rich in minerals that it will furnish traffic enough to support the new railroads that are to run through it. Diamonds are occasionally found in Michigan ajid Wisconsin, whither they are supposed to have been carried from a central supply bureau up towards Hudson Bay; perhaps some lucky prospector will find another Bloemfontein up there to compete with South Africa. The problem of the Canadian Northwest is really a physical one; how much is it worth while for a farmer to sacrifice in the way of open winters, metropolitan news- papers and near neighbors, for the sake of an independent life? So long as free land or very cheap land lasts, the current of immigration will infallibly keep pouring in; there are vast areas of coal, petroleum and natural gas 28 WILD LANDS up there, and the severity of the winters is probably exaggerated. Everybody assures you that the further north you get, the more balmy is the climate ; in fact one of the worst enemies to settlement is the mosquito, which has been known to kill cattle in the Eed Eiver Valley. Furthermore, the railroads are systematically developing the country, for through their land-grant subsidies they have large amounts of land to sell; as fast as a branch is finished, new towns are laid out, and every facility of cheap fares and convenient access is given. The C. P. E. map of the Peace Eiver district in northern Alberta, which runs up to the parallel 59°, is studded with such mouth- watering legends as "Beautiful country, exuberant vegeta- tion," "Extensive meadows," "Prairie and coppice rich soil," "Eiver good, banks low"; and the colored map showing the homesteads taken up in the neighborhood of Edmonton is chequered like a Japanese kimono. With such advertising nobody will stay away from Alberta or Saskatchewan because he is unaware of his opportunities. Though there is in the Canadian Northwest no such body of uniformly rich land as in the great prairie States of Illinois and Iowa, the country is certainly no more for- bidding than central Siberia, which it much resembles; there is an opportimity for grazing where tillage cannot be made to pay; and the new Grand Trunk Pacific will open up splendid timber on the Pacific slope which will furnish cheap lumber for building and fencing in this northern region. Already promising cities are beginning to spring up; Edmonton, on the parallel, 52°, is a railroad center; if the Hudson Bay Eailroad is constructed. Port Churchill will be the outport, one thousand miles nearer Liverpool than is New York, and from it will eventually diverge a 29 THE CANADIAN NORTHWEST short line to join the Grand Trunk Pacific by a direct route to Prince Eupert on the Pacific. This railroad route from Europe to Asia will be shorter than any other^ and will also require the least land transportation. The great significance of this northward drift of people is that it makes possible a greater Canada; the region lying between Lake Huron and the Gulf of St. Lawrence, though thriving and able to support the fair cities of Montreal, Quebec, Ottawa and Toronto is, after all, on a narrow belt which can never rival its neighbors across the border in population or wealth. British Columbia is a slow-advancing frontier province, which will need many years to develop to the point already reached by the State of Washington. But the great interior, which till very recently was supposed to be an inhospitable land, appears capable of supporting as numerous a population as the belt in the United States south of the border. The area thus opening up for settlement is considerably larger than that between the Mississippi and Missouri Eivers; and within a quarter of a century may well contain ten million people, with room for many more. When Canada rises from its present five millions of people to twenty or twenty-five millions, with independent access to the Pacific, to Hudson Bay and to the Atlantic, it will have the basis for the life of an independent or semi- dependent nation. The farther that process goes the less the likelihood that the Canadians will look favorably on annexation with the United States. Already the Western Provinces begin to exercise an influence in the Canadian Parliament which threatens the supremacy of the old provinces; sooner or later the controlling voice in the Dominion will come from that part west of Lake Superior; just as in the United States it has passed to 30 EFFECT ON THE DOMINION the Mississippi Valley. The political dominion over the geographical Dominion of Canada is going into new, yet native, hands. For the task of internal development and government the western Canadians show much capacity; there is a large infusion of those vigorous Scots who have taken so striking a position in all the British possessions; the Americans coming over the border are still only a per- centage of the whole, but bring an experience in popular government and a standard of public education which are helpful; those of the foreign element, with the exception of the plaguey Eussian Doukhobors, can be assimilated. In Winnipeg one finds many wide-awake business men. In its social life, its buildings and the habits of its people the place is hardly distinguishable from American cities across the border. Still there is everywhere an Englishy way of doing things, combined with the American business imagination which makes men take risks. Out- side of Winnipeg the whole country is still raw and incomplete; but it is just now going forward more rapidly than any State of the Union west of Wisconsin and east of Washington. CHAPTEE IV THE STATE OF OREGON THE two States of Washington and Oregon are remarkably alike in physical contour, in products and in interests, but dissimilar in their history, the elements of their popiilation, and their point of view. While Washington has been the last of the Pacific com- munities to develop, Oregon was the first. Captain Gray, of Boston, in 1792 discovered the great river of the coast and named it for his ship, the Columbia; Lewis of Virginia and Clark of Kentucky, in 1806, came over the mountain wall, and floated down the river; John Jacob Astor, of New York, in 1810, planted his post at Astoria, near the mouth of the river ; Benjamin P. Wyeth, of Cam- bridge, in 1833 brought out an overland party. The Willamette Valley already had some settlers who had come around the Horn; and in 1834 arrived the first missionaries, followed in 1836 by the party of whom Marcus Whitman was one. Thus Oregon is nearly thirty years older than California, and prides itself on its conservatism. The reason for this early development was the fertility of the Willamette Valley, a wide plaili, much of which was not wooded, and all of which was easily reached from the Pacific. Until a few years ago, this valley and its commercial capital, Portland, were the whole of Oregon. iThe wide region to the east of the Cascade range hardly 32 POPULATION counted, for it includes a large part of the great lava beds which reach north into Washington; and it is still the region of the continental United States least provided with railroads. In area, Oregon is big beyond all Eastern notions; the state of Washington is greater in size than New England; if you lay that expanse on eastern Oregon there will still be left within the boundaries of the State a tract as large as South Carolina. Like Washington, Oregon has a large city, for Portland is thought by the coast people to be a kind of occidental Philadelphia, staid, aged and conservative. This rivalry between the coast cities was amusingly touched upon at a dinner recently given in Eugene, Oregon, a place of ten thousand people, which hopes to be much larger; it was reported as from "the head guesser of the Census Bureau" that the population of Seattle is 300,000, of Tacoma 301,000, of Portland 302,000, of Eugene 303,000. The three large cities are constantly subjected to various com- petitive tests, such as the number of names in the directories, bank clearings, and school enumerations. By the census of 1910 Seattle is in the lead, with Port- land a close second, and Tacoma is hopelessly distanced. Like Washington, Oregon depends for its wealth upon fisheries, lumber and wheat, and it has also become a fruit producer of world-wide reputation. The forests are more valuable than those of Washington, because more extensive and they are, so far, less cut over. Lane County in Oregon (a county about the size of Connecticut) claims to have fifty billion feet of standing timber. For the Lewis and Clark Exposition at Portland in 1906, they built a sort of temple of tree trunks, every one of which was five feet in diameter at the base, four at the capital and fifty-four feet high; it is the sort of structure that 33 THE STATE OF OREGON the Greeks tried to repeat in enduring stone; and it is certainly one of the most striking and effective buildings in the world. The Pacific slope of the Coast Eange, and the interior slopes, both of those mountains and of the Cascades, are heavily timbered with trees of such size and perfection that there is no rival for them away from the Pacific Coast of the United States and British Columbia. So far, the State had been no more prudent in its lumber cut than its sisters; but now there is an awakening to the need of skillful cutting, and the preserva- tion of such an asset, and the Federal government is aiding by forest reservations. The mineral wealth of Oregon has only been scratched so far; but there are a few productive gold mines in the Cascades and some coal near the ocean. The salmon industry is nowhere so lively as upon the Columbia, where a single one of the scores of fish wheels has been known to catch four tons of fish in a night. The two States divided by the river have been at odds as to the con- servation of the salmon, and Oregon has prohibited fish wheels. Oregon has always been an agricultural State and in going through it one sees curious structures with wooden ventilators, which are used for the storage of hops. This culture is diminishing, and some of the brewers have threatened to boycott the hops grown in dry counties, as a rebuke to the double-dealing of those who will not consume the liquid for which they furnish the raw materials. Eastern Oregon grows plenty of wheat, but the grain most before people's eyes is the apple. Hood Eiver apples are said to be sold in Paris at thirty cents apiece, to go upon the tables of millionaires, diplomats and popular actresses. Fruit lands down in the canon of Snake River 34 PRODUCTS are really worth five or six hundred dollars an acre, and people talk of a thousand or even two thousand dollars an acre. The idea seems to be that, if you can sell ten thousand bushels of apples at a fancy price, you could dispose of ten million bushels at the same price. "Wash- ington and Montana are already competitors in the fruit business, and it is likely that the fruit growers in the end will find that there is only a limited market for the highest-priced fruit. Yet nobody can deny that Oregon apples have a beautiful rosy texture, nor that the com- plexion of the girls is very similar. This is not the result of eating the apples, for of course, they are all exported, since Oregonians cannot aiford thirty cents apiece for apples. It would appear that the high quality both of the fruit and of the young ladies' complexions is due to the moist climate. Just how moist the climate is nobody living in either Oregon or Washington will take the responsibility of saying. A summer like that of 1908, in which there were not half a dozen rainy days during two months, is not a safe basis for an appraisal of coast summers, and still less of coast winters. When the late President Harrison addressed a crowd in the open air here some years ago, he was shocked that school children were allowed to stay out-doors and sing to him while it was raining; the Oregonians were simply not aware that it was raining. A comparison of partial revelations by different people leads to the suspicion that during the winter it rains in Oregon nearly every day; but that it is a sort of dry rain quietly drizzling down so that people accept it as they would a hot wave. You are told that the rainfall of the two States is less than that of the Atlantic Coast, but it is undoubtedly spread over more days. On the 35 THE STATE OP OKEGON other hand, the summer climate in a good year is almost perfect, with little extremely hot weather west of the Cascades, though it boils and broils and sizzles out on the lava beds; the air, notwithstanding the nearness of the sea, is not oppressive. Even in summer, however, and particularly in late summer, there is thick, muggy weather ; and people have been known to stay a month in Seattle and declare that there was no such thing as a Mount Rainier, though when the weather is clear it seems the only thing that you care to look at. People live an out- door life in the city and country, while camping and picnicking and summer outings are brought within the range of the exact sciences. The Coast in summer is much like Florida in winter, balmy and bright. Oregon, as the oldest of the three Coast sisters, has a character to maintain, and passes for conservative in these whistling latitudes. Till about thirty years ago the old farmers in the Willamette Valley made up a majority of the voters and had things their own way. The result has been that Oregon till recently has remained backward in education and intellectual appliances. The State has a good normal school, agricultural college and imiversity, all within a few miles of each other, but till 1907 the Legislature thought it was liberal in voting $48,000 a year for the university, which cares for the higher education of 700,000 people. Gradually the grad- uates of the university have spread through the State, and two years ago one of them got into the Legislature and made a campaign for an increase of the university's appropriation to $125,000 a year. The Legislature voted it; the governor vetoed it, and it was passed over his veto; whereupon some mossbacks invoked the referendum, and at the ensuing election submitted to the voters the 36 INTELLECTUAL important question whether the university should be kept at the old footing, or adopt a new standard. The result was fortunate for the university, for its sons rallied to its defense, the voters of the city of Portland were strongly in its favor, and overcame the conservative backwoods ; and the university has a continuing appropriation of an eighth of a million, which could only be disturbed by another referendum. The whole State has been educated by this discussion of higher education. That the referendum should be used for such a measure is due to the readiness of Oregon to enter on new gov- ernmental methods ; it was one of the first States in the Union to make the referendum a practice, one of the first Western communities to introduce a good primary system, and to indicate candidates for the United States Senate by a popular vote. But all these practices have become formidable; at the election in June, 1908, the voters were called upon to express an opinion on no less than ten proposed constitutional amendments, one "Act of the Legislature," five "measures," and five "bills." That is, besides the selection of State officers, the indication of preference for senatorial candidates and a vote on requiring Statement 'No. 1, there was a list of about twenty different legislative proceedings, upon which the poor voter must make up his mind. To assist him in the process the secretary of state, under an act of the Legislature, prepared a pamphlet of 126 pages in which are printed the texts of the measures to be passed upon; and in many cases arguments pro and con prepared by the friends and opponents of the various propositions, for instance, on the appropriation for the State University, the chairman of the University of Oregon Alumni Campaign Committee submitted seven 37 THE STATE OF OREGON pages, fortified with tables and comparisons; and he was controverted in print by a special committee of Linn County Council, Patrons of Husbandry, who assured the voters that "university professors on large salaries get extravagant ideas"; and that "if this bill be allowed to pass the university will use the fact as a club in demanding further appropriations from future Legislatures." On the question of a woman's suffrage amendment the Oregon Equal Suffrage Association filed a brief with postage stamp portraits of the great men, from Abraham Lincoln to Senator Jonathan Bourne, who have been supposed to favor woman suffrage. If all the voters read all these arguments, and make up unprejudiced minds by a process of ratiocination, the State can soon get along without a university or a newspaper. Oregon is a pioneer in a practical direct method of electing senators; and has now the curious result of a Democrat elected by the votes of a Eepublican Legislature. Under the law, preliminary primaries have to be held by each regular party; by this process the Eepublicans in 1908 killed off the previous Senator Fulton, and then nominated a rather unpopular man; the Democrats stood by Governor Chamberlain, who came into his office as a kind of reform Democrat. By a new law, candidates for the next Legislature who so desired were authorized to express their adhesion to "Statement No. 1," which was a pledge to vote for the candidate for senator who proved to have a plurality of the popular votes. That man was Chamberlain, and though the Legislature chosen at the same time was decidedly Eepublican, so many of the majority members had subscribed to Statement No. 1, that they were obliged to elect one of the enemy. Sug- gestions were made that "Statement No. 1" did not 38 GOVEENMENT bind people who signed it when they did not know how things were coming out, or that enough signers of State- ment No. 1 might resign to allow filling up with straight Eepublicans who would make short work of Chamberlain. It seemed, however, a dangerous matter for any party to commit itself to the doctrine that it is not bound by the plain intent of the law, nor the open pledges of its candidates for the Legislature, and Chamberlain went to the Senate, for which he is undoubtedly better fitted than his colleague, Bourne, who probably never could get through the ordeal of a popular vote. In this controversy, as in everything else in the State, the Oregonian, of Portland, took a lively part. The Oregonian is a public institution like the Hood Valley apples or the referendum; it is far and away the best newspaper on the Coast, edited in the staunch manner of the old N"ew York Tribune, the Springfield Republican or the Boston Transcript. Considering what the San Francisco papers are (or rather are not), and the weakness of most of the papers in Washington, the continued success of the Oregonian is striking; in general, it is on the side of progress. Otherwise, the State is as yet intellectually little moved, except by its institutions of learning. The Oregon people are just coming to realize that they can afford to give their children a good education, and the excellent University and Agricultural College are at the beginning of a career of great influence in the State. There is something stirring in the awakening of a State so full of potentialities. Though much of eastern Oregon is desert, entirely out of the reach of irrigation, some millions of acres can be touched by the magic springs and the ramifying gorges of the Upper Snake Eiver. Nobody really knows what are the mineral resources of the 4 39 THE STATE OF OEEGON Cascade Eange ; and western Oregon is capable of support- ing a population many times its present half million. Like Washington, the State outside of its one large city has a characteristic American population, and has attracted many Eastern men of high training. Its relation to the world's markets is not so close as that of Washington, but the lower Columbia, though it divides the State, seems to belong to Oregon, of which it opens up the whole northern boundary. In Mount Hood the State possesses a snow peak little inferior in size or accessibility to the Washington giants. Oregon is a strong, hardy and progressive State, which is certain to hold a larger place in the councils of the nation than it has yet attained. Its one ex-cabinet officer, Attorney-General Williams of Grant's time, was a force in Portland and in the State to his death in 1909. It remains to be seen whether the popular primary will bring to the front men of like abilities. CHAPTER V THE STATE OP WASHINGTON THE Father of His Country would turn over in his grave if he could see some of the places which have usurped his name; Washington County, Washington Township, Washington Cross Eoads, Washington Springs, and all the rest; but the heart of that prince of frontiersmen would swell could he see the vast country to which has been given the name of the State of Washington. People in the East do not realize how big some other parts of the country can be. Wash- ington, for instance, is as wide as from Boston to Buffalo, and its northern boundary is as distant from its southern as Montreal is from New Haven; in fact there are con- siderable areas of mountain and heavy forest which have never been explored at all, and may contain gold, coal, biggest of big trees, or mastodons, for the matter of that. The State includes, in Mount Eainier, one of the highest moimtains in the United States outside of Alaska ; through the commonwealth meanders the Columbia, a river destined to be as important to mankind as the Danube; and the broadest volcanic plain known to man stretches from central Washington to the southern boundary of Oregon. In fact, Washington is not one community, but three; or at least there are three very different belts, each of which has economic occupations and interests of its own. 41 THE STATE OP WASHINGTON Approaching from the eastward you first strike the country around and south of Spokane, to which the modest title of Inland Empire has been applied; there is even an Inland Empire electric road. Then comes the great lava country which reaches beyond the Columbia, muck of it as desert as Sahara; then west of the Cascades is the "Coast" proper, which is heavily timbered from the crest of the mountains to the sea beach. So widely separated are these three areas and so different are their aspirations that it would be hard to keep the two sides of the mountains together, but that the people are distinctly of one kind. The population of Washington, though rapidly increasing, is, in 1910, a little above a million ; and except in a few cities, it -is sub- stantially an American folk; nearly every State in the Union ' is represented, the born Yankee and the born Southerner being about equal in number, though the largest element is from the interior States west of the Mississippi. It is a country of immense opportunities where everybody can find a job at good wages. Cities have sprung up as though by magic, and the natural result is a buoyancy, a hopefulness, a sense of the future. The exuberance expressed in two of the slogans of the State "The Seattle Spirit" and "Watch Tacoma Grow," makes the Coast seem much like Chicago in the seventies. The people have, however, no such race problems as their Eastern neighbors ; the Negroes are few, the three Oriental races, Chinese, Japanese and Hindu, have up to this time furnished much-needed laborers, and their influx is now checked, so that no Yellow Peril is to be feared; the numerous Scandinavians are in origin a kind of Yankee Europeans, and fit readily into the Northwest. Slavs are found only in a few large cities. Nowhere in the 43 PEOPLE TJnion is there a better opportunity to show what the native American race can do for itself under favoring circumstances. There is not even an Indian problem, since most of the Coast tribes have conveniently faded away; and those who are left have reservations of land so valuable that they are all getting rich. The economic interests of "Washington are as yet developed only in a few directions. The country is still so new, and lumber and wheat and salmon are so profitable that it has been difficult to attract capital and labor into other activities. The State expects to be a manufacturing region, partly because of its fuel, partly because of the abundance of material for manufactures of wood, and still more because of the splendid waterpowers in the mountains not far from the coast. The electric cars of San Francisco are ran by a waterpower in the Sierras, 150 miles away; and much shorter distances will bring abundant power into Portland, Tacoma and Seattle, where there are already railroads, cheap ground for factories and a population available for hands. Mining is a much more important industry in Wash- ington than even most Washingtonians realize; in the northeastern part of the State are profitable mines in gold and silver, besides little known fields in the neighborhood of Mount Shuksan, near Mount Baker. Coal is mined on a considerable scale in the Cascades on the line of the Northern Pacific, and probably will be opened up elsewhere. This coal is not only used for locomotives and the household, but furnishes the seagoing steamers, and thus contributes to the prosperity of the ports of Washington. The fisheries are an important part of the wealth of the State, particularly the salmon, which are caught in 43 THE STATE OF WASHINGTON vast mimbers all the way up and down Puget Sound and in the tributary rivers up which they run. They con- stitute an international controversy, inasmuch as millions of these salmon are taken in American waters en route to the Eraser Eiver, which from source to mouth lies in British Columbia. These salmon do not carry the British flag, and the Americans ruthlessly impound them inside the international boundary below the river mouth, and thereby diminish the Canadian catch. The salmon are caught to some degree by the line, much more by seines, a kind of fishery in which gasolene launches and fishing craft have supplanted the old-fashioned schooners and dories; but the greater number of salmon are caught in traps. When a current sets along shore the salmon will follow a net into a pouch which can be raised and emptied. One hundred and fifty thousand fish have been dumped upon the floor of a cannery in Bellingham in a single day, though a fourth as many would be an average number during the season, even in that large establish- ment. In such a cannery the visitor sees something like the old-fashioned hoist of an ice house, carrying the fish up from the scows to the wharf. There they are put length- wise into a machine, which leaves them eviscerated and deprived of heads and tails. Next they go sidewise into another machine which cuts them into sections each the length of the can; nimble-fingered girls roll up the pieces of fish and fill the cans, which are then carried forward automatically to a place where the covers are added; they are sealed, heated a few minutes, the cover punctured to allow steam to escape, then are re-sealed and cooked for about half on hour in the cans. The process is reassuring, for fresh water everywhere flows, and it is as clean as 44 FISHEEIES the preparation of food can be. Except for filling the cans, the work at the large Coast canneries is done by gangs of Chinese, who contract the whole thing at so much a thousand cans, and form a reliable and willing labor, which can be rushed at critical times. The off-shore fisheries are also becoming important; as a matter of fact, much of the halibut in the Boston market is shipped from the Pacific Coast, but the abundant cod and herring are still little utilized. The greatest source of money on the Coast, as it has been for fifty years, is the lumbering, to which is due the mournfulness of the ordinary landscape in western Washington. Nearly all the lowland accessible to saw- mills has been cut over, leaving the dead trees standing; then fires have run through the country, blackening the stumps. Such was once the appearance of the timbered frontier from the Atlantic Ocean westward, but Eastern trees after a few years decay and fall, and stumps dissolve into nothingness; while in Washington the pine and fir stumps are almost indestructible. The stumps are not only tough, they are astonishingly thick set, and by their diameter show what big trees have been cut. For reasons about which even practical lumbermen seem vague, in the first cut stumps were left as much as twelve or fifteen feet high; and now after perhaps fifty years some of these high stubs are cut a second time and turned into shingles. The lumbermen in many eases started in life in Maine or Wisconsin, and have brought their experience into this new world of big trees, where they have made and are making many fortunes. The present cutting is mostly back from the coast, and depends on logging railroads, BO that the part of the business that is most in the 45 THE STATE OF WASHINGTON public eye is the mills, which are scattered all along the coast, and include some of the largest of their kind to be found anywhere. Seattle itself began as a sawmill camp. A big mill differs from Eastern sawmills chiefly in the size of the logs which it handles, and in the disposition of the refuse. The ordinary log runs from two to five feet in diameter, but larger ones are brought in by train, and it is a pretty sight to see the gang of band saws rushing through the midst of such a big log and leaving it a bundle of boards. The most conspicuous thing about a Coast mill is the "burnery," or tower, commonly with a wire capped dome, where the edgings and refuse are constantly going up in smoke. President Eoosevelt remarked when out here a few years ago that the people have two industries, fishing and lumbering, both of which can be made to last indefinitely, or can be exhausted in a generation. The Wash- ington forests are still available and will last for a long time, and parts of them have been reserved by the Federal government; but enormous tracts have fallen into the hands of the mill men. With their accustomed habit of understatement, the people of Washington will tell you that the great timber magnate, Weyerhauser, is worth more money than John D. Kockefeller, and M'hat could be nobler than that ! It is an industry that employs large numbers of skilled hands at high wages; nobody works in a sawmill for less than $3 a day. The crank-pin of the labor machinery is the small body of "weavers," or shingle packers, who work by the piece, earn incredible wages and are always discontented, and by refusing to work can throw the whole business into disorder. If western Washington alone were concerned, the State could hardly be considered agricultural, for the farms are 46 LUMBERING cleared only by cruel labor. The old pioneer jingle is not far from the truth : "Six months I chopped and I niggered, But never got down to the soil." The stumps are enormous, close set and very deep; big root after big root has to be chopped out, and there is no such thing as pulling stumps except with powerful tackle. Eecently machinery for clearing land has been introduced, through which a donkey engine operates a wire rope which draws dead and fallen logs and chunks of wood from perhaps a quarter of a mile away. The stumps are blown up by dynamite, and the fragments made up into piles sometimes seventy feet high, which are then burned. On a large scale such operations cost not less than fifty dollars an acre, and from one hundred to two hundred dollars is a common estimate, which puts on the "Washington farmer a great handicap in comparison with the owners of prairie soils in the Middle West. It is hard to make farming pay when the clearing of the land after you get it will cost a hundred dollars an acre; but the "logged-over lands" are a great problem in the State; and there are suggestions of State and county aid in opening them up. Very diilerent are the conditions in eastern Washington, where twenty-five years ago there was an area known as the Pelouse district, of rolling hills, supposed to be wind- drifts of volcanic dust. Nobody seemed to value this land, till the discovery was made that it was one of the best wheat regions in the United States. In two score years it has become a fertile garden, every quarter section cultivated and bearing noble crops. It is almost as 47 THE STATE OF WASHINGTON closely tilled as Japan or north Italy, and fanners are not uncommon whose annual crop is worth twenty thousand dollars, more than half of it profit; and there are millionaire holders of some of those wheat lands. The Pelouse gets plenty of rain; not so the interior of Washington where trains move nearly a hundred miles without' passing a single stream. Nothing could be more desolate than the lava plateau breaking oif into irregular cliffs which often show hexagonal basaltic structure. The soil is fertile enough when it gets water, and one of the great concerns of the State is irrigation; small fortunes are making out of land which to-day is worthless, and to-morrow, when the water reaches it, sells readily for two hundred dollars an acre. The United States has some large irrigation projects in the State; and private companies and syndicates have brought water out of the canons into such thriving fruit villages as Weenatehie and North Yakima. The total product of the State is very large, and not less than fifty million bushels of wheat come forward from the so-called Inland Empire. These Pacific Coast States have in twenty years gone through a process which required fifty years in Illinois and two centuries in South Carolina; in their short existence they have experienced the change from the rude frontier to a highly developed commercial and industrial community. Though the Indians have just ceased being a factor on the Coast, the cities and the prosperous towns are already much like those of the East. Besides the thriving little cities of Bellingham and Everett the State has three considerable centers of population. Spokane is practically the capital of eastern Washington; it has been attracted by the excellent waterpower of the falls and is a well-built, lively and interesting place with lots of trade. 48 THE FUTUEE Tacoma and Seattle are still rivals, though the latter city forged permaneiitly ahead when the Klondike made Seattle the outport for Alaska. No layman presumes to form an opinion as to the future of those two cities, except to suggest that, inasmuch as they are only thirty miles apart, they may eventually grow together and form the Twin City of the Pacific. Tacoma was for a long time the ^STorthern Pacific's town, and suffered from too much nursing by that corporation. Seattle discovered that its business district was jammed between the wharves and the hills and proceeded to abolish the hills. It is not inaptly said of Seattle that "she will be a handsome place when she once comes off the operating table"; for years the town was overlaid with trestles and underlaid by dirt trains. ISTothing is more magnificent than the provision for public education in Washington. When the State came into the Tlnion it received from Uncle Sam 3,700,000 acres of land with the provision that none of it should be sold for less than $10 an acre, and that the proceeds should be devoted to various public institutions. Besides its excellent common schools and high schools, the State has three normal schools which in buildings, teachers and range of instruction are superior to many colleges; and also a State ITniversity and a State College (formerly the Agricultural College) . Each of these two institutions thinks that the other has somewhat usurped its functions. The University teaches engineering and the College teaches Latin. The practical outcome will be that the State will find itself possessed of two well-organized universities; and both institutions are setting their mark upon the State. The University has interested itself in keeping the people mindful of their own history, which is full 49 THE STATE OF WASHINGTON of adventure, discovery and pioneer State making, for the people of "Washington justly believe in themselves; they are buoyant, enthusiastic and willing to predict their own greatness. This commendable State pride in 1908 expressed itself in the Alaska- Yukon-Pacific Exposition, held on the University grounds at Seattle. It was suggested partly by the success of the Lewis and Clark Exposition at Portland in 1906. The buildings by Howard, architect of the Buffalo Electric Tower, were excellent; and to the street of outside distractions — ^the Great White Way, the Midway, the Pike of other shows — ^was given the delightful name of "The Pay Streak." Let it be prophetic of the success and the prosperity of the State of Washington. CHAPTER VI TRANSrOR'l^ATION TROBLEMS PEOPLE in the East an- nccnstomcd to think that tliey have railroad prdblcms; but it is iioccssary to <,'() out to (lio Northwest coast in order to realize tlie intensity of feeling and the absorption of interest in the Paeific States as to the movement of lieople ami espeeially of freight. These States are all large in area, so that the inter-State movements are long and complicated; they are exporting communities, their \\('ifare largely deitendent on the rates for carrying their goods to market; they are ]irosperoiis States, rich for their [loiiulalion and aeenstomed to large transactions. In addition, they are still in a condition of ferment as to the future of the Coast eities ; while the natural obstacles to transportation and the artificial conditions fixed by the railroad magnates cause one place to build up and another to decay. Furthermore, they stand at the gateway of the Orient, with its enormous trade ])ossibilities, and are touched by the glamor of the Asiatic world. Farm values, the rise of business and residence property in the cities, the likelihood of getting rich, all depend upon freight tariffs to a degree hardly known east of the Mississippi. In their brief history the three Pacific States have passed through all the means of locomotion known to man, begin- ning with the dug-out of that Indian chief of whom Theodore Winthrop triumphantly wrote, "I have kicked 61 TEANSPOETATION PROBLEMS a king!" Then they were visited by sailing craft like the little brig Pilgrim, in which Eichard H. Dana seventy years ago loaded hides; then by the tall ships, carrying stores and gold seekers in, and timber and grain outward ; then the ports were linked up along the coast by little steamers, some of which connected with trans-Isthnuan routes to the States; to-day the harbors hold fleets of sea-going steamers bound to every part of the world. The distance from the Mississippi is so great — over two thousand miles — and the rampart of mountains so high that railroads came very late to the Coast. A little line was early constructed around the rapids of the Columbia at Cascades and short roads into the interior of the Willamette Valley; but it is only about twenty years since the Northern Pacific, the first of the overland routes to that part of the Coast, began to run trains from Lake Superior to Puget Sound. Gradually other trunk lines have reached in, until every city has at least three Eastern connections, and five through lines to the Coast are in operation; and, as in other parts of the country, short railroads have been consolidated. Leaving out of account the Canadian Pacific, which does a considerable business in and out of the State of Washington, there are now two immense and rival systems of railroads, the Hill and the Harriman. The Harriman or Southern Pacific in 1908 reached no farther north than Portland, coming up from San Francisco and Sacra- mento past Mt. Shasta ; and also furnishing a more direct Eastern line by the Oregon Eiver & Navigation road from Portland to Salt Lake City, and thence via the old Union Pacific to Omaha. Much larger is the network of Hill roads, which were to have been consolidated along with the Burlington in 52 EAILROADS the famous Northern Securities Corporation, which in 1904, was disallowed by the Supreme Court. Nevertheless, everybody knows that the Northern Pacific and the Great Northern are practically one system, although people who ship over both lines say that the Northern Pacific as a business institution is still very much better run than the Great Northern. Up to 1909 the only connection between Eastern and Western Washington, except by the roundabout 0. E. & N., was over one or the other of the Hill lines. The railroad situation has now undergone a great change. First of all, the Southern Pacific is ouilding from Portland north to Tacoma and Seattle, closely paral- lelling the Northern Pacific, which was for years the only line connecting the two groups of cities, and was justly execrated for its infrequent and slow service. In the second place, the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul, ffl^hich for several years was building through South Dakota, Montana and Wyoming, has reached the Coast, and its trains are running from Chicago to Tacoma and Seattle, thus introducing a new competitor. By con- structing a long tunnel under the Cascades the Mil- waukee lowers the summit level and decreases the great expense of operation over the mountains. The greatest change, however, is the construction of the North Coast Eailroad, commonly called the North Bank road, because it follows the stream of the Columbia from Pasco, where the Northern Pacific crosses, all the way to the town of Vancouver in Washington, which is in sight of Portland. When in the early eighties the Northern Pacific road was building the chief engineer, the late Thomas Doane, of Charlestown, advised the com- pany to locate their line down the Columbia and north- 53 TEANSPORTATIOISr PEOBLBMS ward from the vicinity of Portland to Puget Sound; his plan was rejected, but the fundamental idea that the natural highway from the interior is along the Columbia has been realized in the North Bank road, which is a first-class double-track highway, laid out with easy curves and following the grade of the river bed. The prime object is the tapping of the "Inland Empire" with its fifty million bushels of wheat and other crops ; but it looks as though this road also is aimed at a new deep-water terminal in or near the mouth of the Columbia. The new development in railroads is likely to have a marked effect on the Coast cities, which are striving with might and main to win the trade of the interior and the commerce to foreign lands. To a small degree Van- couver enters into this competition; but it is practically a commercial pocket borough of the Canadian Pacific alone, and cannot expect much trade through the American railroads. There are some small places which have great hopes; the people of central Oregon expect great things of Coos Bay; Aberdeen, north of the mouth of the Columbia, has a good harbor and would become one of the world's famous cities if only enough people would come there to build it up. Port Angeles on the south side of the Strait of Juan de Fuea had hopes, in the sixties, of being a noble town, when Victor Smith, the collector sent out by Secretary Chase during the Civil War, moved the custom house from Puget Sound thither; but Lincoln removed the collector, the Government sent the custom house back to Fort Townsend, and a later collector reported upon Port Angeles that "A freak of nature made it, and a freak of nature will some day unmake it." Bellingham and Blaine and Anacosta all have fine harbors and little shipping. The real rivalry is between the Columbia River 54 SHIPPING and Puget Sound. Inasmuch as the North Coast road includes a bridge across the Columbia a few miles from Portland, that city expects to become the entrepot for the Inland Empire and also the leading Pacific shipping port. It seems quite possible, however, that the railroad people intend to continue their road along the north bank another hundred miles, and then seek a port at South Bend or Aberdeen, which shall not be confined by the bar of the Columbia Eiver. The serious question of shipping, and especially of trans-oceanic commerce, is one of harbors. Everybody knows that the reason why the ship Columbia discovered the river in 1792 instead of Vancouver, with his royal expedition, was simply that the Yankee skipper was the first to discover that behind the breakers lay a majestic stream. The bar at the mouth of the Columbia has always been an impediment to navigation, and in a natural state would prevent the entrance of the large steamer of the present day; but Uncle Sam is putting down jetties, so as to narrow the channel. The Portland people believe that they now have twenty-four feet of water; and if twenty-four feet, why not forty-eight feet? The Seattle people scoff at this effort to dig a trough through a sand bank, and call attention to Puget Sound, where in many places the water is thirty feet deep a stone's throw from the shore, and the entrance from the sea is as easy as the Golden Gate at San Francisco. Their minds recog- nize no rivalry from Portland, and still less from Taeoma ; and they confidently expect to surpass San Francisco in foreign commerce. Leaving out of account the future of the North Bank road, which perhaps has not yet revealed itself to its owners, the railroad magnates appear to pin their faith 5 55 TKANSPOETATION PEOBLEMS to Puget Sound, which now has through rail connection eastward via the Canadian Pacific, Northern Pacific, Great Northern, Milwaukee and St. Paul, Southern Pacific, and probably an extension of the North Bank road to Tacoma and Seattle. The owners of these properties are all far- sighted and sagacious men, who in these enterprises give large pledges to fortune. The Milwaukee and the Southern Pacific are reputed to have spent each $5,000,000 in buying land for terminals in Tacoma, and have also made heavy expenditures for the same purpose in Seattle. For various reasons, coastwise and internal steamer traffic plays a larger part on the northwest coast than farther south. The Columbia is the only large navigable stream on the whole west coast of North and South America; the rapids at the Cascades are surmounted by a good-sized Grovernment lock, which has cost several millions, and though now paralleled on both sides by railroads, the Columbia is capable of a large commerce. Parts of northeastern Washington can be reached only by the little river boats, and the lower hundred miles below Portland is a highway for sea-going craft, though the towage of a sailing vessel from the bar to the Portland wharf and back again costs $500. Puget Sound is alive with steam craft of every dimension; and as the large islands and peninsulas settle up, they will always call for boat service. In addition, there is the coastwise traffic from San Francisco to the Columbia and Puget Sound (which, however, has fallen into the hands of the railroad companies) and the local steamer traffic of British Colum- bia. The Sound will always accommodate a lively water commerce. Few places in the world have such a picturesque flotilla of steam craft as the boats that ply from Seattle and Tacoma. 56 OCEAN COMMEECB What as to the over-sea traffic? How much is there of it ? What is the division among competing ports ? And what are its prospects? Ever since the discovery of gold, San Francisco has been the great Pacific port; its superb harbor with deep water off the city, its nearness to the gold fields, and after they were depleted, to the grain fields and timber, attracted shipping and drew to it the first Pacific railroad. San Francisco has now three steam- ship lines to Japan and China — The Pacific Mail, the T. K. K. (a Japanese line) and the Oriental and Occi- dental of English ships, the three running on a combined schedule. Such a start is hard to overcome and it was nearly thirty years after the opening of the Central Pacific in 1868 before Puget Sound began to export any- thing other than its own products. About twelve years ago the North Pacific put on steamers from Portland. Jim Hill and his Great Northern road seem from the beginning to have had the Oriental trade in mind. Now there are two lines of passenger steamers from Seattle, the Great Northern, and the N. Y. K. (another Japanese line), besides several freight lines from Seattle and Tacoma. For some reason those lines have been unable to attract either freight or passen- gers in a sufficient quantity to make them profitable. The' Boston Steamship Company withdrew in 1908 its four ships, of which the names of two, the Shawmut and Tremont, reveal the origin of their owners. They were sold at a bargain to Uncle Sam and have been put in the Government line from New York to Panama. The N. Y. K. steamers of about 6,000 gross tons were in 1907-1908 unable to get more than 600 to 700 tons of freight per trip. The Great Northern steamers were started in 1905, with two splendid ships, expecting to increase the number, 57 TEANSPOETATION PKOBLEMS but they were brought down to one vessel by the wrecking of the Dakota in 1907; and Jim Hill asserts that the remaining ship, the Minnesota, is loaded chiefly with air. How far this lack of earnings is due to permanent causes, and how far to commercial depression since 1907, is hard for a layman to judge. The Milwaukee and St. Paul Eailway has formed a close trade connection with the 0. K. K., a third Japanese line of steamers. The Blue Funnel Freight Line from Tacoma to the Orient seems prosperous. The French Chargeurs Eeunis are running a line of good steamers from Seattle to San Francisco, thence around South America to Eio Janeiro, stopping at more than a dozen ports; thence to France, and back via the Suez Canal, to the Orient and Seattle. All the ships then in the Pacific trade were busy in 1905 and 1906. The real difficulty seems to be that trade with the Orient does not grow in proportion to the oppor- tunities of shipment. In President Eoosevelt's time Mr. Hill used to lay it all to "That Man in Washington," who, he says, incited the Interstate Commerce Commission to make a ruling that when a railroad makes a freight rate extending beyond its terminus over seas, it must give no- tice and must publish the rate which it receives for the railroad part of the route. To Hill's mind this is so de- structive of sound principles of railroading, that at one time he vowed he would not accept any more foreign ship- ments; the Chinese might starve for all the flour he would load in his cars. The people on the Coast, however, have been quite will- ing to find out what rates the railroads make to tide water on foreign shipments, as a practical lesson in the art of rate making on shipments intended to stop at these ports. Furthermore, inland shippers in places like 58 KATES Spokane think it a hardship that the rates from the East should be more than those charged to the Coast. Where the railroads meet water competition round the Horn, in some cases it may save money to pay rail freight from Chicago to Seattle and back over the same line four hun- dred miles eastward again. This issue was distinctly raised at the Interstate Commerce Commission, in the case of the City of Spokane vs. Northern Pacific Railway Company, submitted October 1, 1907, decided February 9, 1909. It was shown that a considerable part of the shipments from the East to Spokane paid the rate from the East to Seattle plus its local rate from Seattle to Spokane. In the case of tin boxes the rate to Spokane was double that to Seattle. The Commission held that the competition by sea justified making specific rates to Coast points; but that, considering the profits of the rail- road companies, the rates to Spokane ought to be re- duced, and they so ordered. This is an important applica- tion of the short-haul doctrine, and is likely to have con- siderable influence on the development of wholesale trade centers on the Coast. One of the difiiculties in the way of the export trade is undoubtedly the rigor of the American tariff system. When in 1897 the American silk manufacturers were allowed to write the paragraph in the Dingley tariff relat- ing to Chinese and Japanese raw silks and finished products, they took care (so far forth) to diminish the imports of manufactured goods from the Orient; and that means in the long run to cut down the exports to the Orient. It is useless for Americans to suppose that they can make a market for their manufactures in the East by building or subsidizing ships, so long as they refuse to admit the products of Asia on equitable terms. 59 TSAN^SPOETATiON PEOBLEMS The nations are growing on both sides of the Pacific, and the volume of trade will probably increase. What ports will get it? As yet San Francisco appears to hold its own in a total foreign commerce greater than Portland, Seattle and Tacoma combined; among those three cities it certainly looks as though the Sound had the superiority over the river; and Seattle somewhat leads Tacoma in foreign commerce. As between San Francisco and the Northern portsj fate appears to have established the entrepot of the Pacific on Puget Sound ; that whole group of ports is hundreds of miles nearer Yokohama than its rivals; it has more railroads and several competing sys- tems, as opposed to the ruthless monopoly of the Southern Pacific in California. By taking advantage of the valley of the Columbia (the only gap in the Cascades and Sierras) grades can be obtained which will always make transportation cheaper than is possible to a port like San Francisco, opposite the unbroken wall of the Sierras. What part the trades unions and grafters in California may play in lessening the prestige of their chief city is not yet revealed; people say that San Francisco will hold its supremacy, but the Sound ports are barely beginning their foreign trade, while that of San Fran- cisco has relatively lost ground. As an exchange point between a network of railroads and a web of steamer lines, Puget Sound seems to have better promise. Cali- fornia is farther out of its pioneer period, and has less progress before it than Oregon and Washington. Seattle and Tacoma taken together are already as large as San Francisco and Oakland, and there is more likelihood of their becoming the New York of the Pacific slope. The one disturbing infiuence which nobody as yet can calculate is the probable diversion of traffic from all the 60 ADVANTAGES Pacific ports when the Panama Canal is finished, but what is lost in the proportion of foreign trade will doubt- less be made up by traffic from the East to the West of America; and shipments destined for the Orient from all parts of the United States west of Pennsylvania and north of Kentucky and Missouri can afford to pay trans- continental freight rather than go through the Isthmus. CHAPTEE VII SCENIC ALASKA AN" American critic of his own country declares that American mountains are commonplace in their outlines; this is perhaps true of the Appalachian ranges^ which are so far worn down that they have lost their sharp and nigged steeps, and except at Mount Desert the Atlantic Coast lacks the combination of steep moun- tain and sea which makes the whole northern shore of the Mediterranean so beautiful. On the Pacific Coast, especially near Santa Barbara, mountains rise out of the sea abruptly; but in general, the coast of California is regular and has low outlying islands. This state of things changes abruptly on reaching Puget Sound, for the bold and jagged mountains have waded out up to their knees in the sea, and the whole stretch from the Straits of Fuca to Icy Straits near Mount Fayer- weather is an archipelago of islands, ranging in size from Vancouver, nearly three hundred miles long, to points of rock a yard square. The southern part of this region belongs to British Columbia, but from Dixon Entrance, at 54° 40', to Lynn Canal, the whole coast line is the pos- session of the United States. Alaska, which till ten years ago was important prin- cipally as furnishing a ground of controversy between England and the United States over the seal fisheries, is now the wonderland of America. The history of Alaska 6? THE VOYAGE as a community begins on the day in 1897 when a steamer came into Seattle bringing miners and gold dust from the upper Yukon; but it is already ceasing to be a scattered set of placer mining camps, and is a "Territory" of vast area and immense possibilities. The people whom you meet in Alaska are broadly divis- ible into two groups — ^"Tourists" and "Sourdoughs" — or people who have spent a winter up there. To the former class it is a land of new experiences and unfathomed delights. Picture a sea voyage of eleven hundred miles and back with scarce a disturbing billow; for between Seattle and Skagway there are only three points — the Straits of Fuca, Queen Charlotte Sound and Dixon Entrance, where the Pacific swell ever reaches the ship's course; out of five days' steaming there are barely six hours when the most resolutely bad sailor could enjoy his favorite seasickness. The steamers are of several lines, the best of them belonging to the Canadian Pacific, Alaska Steamship Company or Pacific Steamship Com- pany, the last two practically syndicated. They ply all the year round, but during the three summer months they either put on special excursion steamers, or send the best of their regular lines to outlying places, for the benefit of the tourists. It is wonderful how the narrow channels are traversed by day and by night, for this is one of the foggy parts of the world; the great Kuro Siwa Japan current sweeps up northeastward to the coast, and is then deflected south- ward along it, bringing warmth and moisture, which are intercepted by the lofty mountains in a prodigious snow- fall. In the winter, with its short days, navigation is trying, and the pilots feel their way along by comparing the echoes of the fog whistle as it is reverberated by thg 63 SCENIC ALASKA cliffs to port and starboard; and numerous wrecks along the route bear testimony to the dangers of the road. In summer, however, you may be fortunate enough to encoun- ter only a single rainy day on a ten days' trip. Never is one more grateful for sunshine and outlook, for there is literally not a half-hour between Seattle and Skagway without something beautiful and striking in full view. The islands are indescribable in their variety and beauty, all the large ones heavily wooded, many of the little ones as fantastic as the Thousand Islands in the St. Lawrence. One special beauty is the trains of sunken peaks, which make sometimes a dozen islands of various sizes in a row a mile long. In several places, notably Seymour Narrows, Granville Channel, Wrangell Narrows and Peril Straits, the channel is so narrow that you may toss a biscuit ashore on either side of the ship, yet so deep that a safe anchorage could not be found. These narrow waters are flanked by mountains of great variety, all densely wooded as they rise from the water; but from the moment of leaving Seattle, if the weather is clear, more distant snow peaks are visible. Mount Baker rises before Mount Eainier disappears; and north of Baker appear peaks of the Canadian mountains, many without a name, but even in height of summer carrying a crown of snow. Before passing Vancouver Island high lying glaciers are seen, and they accompany the traveler all the way. The glaciers, fed by the excessive rainfall among the high mountains, form a belt of lofty snows almost continuous to Mount Fayerweather, west of Skag- way. This belt of unbroken snows feeds hundreds of glaciers, of which about half a dozen large ones reach the sea and discharge icebergs. The earthquake which shook San Francisco broke down some of these icy cliffs, 64 SNOW MOUNTAINS especially in Muir Glacier, the most striking of them all, which so filled Glacier Bay with floating ice that it was almost impossible for steamers to enter. Farther to the northwest the ice breaks off at Yakutat, coming in again south of Mount McKinley. In broad snow fields, in enormous glaciers hanging high on the slopes of mountains, in lofty waterfalls, Alaska has enough material to make a dozen Switzerlands, and all this is combined with magnificent fjord scenery, which would stock up five Norways. Lynn Canal, by all accounts of those who have seen them both, far surpasses the famous Hardanger Fjord on the Norwegian coast. It is said that a congressman in Washington once inquired whether Lynn Canal had been dug by the Eus- sians; but the Eussians could hardly have hollowed out an arm of the sea forty miles long, five miles wide, lined with almost perpendicular mountains and crowned with more than twenty glaciers. To navigate that wonderful water is like seeing the Himalayas from the deck of a Mississippi steamer. From favorably situated points like the mountains above Junea, in good weather one sees not only the cirques of the neighboring glaciers, but on the northwestern horizon catches sight of the crystal white domes of the Fayerweather range, which run up to about 18,000 feet. To the eastward lies an unsullied waste of white snow and black peaks; and below, so near that a rifie shot would fall into it, lies the salt water. The coast is lined with bays, inlets, straits, sounds, passages, entrances, channels, narrows, reaches and canals, penetrating scores of miles up into the interior, dividing islands, cutting off capes and combining in a never-ending wilderness of in- terlocking land and water. 65 SCENIC ALASKA Two races had already set their stamp upon this wondrous coast before the Americans possessed it. The Indians were scanty, and were wholly settled in villages upon the water front, many of which are still in existence. The Northern tribes bear so striking a resemblance to the Japanese that it is impossible to resist the conviction that they are descended from castaways from Asia. When first reached by the whites they were an artistic people, every part of their boats, tools, clothing and houses bear- ing some sort of decoration. The most striking remains of this artistic period are the totem poles, which may still be seen "in situ" in several villages in British Columbia, and at Wrangell and a few other places in Alaska. The finest collection is at Sitka, but they have been brought there from elsewhere, and artistically planted along the shore. Some years ago an excursion party from Seattle landed at an unoccupied village, sawed down a totem pole and brought it in triumph to their city, where it now embellishes Pioneer Square. Shortly after, arrived a party of Indians, to find out who had stolen the grave monument of their ancestors; they engaged counsel, entered suit against the acquirers of their property, and compelled them to soothe their grief to the extent of several thousand dollars. It is said that subsequently another Indian party arrived, who claimed that they were the only genuine original owners of that totem pole; but the repentance market was by that time exhausted. There are people who profess to know the occult meaning of the strange creatures that stand upon each other's heads all the way up the totem poles ; but no two agree as to the lesson of any particular pole. Some of the tribes carve totems out of black stone; 66 INDIANS many of them make m^occasins and other small articles of sealskin to tempt the tourist; and there are still in exist- ence many of the Indian tools and utensils; as recently as seven years ago a carload of Indian products was collected and sent on for the St. Louis Exposition. Nowadays the only art industry is the making of baskets, in which each village has its traditions. Nothing is more fascinating than these works of art, which show the Oriental color sense and skill in contrasting material. People who were early on the ground picked up such baskets for a trifle and one lady now in Europe is sup- posed to be paying her way out by the sale of such a collection. The Eussians have left more impress upon Alaska than might have been expected, considering how few of them ever actually settled in the country ; they had a hard time with the Indians and their first settlement on BaranofE Island was exterminated by their savage neighbors; but they founded Sitka nearly a century and a half ago and Wrangell and other little towns farther north and east. They named the islands of Chicagoff, KupreanofE, Mitkoff and many others; and Eussian half-breeds and a few of the pure stock are still to be found in Sitka, where they maintain a flourishing Eussian school for the Indians. The Eussians were bold explorers and navigators, and indefatigable collectors of furs. If Alaska had been nearer Eussia or Siberia they would never have turned it over to the United States. At intervals along the coast stand little towns, Ketchi- kan, Wrangell, Juneau, Sitka and Skagway, each with its Indian village attached; and one of the duties of the tourists is to swarm forth when the ship reaches the dock, at each settlement, to see the place, stare at the 67 SCENIC ALASKA people, and buy the curios. To the people of these settle- ments the steamer is the periodical comet which connects them with the rest of the universe; but, by one of those ingenious perversions which are so attractive to the mana- gers of transportation lines, the two companies which despatch steamers from Seattle, each at intervals of five days, contrive to leave within a few hours of each other, so that a man gets five daily papers at once and then waits nearly a week to find out whether Colonel Eoosevelt has escaped from Africa. One of the pursuits of the voyage is to watch for whales, which sport in numbers in these waters ; once in a while by special good fortune a tourist steamer puts into one of the whaling stations. No longer does the hardy whaler from his lookout shout "Thar she blows"; no longer are the whaleboats hurried over the side, while the harpooner balances his polished blade for a cast into the living mass of blubber. Instead, a little steamer goes up and down, armed with a harpoon gun; when a whale is sighted they steam after him, if possible fire on him, kill him, inflate the carcass with air to keepi it from sinking, and turn it over to a steam or gasolene tender which tows it off to the rendering works on shore. A visit to Tyee Island impresses itself forever on the olefactories. Sensitive noses never go further than halfway up the pier, though one of the twins was certain that if he had had a bottle of smelling salts he might have got far enough to see the whale upon which they were working on the day of the visit. The whale was both smellable and visible, or rather his fifty-foot backbone, wrapped in red flesh which the whale boss said was no tougher than ordinary beefsteak. The combined smell of whale oil, whale blubber, whale debris, whale phosphate and the flve 68 PROTECTED WATEES barrels of herring which the whale had in his hold as freight, formed a compound which, once smelt, can never be forgotten. The four most striking points in this northern journey are Grenville Channel, where the steamer winds in and out of a narrow river-like strait, among beautiful purple mountains ; Sitka with its beautiful harbor, protected from the Pacific surges by island jewels; Lynn Canal, with its setting of unmatchable icy cliffs; and Taku or Muir Glacier, where the ice actually reaches the sea. Any one of the four would be a sufficient endowment of scenery for a whole State; and all of them are reached without BO much as putting on a pair of heavy shoes. The whole region is fitted by nature for camping, and enthusiastic tourists have been heard to say that when they died they expected St. Peter to furnish them with a launch and free gasolene to cruise indefinitely in southeastern Alaska. For the lover of natural scenery nature has been prodi- gal in Alaska; the sea is beautiful; the islands are won- derful; the mountains are magnificent and the snow is overwhelming. Superlatives get worn out before the voy- age is half over, and people come down to the point of saying about a snow field stretched several thousand feet above the sea, "Isn't it pretty?" On the return voyage habitual bridge-tenders can hardly be drawn from their cards in the cabin by anything less than a volcano sud- denly gushing out of the water dead ahead. Even the volcano is not wanting to the adventurous traveler who sails for Nome or Japan, for these steamers sometimes coast the Aleutian Islands for a day or two, where the vapors roll up from a live volcano, where the Kadiak bears, fiercest of their kind, attack hunters and leave them alive with forty wounds; where on Attu, the 69 SCENIC ALASKA most westerly part of North America, you still find the primitive customs of the Indians. The man who visits those excessive latitudes feels himself a genuine Westerner, for, as the people of Seattle never weary of telling you, when you reach Puget Sound from Boston you are only halfway to the farthest American territory of the United States. CHAPTEE VIII PRACTICAL ALASKA NOT long ago a letter was sent from Washington, D. C, to Alaska with a five-cent stamp, under the impression that it was destined for a foreign country, and there have been times when the Post Office Department has refused to accept mail for southeastern Alaska during the winter on the ground that there was no communication, although through the year at least two steamers every five days run from Seattle to Skagway. This confusion is perhaps pardonable in view of the enormous reach of the territory and of the dissimilar character of its three sections. Southeastern Alaska is nearest to the States, has had white settlement for about a century and a half, is farthest developed, and contains the greatest scenic wonders. Southwestern Alaska begins at Valdez and includes the Aleutian Islands, with their stretch of nearly a thousand miles and also the Seward Peninsula, St. Michaels, which is the port at the mouth of the Yukon, and Cape Nome, on Behring Straits, where rich placer mines are being worked. It includes also the Pribyloff Islands, upon which the seals have congregated with the malicious purpose of setting two great nations by the ears over the question whether they are genuine red, white and blue seals, or whether outside the three-mile limit they are denationalized seals, the property of anybody who can catch them. 6 71 PEACTICAL ALASKA The third division of Alaska is the Yukon Valley, of which Dawson, in the Dominion of Canada, is the prin- cipal place. Klondyke Creek, which has given its name to the district, and the neighboring placers have been worked out so far that Dawson is declining, and at present Pair- banks and the Tanana districts are the rich placer mines. For several years the placers were reached with great difficulty by trails from Taku, Skagway and Dyea, to tributaries of the upper Yukon, which lie only thirty or forty miles in an air line from Lynn Canal, the wildest and deepest of the fjords. The building of a little rail- way from Skagway over the White Pass to the river, where steamboat navigation begins, has opened the upper Yukon so that it is accessible now at all seasons. The whole territory of Alaska, with its outlying islands, includes about 500,000 square miles, or, say, ten States the size of Iowa; but the population is still scanty and widely diffused. The Indians are variously estimated at from 15,000 to 30,000 in number; as late as 1907 a body numbering about 3,000 was discovered in Bristol Bay, in southwest Alaska, whose existence had been almost ignored. There is a great demand for guides, packers, woodchop- pers, boatmen and hands in the canneries, so that the Indians readily find and accept employment. The usual testimony is that they save little money, but take care of their families and get on about as well as the white laborers. The government is trying to help them by establishing a practical type of school under the super- intendency of Mr. UpdegrafE; and there are 72 such schools maintained out of government funds; for, unlike their brethren of the plains, these Indians have no tribal lands to furnish funds for their welfare. The wild Indians were a healthy race, or at least the 73 PEOPLE weaker ones were killed out by the hardships of their lives, and the survivors were healthy; but civilization has brought them tight clothes and tight houses; and con- sumption rages among them. Their close rooms become stufEed with tuberculosis germs, and they are in danger of dying out, which would be a great misfortune to the Territory, to which they are adapted and which needs their labor. In the far Northwest are many Eskimos within the jurisdiction of the United States, a good- natured and intelligent race. Mr. Sulzer, member of Congress from New York City, who has interests in Alaska, in 1905 claimed for it a white population of 100,000. This is a large over- estimate; there are probably not much above 30,000 whites in the three regions together, and it is a fluctuating body. In the fall the steamers are crowded with people coming out with their gold dust or their sav- ings; in the spring the current sets backwards, though there is a considerable element of "Sourdoughs" who have wintered up there and know their superior endurance over the tourist and the occasional visitor. The Alaskan population is very much mixed, a few Eussians or descendants- of Eussians (there is a Greek Church in Juneau as well as in Sitka), some French and French half-breeds from the Canadian interior, and samples of all the nationalities that come into the United States. The leaders, and especially the capitalists, are distinctly American. The lesser part of the population is settled in the few Alaskan towns, Ketchikan, Sitka, Wrangell, Douglas, Juneau, Skagway — southeastern Alaska taken altogether may have 6,000 or 8,000 people. Valdez, Nome, Fairbanks and the other interior towns con- tain a few thousand more; but about two-thirds of the 73 PEACTICAL ALASKA population is in mining camps, scattered all over the Territory. The coast towns are merely built on planks, to keep out of a sea of mud; but in buildings, streets and the life of the people^ they are not inferior to frontier towns in more southern latitudes, except that none look older than about twenty-five years, and they disappoint by their comfort and air of prosperity. For, notwithstanding its other commercial oppor- tunities, the principal industry of Alaska is and always will be mining. So far little silver has been found, and that usually as a by-product of other metals; there are large copper deposits, mostly inland, including some masses of pure copper which are so hard to separate and handle that they are worth less per ton than rich ores. Gold is very widely distributed; the first placers were found at Juneau on the coast, and just above that place is still visible a broad flume built to divert the stream so that the bed rock could be reached through the gravel. Unfortunately the owners neglected the precaution of finding out beforehand whether there was pay dirt on the bed rock, and the whole thing was a failure. A similar project on Porcupine Creek near Skagway, after months of labor, in 1908 had reached the point where the owners might expect to find out whether their investments of himdreds of thousands of dollars in building flumes and taking out boulders was to bring them a fortune. At Rome the original placers were found on the sea beach, but several parallel old beaches have been dis- covered. There and elsewhere gold dredging projects abound, and a sanguine promoter encountered in the Canadian Pacific Eailway train described how his com- pany had ordered sixty dredges, each of which when it got to work was to make a profit of a million a month. 74 MINES After paying several national debts one could have a lot of fun with $720,000,000 a year. All kinds of placer mines, however, soon run out; and the gold product of Alaska is kept up to its normal $20,000,000 a year by mining with machinery. Dawson is declining, Nome and Fairbanks will probably undergo the same fate, but regu- lar mines of quartz and other ores are numerous, and there will be great profit in Alaskan gold mining during many years to come. The country is so enormous, such large parts are covered with "tundra" of thick moss, and so many other regions are in trackless mountains, that not one hundredth part of the mineral wealth can have been revealed. Almost no mine other than placer can be profitable at present in Alaska, unless it is on or near the sea. This is the reason for the great success of the Treadwell group of mines on Douglas Island where for about twenty years ore running as low as $2.00 a ton in gold has been mined at a profit. This is said to be the largest gold mine in the world — the water supply is brought eighteen miles — ^they employ over a thousand men; they have one mill of 300 sets of stamps, and another of 200 ; the "Glory Hole" or open pit is 600 feet deep, and a recent rock slide buried 50,000 tons of ore that was ready to raise at the bottom of the pit. The underground workings are more than a thousand feet down, and one of them takes its ore directly from below the surface of the sea. It is a very clean mine, with the best of air at an equable tempera- ture summer and winter; the workings are annular drifts, the ore from one level run down through chutes to the lower level, where it is loaded automatically into the tips. Not a man in the mine draws less than $3.00 a day; and there is steady work every day in the year. Yet in 75 PEACTICAL ALASKA 1908 the Western Federation of Miners undertook to reorganize the mine, the only official grievance that they could find being that the company kept up a club house for their men. For a time military was necessary to protect the two-thirds of the hands who kept working, but the 300 vacancies were quickly filled, though four months later the placards were still posted up and down Alaska informing the working men that the strike was on and that they must avoid Douglas. The success of this mine is due to most careful and attentive management, aided by perfect shipping facilities ; the oil for fuel comes in tank steamers to the docks a few hundred feet from the shafts; the timber which clothes the islands all around the mines makes good mine props, and the concentrate has to be moved only a few feet to the vessels which carry it down to the smelter at Taeoma. Similar water-side mines are bound to be dis- covered; to others lying inland short spurs of railroad will be built. There is money in Alaska gold mining, and perhaps it would be more profitable if less energy were given to selling stock and more to raising ore. Observers in Alaska say that every dollar of gold that has so far been brought out of the Territory has cost on the average about $2.00 in money invested and labor. Even to the expert on the ground a gold mine is more or less of a gamble. The territory is rich in another mineral much less common on the Pacific coast than gold. Coal has already been developed at seventeen different places in Alaska, coal in thick seams, of good quality, suitable for steaming, and some of it for cooking. So far none of- it lies on the coast; the nearest is sixteen miles back, and the best beds are nearly 300 miles from the coast, across 76 AGEICULTUEB a momitain range. Great efforts are now being made to reach these fields by railroad and to market this supply, and within a short time several mines will be delivering their output at tide water. Considering the rapid increase of Pacific shipping and the cost of the Washington and Oregon coals, the Alaska supply seems likely to find a large demand. Of course, mining towns will spring up, and if the climate at all allows, farms will be taken up to supply the new cities. This is one of the unsolved problems of Alaska; in that northern latitude the summer days are very long so that crops ripen rapidly, and though there is little arable land on the steep slopes of the islands and mainland, the interior Yukon Valley can perhaps be tilled and may fill up with settlers when the Canadian ^N'orth- west has disposed of its good farming lands. It is a great mistake to suppose that either the southwest coast or the interior is a region of deep snows; the lofty moun- tains cut off the moisture-laden winds of the Pacific. In the Nome district in 1908 it was a poor season, because there was so little rain that there was not water enough to work the gravel. Probably the Yukon Valley must wait until other parts of the earth are more crowded before it receives a large population. From the steamer it looks as though Alaska had a large resource in its interminable forests, but except on the ocean slope of some of the outer islands this thick growth is not of much value; it is much smaller than the timber farther south, is weakened by heart rot, and is only used by local mills for the small amount of building so far necessary and for mine props. Nor is there any quantity of hard wood which would be available for furniture and similar manufactures. 77 PEACTICAL ALASKA The progress of Alaska must necessarily be slow; its great industry of mining is subject to disturbances from organized labor, and it is always going to be difficult to get hands to come up so long as there is plenty of work in the Pacific States. The fisheries are important, and great quantities of salmon are packed in the numerous canneries, and this is an industry which can be much extended. Still the population has increased very slowly, and some of the towns go backward. In 1867", on its transfer from Eussia, the region was made a collection district; for a long time there was no Alaskan court, and cases arising there were tried by the Federal Courts of Washington Territory, under the laws of that Territory "so far as applicable." The disputes over the seal fisheries brought out the inconveniences of this system and led to the introduction of an Alaskan Court which, after the opening up of the Yukon was subdivided, so that there are now four judicial districts, each with its judge, its marshal, and its other judicial officials. Then it was formally made a Territory, with a delegate to Congress and a territorial governor, and the seat of government, which up to that time had been the old Russian capital of Sitka, later removed to Juneau, which lies on the main waterway from Seattle to Skag- way and the upper Yukon. A determined movement has been made to get from Congress the right to set up a Territorial legislature; but how could such a body sit in a Territory forming a triangle nearly 3,000 miles on a side, the western end of which is sealed up seven or eight months in the year by ice? And how could the interests of three such com- munities be cared for by one body of representatives? Contrary to the general notion as to miners, it is an 78 GOVEENMENT orderly population, with few violent crimes, and the process of justice is simple. The governor, in his ofScial mansion in Juneau is the center of administration, and by visits to Washington keeps in touch with the Govern- ment; the land officials, through whom come the mining titles, would not in any case be under the jurisdiction of the Territory. The towns under acts of Congress provide for their own simple needs of water, lights, streets and schools, and there is hardly a wagon road in the whole territory to require expenditure. The only political excite- ment is the biennial election of delegate to Congress. Just as in the communities farther south, the great problem in Alaska is that of transportation. Every place of present importance in southeastern Alaska and south- western Alaska is reached by steamers, and the govern- ment is slowly putting in the necessary lighthouses. The one railroad over the White Pass is a convenient link with the upper Yukon, and there are several lines in progress from the coast farther northward to the lower Yukon Valley. Outsiders have strange notions about Alaskan geography; a project was actually formed for building a railroad from Portland Canal on the southern boundary of Alaska to Skagway, ignoring inlets which penetrate a hundred miles up into the mountains, and quite over- looking the vast glaciers which come down into the sea, over or under which no railroad could possibly be main- tained. The Guggenheim interests are building a road from Valdez northward to reach copper and other mines, and a rival company constructed one mile of road out of Valdez. If the Yukon Valley proves to be available for settlers, some time a road will parallel the river and thus keep up the winter transit. At present the winter highways 79 PEACTICAL ALASKA in that part of the world are trails traversed only by dog sledges. The bishop of Alaska, who is very fond of that kind of travel, one day met a miner coming out with his dog team and stopped to ask him what kind of road he had come over. The miner replied with a stream of oaths and curses, winding up with, "And what kind of a trail have you had ?" "Same as yours," replied the bishop. Alaska is a far distant country, a very rainy country, depressed by the long sub-arctic nights; but there is somehow a fascination about it which draws back the man or woman who has once experienced it. And the life in Alaska is anything but frigid. Though so far from the cities, though for a hundred miles at a time you see not a house along the shore, the few towns are very unlike the raw frontier of the plains. Sitka is a gem, with its handsome Greek church, its old Eussian headquarters, its picturesque shores, its Indian basket sellers. In Juneau is as agreeable social life as you will find anywhere, with most excellent state dinners. That is the marvel of Alaska — ^the contrast between the vast loneliness and the truly modern life of the scattered settlements. The first white child born in Alaska is hardly a woman yet, but it is already a community with a strong sense of its own future. II JAPAN CHAPTEE IX EXTERNAL JAPAN TIME was, and not many years ago, when the usual passage from California to Japan in the wooden side-wheelers of the Pacific Mail was twenty-eight days. Recently the record on that route via Honolulu has been cut by the new Tenyo Maru, a Japanese steamer, to thirteen days; and from Puget Sound by the shorter route it has been made in twelve. The North Pacific is a waste of waters on which sometimes not a ship is sighted during the whole voyage; and lucky are the passengers who coast the Aleutian Islands in weather clear enough to show the splendid snow peaks and smoking volcanoes of that farthest America. The landing at Yokohama brings a series of surprises and disillusionments ; so far from being covered with lac- quer the Empire of Japan in dry weather is dusty and in rain is surfaced with mud; the tea houses are not built of porcelain, but of plain wood; the people eat beans and fried fish when they can get them; the trees have bark and leaves ; but not all bear cherry blossoms ; the numerous mountains all slope uphill. Thus the first hour on shore sweeps away the enchantments of a lifetime, and reveals a land strikingly like some parts of Alaska, and a people extremely human. In its scenery the country has a peculiar charm. Steep ranges run parallel to the coast, mountain chains enclose 83 EXTEENAL JAPAN deep bays, as at Tokio, and in many places the clifEs break off directly into the sea. Hence Japan is a summer resort for the Europeans of Eastern Asia. Nikko, one of the world's places of pilgrimage and a favorite resort for diplomats, lies in the midst of most beautiful moun- tains. Karuizawa, almost in the center of the main island, is the summer headquarters for the missionaries. Myano- shita, near Fuji, is an all-the-year-round resort, with the most famous hotel in Japan. Atami, on the coast near- by, deserves its name of the Japanese Eiviera, for it lies in a theatre of mountains, is reached by a cornice road and abounds in oranges. No people in the world is so fond of visiting resorts as the Japanese; and as time goes on dozens of mountain and seaside places of which they now have a monopoly will be frequented by Europeans. The sea is as important a part of life in Japan as in England; the little ports are linked together by steamer lines; from it are drawn the four hundred kinds of edible fish which are an essential part of Japanese diet; a large fraction of the population is made up of fisher folk and sailors; the sea always infuses Japanese art and Japanese foreign policy. And the Japanese sea is beautiful. The richly indented coast with its bold headlands approaches that of Italy in attractiveness. The Japanese Inland Sea, which on a smaller scale, suggests the coasts and islands of southeastern Alaska, is beautiful and would repay a yachting or launch cruise — ^the big steamers see little of it. The crowning beauty of Japan in the eyes of the Jap- anese is Fujiyama, which can be seen over a stretch of country more than a hundred miles long. Fuji, however, is a petted mountain, which is ready to eat out of your hand; it is not to be compared with our own Mount 84 MOUNTAINS AND EIVEES Rainier, which is higher and is forever covered with its fourteen glaciers, while Fuji is brown and bare in summer. Even when the snow wraps itself about the upper cone Fuji is mechanical; the Japanese workman who turned it on his lathe was too exact ; the mountain is too perfect, too little like a peak of crags and precipice, too much like a heap of volcanic rocks and ashes lying at the steepest angle which the loose material will assume. Let no one be thought to speak disrespectfully of Fujiyama, an estimable mountain, which wears well on acquaintance, and which anybody would like to have on his farm. The picturesque mountains help to make Japan poor, for they are so close to the coast that the rivers are all short, and nowhere in the country is there such an expanse of arable land as in the valleys of the Danube or Mis- sissippi or the Yangtse Kiang — or even in neighboring Manchuria and Luzon. One reason for solicitude in Japan is that not more than a fourth to a third of the land area can ever be cultivated, the mountains are too steep, too broad, and to sterile; they catch an abundant rainfall, which, however, rushes out untimely, so that nearly all the Japanese rivers lie in broad and sandy beds, perhaps a mile wide at flood and only a few yards in the dry season. The crossing of such rivers in high water by a Daimio and his train is a favorite subject for the Japanese wood engraver. The Government is now making a great effort to forest these ranges; but in many places they are too steep for trees; in most instances the soil is thin, and as yet the planted forests are small. The ordinary saw-log which one sees floating down river is piteously thin, though by one of the curious by-currents of trade, timber is actually exported from Hokkaido, the northern island of Japan, to Australia. 85 EXTEENAL JAPAN The most characteristic scenery in Japan is not the mountain, on which few Japanese dwell, but the rice field, which is to be found wherever there is a patch of level ground for the field and sufficient water for irrigation. Gentle slopes are made useful by terracing, and the coolie, preparing the ground or cutting his crop, is the true Japanese peasant. He is a picturesque peasant, in his blue cotton suit, his broad, conical, straw hat, costing two cents, and straw overcoat, bought for eight cents. He is a good-natured peasant, absurdly contented with his earnings — ^though the agricultural laborer earns as little as eight or ten cents gold a day. His house is a light, wooden frame surmounted by a heavy thatch; and he loves to plant a lily garden along his roof tree. But he always has one thing which separates him from the Chinese and the East Indians; he lives on a platform, raised above the ground. No hardened soil for him, no chilly pavement of brick or stone ; a wooden floor, a piece of clean matting, a broom and a bathtub the poorest Japanese will always have. Travel in Japan has long ceased to be what Kaempfer described it two centuries ago, when the backs of men or horses bore the traveler and his belongings along the highways flanked with pines and cryptomerias. All along the sea front the steamers ply; narrow roads penetrate most parts of the interior; and Japan has now a good railway system throughout, the main island, with shorter lines in the three other large islands. This improvement in transportation is one of the triumphs of modern Japan. Under the old regime there was a trunk line of highway from northeast to southwest, and the railway traveler sees bits of the Oshukaido in the north, the Eeiheishikaido at Nikko and the great Tokaido, which runs from Tokio to 86 TEAVEL Kyoto; but the provision of roads practicable for wheels is a matter of the last few decades. One of the trans- forming agencies is the jinrickshaw — properly called "kuruma" — which is now used throughout the empire. This big baby carriage takes only about three and a half feet of space, weighs as littld as twenty-five pounds, and will carry a load of two hundred and fifty pounds. Both in city and country the rickshaw makes quick travel possible on the great hi'ghways; and the kurumai, or rickshaw man has an industry and a trades union of his own. The Japanese railways, now taken over by the Gov- ernment, are rather of the European than the American type. They are built with great care and solidity, the slopes exactly shaped and grassed, the short bridges of stone, the longer ones of iron. The stations are at present in about the same condition as those in America forty years ago — narrow, dirty and inconvenient; but the government has under construction a splendid central terminal in Tokio. Trains run very slowly; even the expresses make under thirty miles an hour, but atone for it by remarkably low fares — about two cents a mile for first-class and a third as much for third-class. The cars resemble those of Wurtemburg and Switzerland, always with connection through the train; but the first and sec- ond-class coaches are more or less sub-divided into coupes and staterooms. With few exceptions, the train and station hands are all Japanese; but among them one person at least is likely to speak English, so that the foreigner gets on easily by himself. The tourist in Japan sees little outside the cities; and Japan has a very large urban population. In places of more than 3,000 inhabitants 24 per cent, of the 7 87 EXTEENAL JAPAN Japanese lived in 1900; and that part of the popu- lation is rapidly growing. Tokio has just taken a census which shows 2,186,000 people, which puts it next to London, New York, Paris, Chicago and above Berlin, in the list of the world's greatest cities. Osaka has over a million people' Kyoto nearly half a million, Nagoya (the name of which is hardly known in the West) a quarter of a million. None of these places, however, is a city in the Western sense, except Tokio, and the ports inhabited by foreigners; for they contain few notable public buildings, the houses are chieiiy of wood, few of them are more than one story high, and they have no good system of internal transportation. Yokohama, Kobe and Nagasaki have handsome foreign quarters with some stately buildings, and Tokio has made a beginning of public and private structures of a modern type. Yet to a visitor the most striking thing in all these places is the narrow and congested streets. In Kyoto, for instance, there are main arteries of travel five or six miles long, and nowhere more than fifteen or twenty feet wide. The authorities of Tokio are meeting this diffi- culty by wholesale street widenings miles in extent, which interfere with the picturesqueness of the place, but make possible airy streets sufiiciently wide for a very extensive system of tramways. Just now Tokio is as much dis- turbed and distorted by street improvements as Seattle; and both may be beautiful some time in the future. Even if one never stepped outside the boundaries of Tokio or Yokohama the impression of a delightful picturesqueness would be unfailing. The color, the movement, the street cries, the burden-bearers, the children, make of Japan a perpetual show, which to residents of many years is still a fresh pleasure every morning. 88 CITIES The real nature of Japan, however, can be seen only by striking off the main roads into mountain valleys or along the seashore, for here the old life is less disturbed, and the villages are intact. Take, for instance, the mountain road from Nikko, over the Hoso-o Pass, along the Watarese Eiver, through the mining town of Ashio to the railway at Omama Station. This is a typical prosperous valley with mines, timber, rice and silk. The road across the pass is a rough bridle path, the newer zigzag rickshaw road having almost gone to ruin. The pass lies in the midst of beautiful wooded mountains. Dropping into the western valley one strikes a new highway, for miles only wide enough for a rickshaw, but beset with passers-by, for every road in Japan seems full of people. Above the river the highway winds along on a rocky terrace a hundred feet above the water or is cut in a narrow shelf where one is almost run down by a " train of return pack horses with gay trappings carrying girls and boys nodding or fast asleep in their high saddles. On the other side of the gorge a train of solemn oxen drag little tram cars loaded with copper ingots. Where a stream comes from a steep side valley you see one of the simplest grain mills that was ever made: two square buckets at opposite ends of a pole run through an axle so that when a little dribbling stream has filled one bucket it descends and raises a lever which operates a rice stamp; meantime the other bucket has been brought into place and is filling with water. Still further on is a rude sawmill, where a fourteen-year- old boy presses a short bolt of wood against the saw, while a pretty young woman, with a baby on her back, collects the sawdust in a bag. Within a few minutes the traveler passes first a line 89 BXTEENAL JAPAN of loaded horse carts, eacli horse led by a coolie (for in rural Japan nobody drives horses) ; then a set of travelers evidently bound sight-seeing, the young leaders in striped knee breeches and European cap; then men looking for employment carrying bags like Santa Claus ; then peasants going to their work, an old man with a sickle, some girls in close blue trousers and tunic, which is the usual cos- tume for women in that part of the country; then the woman who tarries to buy five sweet potatoes for two sen (one cent, gold) ; then coolies lurching along, each with two baskets balanced on a bamboo ; then some school children who shout at the stranger the usual salutation of 0-hi-o ! Below on a river a boy is fishing by spying out the fish through a glass box, the end of which he puts into the water. The houses in this valley are more heavily framed than in the lowlands and some of them have flat stones on the roofs to keep the thatch from blowing away. In some of them as you pass girls are reeling silk from the cocoons, deftly dipping a finger into the boiling water and with the other hand drawing the threads upon a little reel from which by a simple water-power the raw silk is transferred to a larger reel. In this happy valley every foot of avail- able space is cultivated, and village succeeds village, each a long street of wooden houses set close together as though it were a city; with the people eating, working, sleeping, carrying on their handicrafts, dressing and undressing in a publicity unconscious of itself. For entertainment in such regions one is dependent on inns where not one word of English is spoken. Such an inn was the Komatsu-Ya at Sori, a square building flush with the street, with an entrance hall paved with 90 COUNTEY concrete and all around raised floors spread with mats, and a fireplace in the rear. Up the steep stairs and along a long passage you are shown a room about twelve feet square, neatly furnished with clean mats, a little Buddha, a wooden rack for clothing, two hanging pictures and a photograph of a young lady. Outside there is a clack of clogs and the noise of sliding panels in the house opposite, where the firelight falls on a naked child. Presently appear in the twilight two men with a big lantern, one hitting a drum and the other singing, apparently giving the stranger a kind of serenade. After the inevitable tea the guest dons the clean bath garments furnished by the hotel and goes down for his "furo" to the family wooden bathtub heated by a length of tin pipe. The bath over and the curious spectators appeased, supper (served always in the lodging room) appears in four courses. First, excellent rice with fried fish; second, a cup of soup with vegetables and unlimited rice; third, fried eggs; fourth, fried unknown vegetables. Then are pro- duced the futons or padded quilts which are bed and coverlet. The heavy outside sliding shutters are banged shut, and except for the noisy people opposite, and the man who coughs in the next room and. maids running along the passage and the footsteps outside and the tor- rent down in the gorge, all is still. The inn people at Sori are not very well trained, for none of the maids go down on their knees and kotow to the honorable stranger. If one were to try to sum up the one thing that most characterizes Japan it would be the openness of Japanese life, with its open behavior, open air, open windows; it is a land whose every family is in a way a part of every 91 EXTEENAL JAPAN other, in city and in country alike. Ko Japanese lives for or by himself. Never vras there such a socialistic com- munity, such an anthill of human beings, busy, contented, and all interested in each other's affairs. Socialism is realized in Japan. CHAPTER X THE FOREIGNER IN JAPAN EVERY country in the world is familiar with the presence of foreigners, both travelers and people of business; but the foreigner in Japan stands on a peculiar footing both historically and practically. Eor it Is a deep-lying national characteristic of Japan to think of the foreigner as a kind of accident, and the present tendency is to eliminate him and to return to the principle of "Japan for the Japanese." It was never the foreign goods to which the Japanese objected; for centuries they imported small quantities through the Dutch at Nagasaki ; it was opposition to the coming in of strangers because of their probable influence on the people and ultimately on the government, which Commodore Perry had to overcome, and which is still active. For this reason one of the marks of the almost miracu- lous change of Japanese policy in the seventies was that the Japanese began themselves to invite foreigners into the country, to act as teachers and military and naval instructors and as engineering and scientific experts. All the world knows that French jurists, German soldiers, English sailors and American professors were invited to Japan, well paid, and cordially treated. Furthermore, from the opening of the first treaty ports in 1854, foreign merchants began to establish themselves in Japan, and have built up there half a dozen small colonies. A third 93 THE FOEEIGNEK IN JAPAN element from abroad is the missionaries, who early saw the chance of impressing a nation while in transition. To these has gradually been added a corps of diplomats and consuls who from the first had a special relation to the protection of the other three classes. These four elements, along with the artist, the investigator and the traveler, make up a body of foreigners which is in evidence throughout the land, and by their differences in color, habits, dress and mode of life, are in perpetual contrast to the rest of the inhabitants. The influence of the foreigners and the difficulties which their presence causes to the Japanese government is quite out of proportion to their numbers. The total roll of non-Japanese in this nation of nearly 50,000,000 people would certainly not be over 25,000, of whom the greater part are Chinese and Koreans. In 1900, there were only 5,000 Europeans and Americans enumerated in the whole empire, including women and children. Of these, 2,000 were British and about 1,500 had come from the United States. It is doubtful whether foreigners are now increasing in number. The Chinese colony in Yokohama has latterly fallen off; and the Koreans are practically Japanese dependents and should not be counted as outsiders. Not only are the foreigners few, they are distributed in very limited areas. About 1,500 live in Tokio, and about as many in Yokohama; in Osaka, Kyoto and Nagoya, the second, third and fourth cities of the empire, with a total population of 1,500,000 or more, there are not a hundred foreigners all told; and in great islands like Hokkaido and Kyushiu there are hardly any non-Japanese except missionaries. In many parts of the empire, not very remote from the capital, people still run out of their 94 EBSIDENTS AND TOURISTS houses to see the foreigners pass, just as Americans sallied out to see first bicycles, then automobiles and now airships. These numbers are, of course, reenforced by the globe- trotters who arrive upon the shores in successive steamers, like a heavy surf. The first-class accommodation on ship- board, on the trains and in the hospitals in Japan is taken up chiefly by these travelers; but their actual num- ber is not very great. In the second six months of 1908 (rather a lean year for travel) the total of foreigners landing in Japan was 10,000, of whom one-half were Koreans and Chinese. This would indicate about 10,000 European and American travelers a year, but it includes ■ those coming to or returning to the foreign settlements. This is less than the number of people sometimes landed in New York on a single day ; it is only about two hundred a week. The current has little influence on Japan except that it in large degree supports the European hotels, curio shops and certain retail silk and embroidery houses. To most of the tourists Japan is a continuous performance for which they buy front seats at a price much below the American standards. Outside the main traveled route from Nikko through Tokio and Yokohama to Kyoto, Kobe, Moji and Nagasaki, the ordinary tourist rarely penetrates ; and you may travel for days on the local trains without meeting a European. Nevertheless the foreigner plays a great part in Jap- anese life. In the first place he has built himself a distinct quarter in four or five of the cities of the empire. Of these, the most striking is the foreign settlement at Yokohama, which includes a well-built business quarter and a handsome residence suburb. In Tokio the cor- responding area, the Tsukiji, though still a main center 95 THE FOREIGNER IN JAPAN of foreign population, has ceased to be the diplomatic quarter. In Kobe also the Europeans are rather dispersed. The foreign colony at Nagasaki has been depleted by the decline of that port. Japanese streets and houses are to be found interspersed among the Europeans; and of course, everybody is dependent on Japanese servants and tradesmen. In all these foreign settlements English is the usual language; French, German and other languages are heard and spoken in business houses and family groups; but even there the Japanese employees perhaps use only Eng- lish. The street names and public notices for the use of foreigners are in English. The foreign tongue inost likely to be spoken by an educated Japanese is English. More than two-thirds of the foreigners are English speaking. So far forth Anglo-Saxon language and influence is in the ascendant in Japan. Furthermore, the foreign press is almost wholly English. One of the puzzles of the situation is the existence of five dailies in English published in Yokohama and Tokio and two more in Kobe. Seven dailies for an English- speaking population of 3,000 or 4,000 ! With the excep- tion of the Times, which is edited by a Japanese in Tokio, and the Advertiser, which has become distinctly an American organ, these papers are all English in tone. How they all live is a query: apparently the banks, the steamer lines and the auctioneers have been established by a beneficent Providence in order that their advertise- ments may nourish the press. In general their news is irritating beyond expression. The cables from America come through Europe via Renter's Agency. The Adver- tiser in November, 1908, adopted the unheard-of policy of printing special despatches (at a dollar a word) with 96 SOCIAL LIFE news of the presidential election, and invigorated a respectable part of the American colony by announcing the football victory of Harvard over Yale. The despatches were promptly "lifted" by the other papers, which other- wise would, as usual, content themselves with reprinting in a more muddled form, the despatches published yes- terday and contradicting the despatches of two days ago. The foreigners have a social life of their own, or rather a complexity of social lives, for here the inter- national sub-divisions assert themselves. Around the French consulate or the English embassy are grouped the residents from those countries; but there seems to be outside of court circles little general association among the foreign women. In all the commercial cities, however, the men have a club which is the haunt of the bachelors, and for that matter of many of the married men, and is more or less international in character. The clubs and the large hotels, which are club-like in appointment and resources, are a boon to the traveler, who finds himself cordially made at home. In the commercial cities the foreigners have very slight touch with the Japanese. Of course, business men estab- lish commercial relations, make friends and form their judgment of Japanese character chiefly from these asso- ciates; but it is rare for a business man to enter a Japanese house or to know his friends' women folk; and Japanese are very seldom admitted to the foreign clubs as members. The stately buildings, the beautiful villas in Yokohama or Kobe, are the property of the foreigner; but he knows as little of the mass of his Japanese neigh- bors as Fifth Avenue knows of West Street. He knows much less, for he speaks the language imperfectly, never reads the native newspapers, and is less interested in the 97 THE FOEEIGNEE IN JAPAN ' Japanese people than the tourist, to whom they are so fresh a story. Of course, the knowledge of Japan pos- sessed by the West comes almost wholly from those few foreign residents in Japan, who have made it their busi- ness to acquire the language, to associate with Japanese and to search for the spirit of the country. Many of the missionaries and the foreign teachers and some of the business men have this familiarity with the real Japan. Still, one of the most obstinate delusions of the com- mercial foreigner in Japan is that he knows the country because he lives in it. WTiether the number of people competent to judge the Japanese character is increasing is a doubtful question. The missionaries are more and more teachers of the teachers, trainers of Japanese youth who go out as helpers and pastors. The age of the translators of Scriptures into Japanese is passing by. The opportunities of intercourse by foreign professors with university students are growing less. Certainly the ordinary tone of the business for- eigners is hostile to the Japanese. If a Japanese business colony of wealthy men were to establish themselves in New York and Boston and in their newspapers and clubs should constantly dwell on the slipperiness of American business men, and the crooked- ness of American government and the worthlessness of American laborers, they might expect to see their sales fall off. But that is what a great many business men, particularly the English, are in the habit of doing in Japan. Principals are doubtless courteous; but there is a class of employees who never lose a chance to abuse the Japanese. Such a clerk in the midst of a tirade against the Japanese, who he said were always trying to get out of paying their bills, suddenly asked about "The Count." 98 ♦ CEITICISM OP JAPANESE "The Count/' it appeared, had gone to work at last for his board. "Then he won't pay me his I. 0. TJ. I have in my pocket I. 0. U.'s for over 3,000 yen and I can't collect a single sen." The writers of these I. 0. U.'s were every one of them Europeans, but it never struck the speaker that they proved a national habit of failing to pay their debts. Of course, such a man helps to diminish the business of his employer; and he helps also to strengthen the feeling in Japanese circles that they can do without the European business man. They would prefer Japanese importers and middlemen, but the country is still too poor in capital to dispense with the foreign merchant. In the long run, hostility to the European may provoke similar hostility to Japanese business men in foreign ports. A somewhat similar feeling of jealousy toward the foreigner is shown in education and the public service. For forty years there have been foreign professors in the Imperial University of Tokio. In Waseda and Keio Gijiku universities (both private) there are also some foreign professors. But the tendency is, as vacancies occur, to fill them with Japanese ; and there are, outside the mission colleges, hardly two score foreign university professors in Japan. In the secondary schools, also, the foreigners have mos'tly disappeared, except the teachers of English, who are preferably Americans. It is the same in the public service, where military and naval experts have been almost entirely replaced by Japanese. Hence the direct effect of foreigners on Japanese education has much diminished. In diplomatic life alone does foreign influence still have a growing power. That life is centered in Tokio, 99 THE FOEBIGNEE IN JAPAN* where alone Europeans and Japanese meet on terms of intimacy. The embassies to Japan have gained weight in proportion as the international importance of Japan has grown; and the social practices of the diplomatic circle have large efEect on Japanese oflBcial life. In all joint functions the Japanese wear European military or civil costume, and in some of them the ladies also wear Euro- pean dress, which is always assumed by the empress and crown princess when they ' appear in public. Tokio is also the clearing house of foreign opinions on Jap- anese policy. The official part of the city is in a process of westernization in its streets and public buildings. Here the foreign interest is strongest and likely to be most permanent. In Tokio also, the foreigner has the best opportunity to make himself acquainted with the Japanese point of view, for here he finds the greatest number of high class Japanese who can speak his language and who know his own point of view. For in proportion as the direct influence of the foreigner has declined, the indirect force of the Japanese trained in foreign countries becomes greater. It is these men who have made it possible to dispense with the foreigner, because they themselves bring the message of the West. Nearly all the Japanese who actually help to make decisions in government, foreign policy, finance and education, military and naval afEairs, have been in foreign countries, some as travelers, some as diplomatic and consular representatives, still more as students. In official circles you find graduates of Har- vard and Yale and the University of Pennsylvania, of English, French and German universities, of Annapolis and of English and German military schools. Most Jap- anese in responsible places speak some Western languages, 100 SEEVICE TO JAPAN most frequently English. The Japanese professors know the Western literature of their subject. The Japanese believe that their own sons are the best intermediary between the West and their empire. The change of policy does not diminish the debt which Japan owes to the foreigner. The Japanese army is German in structure; the Japanese navy is English in organization; the Japanese law was codified by a French- man ; the Japanese universities are to a considerable degree modeled on the American. In its foreign policy Japan is constantly taking the counsel of an official adviser who is an American. By the alliance with Great Britain and the recent understanding with the United States, Japan accepts the principle that no Power has a free hand in Asia or on the Pacific. If the foreigner is less important in Japan than he was forty years ago, or even ten years ago, the foreign world as a whole has a vastly greater influence. If the Japanese are impatient of the foreign settlements, which, except in Tokio, look upon themselves as no part of the social and governmental make-up of the empire, they are eager to be understood by Western nations through their own educated class. By a singular contradiction, as the relative number and influence of individual foreigners declines, the impulse of Western thought and habits grows stronger. CHAPTBE XI THE JAPANESE IN JAPAN NO people anywhere take more pleasure in each other's society than in Japan. Compliments and the exchange of courtesies are woven into the language as well as the habits of the people. The magni- fying of the guest's exalted position and the corresponding depreciation of the host's unfortunate little possessions are simply the small change of conversation. To be sure, in Japan, as throughout the East, one feels a sense of uncertainty as to what is really going on behind the smiling face; and even the most cordial and undeniable welcome does not take away the sense of somehow being incommensurate with the Japanese mind, so that it is a dangerous thing for a foreigner to make generalizations on the things he sees about him. Nevertheless, under favoring circumstances, even the traveler who can give but three months to Japan, may form some judgment as to the actual life of the people. On the face of it the lower classes are plainly happy and get on well together. The Japanese of this class in America have the name of being painfully sensitive and quarrelsome. A Japanese waiter in a California boarding house has been known to discharge himself three times during breakfast, because when he handed a lady a cup of coffee she looked at him as if she were dissatisfied. Yet the twin brother of that uppish youth, whom Wallace 103 GOOD TEMPER Irwin loves to caricature in his delightful "Letters of a Japanese School Boy" is in Japan a good-natured and steady chap. Quarrels on the street are very rare; one will not even see a pair of schoolboys pummeling each other. One of the marvels of the times is the concord among the countless children who swarm on the high- ways. One reason for peace is undoubtedly that the Japanese have not the Western drinking habits. Sake is plentiful, and there are Japanese sots and ungovernable drunkards; but sake drinking is more like the German beer guzzling, a prolonged sipping. Very rarely one sees men staggering in the street or engaging in drunken quarrels. The good order is doubtless heightened by the presence of the excel- lent Japanese police, who are said to be chiefly of the Samurai class, and who direct traffic and protect the peace in a quiet and very efEective fashion. Yet it must not be supposed that Japan is a paradise of good behavior. Many violent crimes are committed, but tumults and affrays are rare. In 1907 there was a mob in Tokio caused by the Chinese students in the first instance, but it is not a Japanese fashion to air grievances by riots. Unlike most Eastern countries, Japan has a large mid- dle class, or rather a group of middle classes. The foundation of it is a relic of the old feudal system, the Samurai, who already had some education, and have fur- nished students, minor officials and professional men. In a country where the life of all classes is comparatively simple, you cannot classify people by the houses they live in, or by their dress; and since the great change in Japan forty years ago, the old caste system has broken down so far that the boundaries between classes have been surmountable. At present the sons of the farmer 8 103 THE JAPANESE IN JAPAN and tradesman compete with the sons of the Samurai in the university and in the contest for place and profit; and some of the greatest nobles in the empire have sprung from the Samurai of a generation ago. The stranger, however, and even the resident who has not an intimate knowledge of the language, knows little of the real life of either the lower or middle classes; it is easier for him to fall in with those Japanese who can speak his own language and are familiar with his ways. The higher class in Japan is made up of several elements, of which, perhaps, the most important is the old Daimio families; and one of the many miracles in Japan is the amiable temper of the sons of those powerful nobles whose stern countenance and askew brows are the stock-in-trade of the Japanese stage and print-shop. The Daimios have cheerfully accepted the new regime, have put on European clothes and have become citizens instead of princes. The Tokugawas, Satsumas and Chosans, whose fathers wore chain armor and two swords and were lords of perhaps a score thousand retainers, are now irreproach- able and high-bred gentlemen of the European type. It quite staggers one to discover that a handsome and courtly neighbor at a dinner is Lord Asano, descendant of that noble who was so insulted by his enemy that he drew upon him and was compelled to take his own life; and it is pleasant to learn that there is a lineal descendant of that Oishi Kuranosuki who organized the Forty-seven Faithful Eonins to avenge their lord's death in a dramatic fashion which appeals to every lover of high courage and high deeds; and that lineal descendant is the secretary of the present Lord of Asano. The Government wisely provided for the 300 Daimios by assigning them pen- sions and giving honors to the most distinguished of 104 AEISTOCKACY them; and all are members of the House of Peers and have a residence in Tokio. This aristocracy of birth is now reenforced by a growing aristocracy of wealth. As in England, the stronghold of the nobility may be scaled by men who achieve marked success in the professions, and especially in making money, and most of the great financiers, bankers and founders of large enterprises eventually receive titles. Without titles they are still acknowledged as social leaders. The great family of Mitsui, for instance, owns banks, steamers, mines and other enterprises, and is one of the wealthy families of the world. Five of the sons of Marquis Mat- sutaka, the financial expert, who put Japan on a gold basis, are now in business of various kinds. The third element is the professional, and many bearers of title seek a distinction not founded on birth, by service as physicians, or pleaders or university professors. The tradition that learning brings distinction is very strong, and is supplemented by the growth of modem science and scientific men. A very powerful caste is that of the naval and military men, whose uniforms are seen on every street and at every social function. The lower officers are not always of a high social class; but those to whom responsibility is given usually speak some foreign lan- guage and have seen other parts of the world. Then there is a class of high civil officials, most of them in Tokio, who are like the secretaries and chamberlains in a Euro- pean court. Japanese of all classes are a capable people. The poor- est peasants form traveling clubs and pay a small assess- ment, so as to send away the members, one after another, on a pilgrimage to this or that famous shrine or mountain. The business men are very fond of assembling at a res- 105 THE JAPANESE IN JAPAN taurant to speed a parting friend or to congratulate one of their number who has been promoted, and on occasions of such solemnity they wear the European frock coat and silk hat. During the visit of the American fleet in 1908, the whole community went to the utmost in hospitality. One notable thing during that week was that though thousands of bluejackets thronged the streets not a single case of pocket picking was reported, though the Japanese are reported to be skilled in that trade. The explanation is that the government sent for the president of the pickpockets' union, and represented to him that it would be highly unpatriotic to relieve the bluejackets of dollars which in any case would come to the retail shops. Of course, the guild had to be "squared" to the extent of their probable loss, as it was not reasonable to ask a special sacrifice from one section of the population. The Dutch travelers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries relate that, when they were brought to Tokio to perform in the presence of the Shoguns, as they danced, sang songs, and pretended to be drunk, there were rust- lings and murmurs behind the screens, where the Shogun and the Shogunnesses and Shogunkins were taking a silent part in the entertainment. It is a very new thing in Japan for high-class women to appear and move about among men, and the change is welcome to the foreigner, for who can help admiring these beautiful ladies with their delicate oval faces (thickly painted, of course, for that is the fashion of the country), their magnificent glossy black hair, and their beautiful Japanese garments. Many of the high-class ladies speak English or French, and the young officers say that the Japanese girl can laugh and chatter like her "Western sister. 106 SOCIAL LIFE At the ball on the emperor's birthday, most of the Japanese ladies were in Western evening dress, which is unsuited to their small figures, delicate hands and feet, and brilliant hair. At all such places the supper is much appreciated, for the Japanese are fond of good things, and thereby hangs an interesting tale. On the day before the fleet left Yokohama, the admiral sent out two or three thousand invitations to a reception on board the flagship, the Connecticut, and provision was made for 2,500 people. It happened on that afternoon that a great number of Japanese were visiting the Japanese fleet which lay alongside the American; and reasonably supposing that the occasion on the Connecticut was for the generous hosts of the fleet, they went on board. The reception ofiicially began at three o'clock; at four there was nothing left for the arriving guests to eat except a black ribbon, which did not even bear the name of the ship, for the 2,500 Connecticut ribbons had long since been exhausted. What the Japanese are at their very best one may judge from an experience as a guest at the house of one of the leading statesmen of Japan, whose son is a grad- uate of Harvard College. The father, tall, stately, hand- some, speaks no English ; but one of the Japanese guests, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, easily inter- prets. The other head of the family is a fine old lady whose countenance shows a character and dignity which make her one of the most honored women in Japan. Around the table are several members of the great family which is affectionately brought up, including some of the strikingly beautiful ladies in Japanese dress. The service is wholly European, lackeys in red and white liv- eries, the house purely European in appearance, but 107 THE JAPANESE IN JAPAN though nobody asks any questions it is probable that the great man when the guests are gone betakes himself to an unpretentious Japanese house in the same grounds, where he doffs the livery of Western society and substi- tutes the comfortable garments of the Japanese gentleman. The best opportunity for seeing the military in gala attire is at the annual review of the troops by the emperor. The scene is a great parade ground in the open part of Tokio covering two or three hundred acres and surrounded by a living wall of native spectators. The troops are ready massed on the farther side of the parade ground and near the imperial lodge is a party of some two hun- dred Europeans, nearly all diplomats, and a group of Jap- anese officers in the fullest of full military dress. Pres- ently appears an outrider on horseback, the precursor of the imperial party, then a swordsman on horseback, then a close carriage and pair, on the front seat of which sits the chamberlain. Marquis Matsukata, on the rear seat a large and rather heavy figure in military uniform with a red kepi of the French type ; then follows a carriage with the crown prince, two little princes and an aide. The em- peror stops in front of the lodge prepared for his reception, goes in and in a moment an open carriage appears. He steps in and enters with the marquis, and the car- riage slowly makes a round of the field. As the emperor arrives a band of trumpets strikes up the national anthem. In a few seconds it is taken up by another and then another, the sound rolling from end to end of the field. As the emperor passes each battalion and regiment, gravely nodding his head, there is no demonstration, no cheers. As soon as he is beyond each unit it begins to move so as to form up for the march past, and in fifteen or twenty minutes the emperor completes his round and stops 108 IMPEEIAL EEVIEW at a point marked by a circle of sand. There he waits while the review proceeds. First comes the commander of the whole body of troops with hir staff; then the brigade staff; then the regimental staff; then the first regiment marching in three ranks, about sixty men wide, and so battalion after battalion and regiment after regiment until about twenty- five thousand troops have deployed. As the thousand- legged khaki line advances it utters not a cheer. As they pass the emperor the officers depress their swords, and the eyes of the troopers turn as if pressed by an electric button towards the emperor. There is not a movement other than the march, except that some of the color- bearers shake out their standards to show where they have been riddled with shot. Then follow the artillery in ranks of six guns, maintaining excellent lines, until two hundred and sixteen guns have passed. Then the cavalry, well mounted, well trained and riding well. As the last squadron canters past, the emperor returns to his closed carriage, the imperial party departs and the humble folk follow in their rickshaws, over sand which has been distributed on the trolley tracks where the emperor passes, so that his majesty may not be joggled. Military authorities say that the troops make a good appearance; and certainly the officers whom one meets seem learned men — educated in their profession and in the ways of the world. The social events in Tokio will be discussed later, as one of the elements of contact between the West and Japan. Perhaps the most striking lesson in these social relationships is that many of the Westerners can but admit that the people whom he meets are equals of Euro- peans in appearance, in breeding, in courtesy and in 109 THE JAPANESE IN JAPAN knowledge of the world. You hear French residents say in the trams, "Les Japonais, ils sont barbares"; but this high-bred, intelligent, active people are no more barbarians than their visitors. Whatever may be said of Japan as a whole, the leaders in that country are men and women of the kind of intellectual power which Western nations would like to think their peculiar heritage. To deal with the Japanese upon any theory that their leaders are inferior in capacity and civilization to the heads of other States, or that the common people are deficient in mind, would be worse than a crime. The educated Japanese family stands alongside the same class in other lands. CHAPTEE XII JAPANESE CONTRADICTIONS IN a previous chapter allusion has been made to the extraordinary openness of Japanese life, both urban and rural, where from dawn to dark everybody knows what is going on in all his neighbors' houses. JSTo country is more democratic in the contact of the streets. This does not prevent Japan from being a coun- try in which social classes are very sharply separated from each other, and aristocracy is a ruling force. Here, as in many other respects, to the Western mind the Jap- anese seem to lack logic and consistency. The very first contradiction is a geographical one. Kip- ling has called Eussia the most Western of Eastern nations instead of the most Eastern of Western peoples. In the same way Japan, which by situation, race and prime interests is Asiatic, looks upon itself as a member of the body of Western Powers. Indeed Japan has not the Asiatic characteristic of mass, extent and expanse. Its climate is neither very hot nor very cold. It has no deserts, no plateaus, no great rivers. Its people have lost the Mongol habit of changing their abode. The sea has been its Chinese wall and has so protected it that since the unsuccessful expedition of Genghis Khan in the thirteenth century, no invader has so much as reached its shores. Even in race the Japanese are not all the same; leaving 111 JAPANESE CONTEADICTIONS out of account the aboriginal Ainos, who have been little incorporated into the present race, there are two strains which are visible in every crowd — the so-called "pudding face," with large, plain, heavy countenances; and a very different, delicate and aquiline type, with oval counte- nances and olive tint and much physical beauty. In aris- tocratic circles the latter type predominates, partly because of the beauty of its women, and also perhaps because the type is intellectually stronger; but some of the most dis- tinguished men, including the emperor, come from the plainer strain of the two. Yet among these two race stocks, which probably once were hostile to each other, there is not the slightest race feeling or race prejudice. No civilized nation is so homogeneous as the Japanese. Fifty million people speak but one language — for the dialects are not very troublesome and commonly a Jap- anese from any province can communicate with one from any other. Japan has one literary language, one set of national traditions, one group of religious sects and traditions. Japan has been for centuries an educated nation; that is to say, the rulers and the ruling class, including both the Mikado and the Shogun, were interested in literature and in poetry, and some hundreds of thousands of the people could read and write and maintain the traditions of literature. On the other hand, education never got below the Samurai; that is, the fiftieth part of the popu- lation. It was uncommon among women, though there are some feminine literary celebrities. Education in Japan, just as in England and the colonies in the eighteenth century, was intended not so much to train a man's character as to make him acquainted with polite literature; it was an accomplishment, like archery and 112 CULTIVATION ceremonial tea. The notion of education as a tool, as a force, was new to the Japanese mind. Another Japanese contradiction is that between democ- racy and aristocracy. It is a genial people; on trains and steamers the Japanese easily get into conversation with each other, and one sees everywhere frank and friendly intercourse among men of all classes. The mere fact that one Japanese is in the seat of a rickshaw and another between the shafts does not break their bond of common Japanesehood. But there is a difference between those two men far more significant than that between the coach- man and his fare in America. Eepresentatives of old Daimio houses say that the descendants of their ancestors' retainers still look upon them with special respect and affection. The status of the present nobility, which is made up of Daimio families and of Kuge families (de- scendants of the court nobles of the former Mikado) is as solid as that of Italy, for example. Above all, one man in the empire is universally revered as more than man, as the descendant of gods, and himself a demi-god, Emperor by divine right, or rather through the divine right of his mythical ancestors thousands of years ago. The equality of the lower classes, the inequality of the lower and upper classes, are both offset by this extraord- inary devotion to a personality seldom seen by any but the most favored subjects. Another strong Japanese characteristic is a Gallic fond- ness for orderly centralization, which is in the sharpest possible contrast with the traditions of the Japanese up to fifty years ago. The three hundred Daimios were by no means independent little sovereigns, but they had each their own way of doing things. Some of the great lords set up their own mints, executed their own justice, and 113 JAPANESE CONTRADICTIONS enjoyed the revenues of a principality. The Tokuguwa Shoguns for two centuries and a half kept those Daimios in check, largely by balancing one group against another ; but it was the Daimios and not the Shoguns who brought about a revolution by appealing to a principle of uni- formity in the person of the Mikado, for centuries a puppet in the hands of the Shoguns. The result was as though Eobert Toombs, Jefferson Davis, and Barnwell Rhett should have revived the centralization principles of Alexander Hamilton as a model for the government of the Southern States. The Daimios were simply ofEered upon the altar of national unity. In things artistic the Japanese press strongly against the Japanese. Japanese art is almost unique in this world, and to the layman's eye the modern lacquers, the bronzes, the silver and the wood carvings are little if at all inferior to the products of centuries ago. This applies of course, only to those works of art produced not for the foreign market, but for the love of it; and apprecia- tion of such art is widespread. A gentleman who had a beautiful and delicate piece of wood carving put it on the outside of his house along the street, and when a European remonstrated because the boys would surely destroy it, he replied that he put it there so that the children might admire it; and years after it was still uninjured. To be sure the trail of the aniline dye is over it all. Strange that coal tar should contribute to ruin the color sense of mankind; that the poor Japanese cooly likes strong crimson and pink pictures; but he clothes his children in the rainbow hues of fairyland, and his few household belongings are tasteful and often beautifully ornamented. On the other hand, the Japanese have made no success as color painters either in oil or 114 AET water. Architectural pieces they do very well, where the color and form are before them for a kind of pho- tography; but even in the art exhibitions the colors are not such as the Western eye sees on land or sea, the drawing seems hopeless, and expression in the Western sense there is none. A few Japanese artists have studied in Prance and Italy and paint prix-de-Eome pictures of genuine merit, but they are not really Japanese. The ability to do some things surpassingly, while kin- dred things are very ill done, passes over into architecture. Japan is a country with a distinct national type of archi- tecture, worked out in private houses, public buildings and religious temples. The private house is in all its forms very simple because the private life even of wealthy Japanese is simple. The wooden house has a close-fitting, removable front of solid shutters; and about four feet behind it another set of sliding screens filled in with paper ; the rooms are divided by similar sliding partitions ; the ground floor (which is normally the only story), is raised several feet above the ground, and every floor is covered with soft matting. This is the conventional Jap- anese house, which is enlarged by adding rooms like the cells of a box kite. The roof of shingle or tiles is heavy and usually very simple in outline. The so-called palaces of Daimios or sovereigns, including the Mikado's palace in Kyoto and presumably the ordinary abode of the pres- ent emperor, are of this type, all in rows of dark rooms opening on a long passage on the other side of whifch is a court. There is no magnificence of stairways or columns; the only decorations are the paintings on the walls of the chambers, almost invariably designs on a gold background, the favorite subjects being bamboos and other trees, cross-eyed tigers and lions standing on their 115 JAPANESE CONTRADICTIONS heads. Compared with the Eenaissance palaces of Venictj there is not a private house or a royal residence in tho Japanese style that is stately or magnificent. Except for these enlarged and extended wooden houses the only civil buildings in old Japan were the castles and gateways. It is a very striking fact, which brings out another inconsistency of Japanese character, that previous to the coming of the Portuguese about four cen- turies ago, there were no masonry castles in Japan. The walls and moats built under Portuguese influence are, however, grandiose, and the quaintly gabled roofs with their subtle curves and dolphin finials are very distinctive. Temple architecture is still more a product of the coun- try. Nearly all the temples are of wood, some of them regularly renewed every twenty years. Others, such as the sanctuaries of Mkko and Shiba in Tokio, are care- fully preserved through centuries. This architecture is essentially one of wooden beams and columns with heavily coffered ceilings; and the roof is worthy of the beautiful structure that it covers, the broad overhanging eaves sup- ported by heavy timber brackets and beam ends. How have these three forms of the Japanese style affected modern Japanese buildings? In the first place, all three are subject to fire. People say that in old Tokio well-to-do house owners always had the materials for a new house ready cut, shaped and stored outside the city, so as to bring it in and build again whenever the residence was destroyed by fire. For the castles the Japanese, who were supposed to have great respect for the past, cared so little that forty years ago every one of the three hun- dred structures except about half a dozen were allowed to burn down. The great castle at Nagoya alone, with its two solid gold dolphins eight feet long, is still some- 116 ARCHITECTURE where near perfect. As for the temples, two of the most splendid in Tokio were destroyed in the civil wars forty years ago, and some of the fine old timber structures down at Kamakura are going to decay, as hundreds of those buildings have done in past times. Neither ancient palace, castle nor temple appeals to the Japanese as a work of art which must be preserved for later generations. Still less do these splendid buildings serve as models for the present architects. One wonders as he goes through Japanese cities what craftsman has been let loose upon an unoffending population, for most of the modern buildings are not only non-Japanese, but would be trivial in any Western country. The emperor and some of the wealthy Japanese nobles have houses in 'the modern Ger- man villa style, though most of the owners will not occupy them except to receive European guests; but a large and expensive house on the Japanese model is almost unknown. An American living in Yokohama, Mr. Van Horn, has built a large and beaiitiful hoxise in a style suggested by the temples; it is a broad rectangle, with abundant exterior woodcarving and a magnificent sweep of tiled roof. This imitation of temple architecture was thought impious; and when he ventured to put a carved demon on his gable there was an uproar in the next European house across the valley: the servants struck in a body because that demon looked toward their house and would do them harm; but the owner of the second house planted a toy cannon on his roof aimed towards the demon, and the servants returned under the protection of this Western counter-irritant. In Tokio there are not half a dozen houses occupied by Japanese which combine European arrangement of rooms and stories with a Jap- anese exterior and roof. 117 JAPANESE CONTEADICTIOFS In public architecture conditions are quite as discour- aging. In Tokio are still to be found some sections of the old Daimio walls and entrances, on black foundations with a white structure above. Such for instance, is the enclosure of the Foreign Office, and the beautiful gateway in front of the Peers' Club. Two or three of the gates of the old exterior fortification of the Imperial Palace still stand, and doubtless considerable parts of the inner fortifications are unchanged, but of the numerous new public buildings only one has a distinct Japanese char- acter. The Houses of Parliament look like an exhibition building; and the departments of war and justice near the entrance to the palace are great masses of masonry, not unsuitable in themselves but quite out of harmony with the old city. Why should the Japanese, having once worked out a national style, now abandon it in favor of mixed and manifestly ugly forms? In a half century the Japanese, who abhorred trade, have become distinctly a commercial people. They were always good sailors, and many of the Daimios showed large power of combination and organization, but it is a fair question why in the ages that the empire has lasted so few accumulations of property have been made. leyasu, the first Tokugawa Shogun, was the contemporary of Henry IV of Prance and of the first English colonies in America. After him there were two centuries and a half of peace in Japan, but the Japanese in all that time built no cities except of wood and paper, accumulated no con- siderable capital in specie or manufactured goods, con- structed few or no monuments for later generations, built no great roads, dug no long canals, made no new dis- coveries in government, invented no new armor. In the two decades from 1860 to 1880, while the population of 118 COMMBECE the two countries was not far apart, the United States added to its visible wealth ten times more than Japan had done in three centuries. How shall one explain how the present gifted, keen and habile people have crys- tallized out of that unprogressive Japan which was found when the American fleet came fifty years ago? Here is another contradiction: the Japanese habitually turn backward to Perry's mission and the first treaty as the beginning of the new Japan. Yet Perry's success was almost an accident, and nobody in Japan then per- ceived that it meant the downfall of the Shogunate. There was no internal conflict in Japan which was brought to a crisis by Perry's resistance. That the Tokugawas gave way in 1854 is as strange as that they had not given way a century earlier. Somehow one has in Japan the feeling that the Japanese and Americans have not a common de- nominator, that their thinking machinery does not revolve at the same speeds. CHAPTBE XIII JAPANESE EDUCATION IN" no respect has Japan gone farther westward than in education, from which the country expects all sorts of advantage, moral and material. As Baron Makino says in a recent report as minister of education: "Strict attention should be paid to the nurture of the resources of the country as well as the development of social refinement; so bearing in mind all the essential points of future education, we have issued an instruction to the effect that the spiritual education should be so encouraged that the sentiment of fidelity to the Emperor and of love for the country, the two choice flowers indig- enous to the soil, might grow stronger, and that upon this sound basis of our fundamental constitution all kinds of education should be built." To carry out these laudable purposes the Japanese Empire has a remarkably complete and highly organized school system. It is almost as thoroughly centralized as in France, where the minister of education once boasted that he knew what every child in France was studying at a quarter past eleven. Japanese education is as broad as in the United States, and as carefully jointed together as in Germany. The mainspring of the whole system is the ministry of education, with a large administrative staff which, like all the parts of the Japanese Government, is always at work on new plans. From the department 120 CENTEAL ADMINISTRATION of education proceed inspectors to all parts of the empire. It organizes STimmer institutes for instructors in the higher schools; it administers the Hakushi or highest literary degree in the empire, and administers it with such rigor that only about forty people achieve it in the year; it officially sends students to foreign countries of whom about one hundred are now in the field ; it exam- ines and certifies teachers and confers a kind of patent of efiiciency on a few specially deserving elementary teachers ; it permits private schools to operate, if found up to the standard; it is the tribunal for text-books and issues over its own copyrights more than 30,000,000 copies of text-books every year; it builds and repairs the build- ings of the universities and high schools; and it super- vises the school finances of the empire. Thus the depart- ment is a beehive of activity. Through the reports of this elaborate machinery it is easy to find out the facts about Japanese schools which can be stated in tables. The first thing to observe is that education in Japan is universal, and that in its lower stages, and in favored localities in the higher stages, it is open to girls. The enumeration of the public schools in 1905-1906 was 5,350,000 pupils, which includes about 40,000 children in private elementary schools. Of these children about 4,000,000 are in the ordinary (primary) course, the first four years in school; and about 1,250,000 in the "middle schools" (years fifth to eighth). The number of teachers was 110,000, which is smaller in proportion than in American schools ; under these, 31,000 are assigned to the "middle schools." The attendance would be thought phenomenal in America, nowhere falling below 90 per cent, of the enrollment, and the statistics can be verified by actual count in typical classrooms. 131 JAPANESE EDUCATION The numbers advancing from grade to grade fall off little in the "ordinary" grades, but in the middle schools drop so rapidly that of 1,350,000 children entering the schools only about 170,000 complete the eighth year. The outgoes of this elaborate system of education are of several kinds. The general administration costs only about 400,000 yen a year (it will always be remembered that a yen is fifty cents gold). The various higher insti- tutions of learning, being the universities, normal schools, medical schools and government high, technical and com- mercial schools, cost 3,700,000 yen a year plus about 1,000,000 a year for construction; certain "dependent institutions" absorb 2,700,000 yen and the local schools chiefly supported by local taxation (plus grants of 1,300,000 yen from the government) expend 38,500,000 yen. Counting some smaller items, Japan in 1905-6 was spending for public education nearly 47,000,000 yen. The public school property, leaving out of account the imperial universities and other higher institutions, was valued at 113,000,000 yen. How far does this education educate? The official figures show that in 1870 only 15 per cent, of the girls of school age and 40 per cent, of the boys were in school; and that in 1908, 95 per cent, of all the children of school age were enrolled, and in some provinces nearly every child was on the books. The real efficiency of the schools, however, cannot be measured by statistics. The per capita expenditure of nine yen is as high as that of some of the Southern States, and measured by Japanese standards of living is much higher. But this is not all derived from public taxation, inasmuch as tuition fees in the elementary schools amount to nearly 4,000,000 yen, and in higher grades to another 3,000,000 133 STATISTICS yen; that is, the government is spending on the primary schools a little more than five yen per capita. To imderstand the significance of these figures is a very difficult task ; the schools are of many kinds, scattered all over the empire, almost entirely conducted in a difficult language, and of many degrees of excellence. Neverthe- less, there are some things that a foreigner may find out by visiting a series of schools, and in Tokio the author undertook, with the aid of the Department of Education, to visit a series of public schools grade by grade through about twelve years of study. The first difficulty was in the amiability of the authori- ties. Doubtless the superintendent of the Boston schools, if he had a Japanese inquirer on hand, would prefer that he visit one of the best buildings among the best class of children; but through the experience in Tokio there was a suspicion that the whole thing had been made ready beforehand; that when the principal opened a door apparently haphazard, the teacher was by a coin- cidence engaged in the work that the children could do best. The school was undoubtedly one of the best housed and best organized in Tokio. The school building is of wood, two stories high, constructed in appropriate Jap- anese fashion around two spacious courtyards, flanked by broad porches for rainy weather, and all fairly lighted. The principal, an intelligent man, a graduate of a normal school and promoted up from the ranks, does no teaching himself, but supervises his staff of 28 teachers and little army of 1,000 children. There is provision of electric lights for dark days and stoves for cold weather. Attendance is compulsory, and if children are persistently absent, the parents are reported to the 123 JAPANESE EDUCATION authorities, beyond which awM penalty one need not inquire. The children are obviously happy in school, bright, wide-awake, at recess clustering about the teachers, playing simple games, never quarreling, never scuffling, but trotting cheerfully about with that clatter of pattens which is a characteristic Japanese sound. With a dozen exceptions all the children wear Japanese costumes. In the two kindergartens and in the first primary grade (ages six to ten) girls and boys are together. Above that they are mostly separated. The kindergartens are established in very clean, airy rooms with good furniture and light. For the 150 pupils there are five teachers, who put the children through the usual kindergarten evolutions of marches and mazes and sand piles (where the children build moats and castles) ; in all of which the butterfly clothes make a lovely moving picture. In the three-year kindergarten course, which is available for only a small part of the Japanese children, no attempt is made to teach the children to read or work with numbers; they are there to play and be happy and learn to use their hands. The real work of teaching begins in the primary schools, and in the first grade under a woman teacher, 61 of the 64 seats were occupied by children sitting at little desks all of a size. The little creatures were learning the alphabet of 48 Kana characters and read- ing simple words from the blackboard, or singing songs to tunes unmistakably European. In the second primary grade (boys' room) there is a man teacher, as is usual though not invariable for boys; and they were calculating numbers and simple multiplication by arrang- ing themselves in rows, and ringing call-bells. Every 124 THE GEADES one of the 50 seats was occupied; and the teacher and pupils seemed in excellent rapport. In the third grade, the boys wore every one the Hakama, which is the usual school uniform for boys. In the corresponding girls' grade, a few boys had been brought in to equalize the number. The fourth grade for boys was with some diffi- culty working on manual training, making cardboard into exact shapes with rulers and cutting tools, according to the instructions of the teacher, a painstaking man, who afterwards came to the office to ask whether the visitor had any criticism to make on his methods. The fifth grade (about ten years old), is hard to compare with the work of American schools because the materials are different; the arithmetic, for instance, is worked with the abacus, to which all the Japanese are slaves. A ticket-seller will not venture to say how much three tickets cost you at 1 yen 15 each without handling the buttons of the machine. In the girls' fifth they were reading about insects in water and questioning the teacher. In a girls' sixth grade they were reading freely and rapidly. These six years on top of the kindergarten make up the course in this building, and however hasty the inspec- tion of each room, the visit makes it safe to say that in a picked Japanese city school the buildings are excel- lent and well suited to the climate and conditions, the children clean, happy and busy, the teachers on the whole good. In Japan as elsewhere, it is possible for men and women with very little intellectual outlook to push their way through the normal schools and get a position; and some of the teachers were visibly dull ; but most of them were alert, and evidently in sympathy with their pupils. In a country which employs few women clerks and 125 JAPANESE EDUCATION stenographers, teaching is one of the few pursuits outside of manual labor open to women, and on the whole they have succeeded. How many lame ducks there are among the children it is impossible to say, but of the three or four hundred seen at work, very few were stupid or seemed distanced by their fellows. Above the ordinary public school comes the high school, which has a five-year course; there are now something like 300 of them in Japan, though girls' high schools are few. A typical school of this grade in Tokio has rather an expensive building of a type which has gone by in the United States — a great deal of hall and stairway and unattractive schoolrooms. For the 360 pupils there were 28 teachers; some of whom gave special instruction to more than one school. The teachers have good salaries as Japan goes, an average of 900 yen as against 400 yen in the lower grades; and the English is taught by European teachers, who are here defending one of the last strongholds of the foreigner in Japanese education. This particular school is main- tained by the central government, but schools of a similar grade are elsewhere supported by the prefectures, and there are some scores of private high schools. About 20 per cent, of the boys drop out in going through the course, and about half of them proceed to the preparatory schools leading to the university. In the first grade of the high school were about 40 boys, 12 to 14 years old, all in a neat blue Euro- pean uniform with caps. The work was in biology and a dapper teacher was lecturing and illustrating with crayon, making the attempt, familiar to many American teachers, to interest boys in natural science. The second year boys were working in algebra. In the third year 126 SECONDAEY they were listening to a teacher lecturing on ancient history, some of the boys taking notes, or following with a text-book illustrated with pictures of Egyptian monu- ments. In the fourth grade a good English teacher was working on English, which is one of the most important subjects in the high school, and the boys were taking hold. In the fifth year they were reading Chinese to a Japanese professor. This necessity of Chinese for the educated man, combined with the learning of English, is a heavy drain on the time and energy of the schools. It is as though the American boy of seventeen should be expected, in addition to fluent and graceful use of his own tongue, to use Middle High German and Hindustanee. In Japan as in other parts of the world, the old-fash- ioned academic education is now flanked with other sys- tems, of which one of the most interesting is the higher commercial school. At present there are only four in the empire, of which probably the best is in Tokio; it is one of the largest schools in the empire, having nearly 1,600 boys, many of whom come from the lower classes of society. On the average they are inferior to the boys of the regular high school in appearance and manner. Nevertheless the school is so much esteemed that seven times as many boys apply for entrance as can be admitted. There are 70 teachers, of whom 11 are for- eigners. The school is housed in a number of buildings much like a small American college and includes large playgrounds, a jiu-jitsu practice room, an armory, a library, and a commercial museum of technical products. Good work was done in bookkeeping, commercial geography, and higher algebra (the theory of insurance). The school is ambitious and in its so-called post-graduate department set? the young men on the preparation of monographs, paying 127 JAPANESE EDUCATION their traveling expenses. Eeports have been printed on such subjects as mat patterns, cotton in Central China, the manufacture of tea, and the sawmills of Hokkaido. The school is obviously feeling its way, but seems effective and might well be studied by the organirars of similar schools in the United States. Another group of schools of the high school grade is the technical, of which there are now 30 or more, the best one in Tokio. This school is planted upon manual training which begins in the primary school where they teach knitting, sewing, weaving, dyeing, wood-fitting, etc. This is followed by the so-called "continuation schools," which are mostly night schools intended to help boys after they go to work. Then comes a group of middle grade technical schools with a two-years' course; and at the top the Higher Technical School which is practically open only to those who have already had 11 or 13 years of school, and graduates its pupils at 30 or 31 years. The great school at Tokio in a very extensive plant, has four functions: (1) Its regular three-year course; (3) a course for training teachers for the middle grade technical schools; (3) an "apprentice school" which takes boys who have no training but the primary schools; (4) continuation night schools, attended often by middle-aged men. The course is distinctly technical, the only "humanity" that is taught being English; and the work is subdivided into many trade departments, as, soap, brewing (directed by a professor who learned the art in Germany) , printing, weaving (with actual machinery from England, Switzer- land, the United States and France), pottery, water test- ing, modeling, etc. Every effort is made to give the students shop practice in several of these fields, but pre- 138 TECHNICAL cisely as in the United States there are not enough avail- able hours in the year for thorough practice. Although the commercial and technical schools have such headway, the older type of education is flourishing. The State makes an elaborate provision of normal schools, of which there are over 60 with 1,000 teachers; it supports five medical schools, a school of foreign lan- guages, a fine art school, an academy of music, and two imperial universities, both of which include medical schools. The Imperial University of Tokio has a faculty of nearly 300 and an enrollment of over 4,000, and it is finely situated on the palace grounds of an old Daimio and well provided with buildings, apparatus, and a noble library. Fifty-five hundred of its grad- uates are scattered through the empire. The univer- sity at Kyoto, which has been very recently founded, has about 1,400 students. In addition there are the two endowed universities of Waseda and Keiogijiku in Tokio which in equipment, faculty and spirit are rivals to the public universities. Besides these are the missionary colleges, the most important of which is the Doshisha, founded at Kyoto by Joseph Neesima, and well known to Boston people. This brief survey shows that the Japanese have a lively sense of the value of education; that they tax themselves freely to get it ; that every child has the opportunity of a common school education and that most of them can read and write a very difiicult language and have some knowl- edge of the world about them; that they have founded secondary and higher institutions in liberal numbers. This educational work was begun by foreigners and is still to a considerable degree inspirited by Japanese who have been educated abroad; but at present there are only about 129 JAPANESE EDUCATION 80 foreigners in the whole system of government schools (beside a number employed by the prefectural high schools) of whom not one is in the administration. What is now being done in Japan is the work of Japanese, who are intent on keeping up the national traditions of lan- guage, literature and government. The schools are good; they are in the Western manner; they open the way to a knowledge of the English language as a vehicle for Western learning; but it may fairly be doubted whether they are a Westernizing influence. CHAPTEE XIV RULERS OF JAPAN JAPAN" is a constitutional monarchy. Everybody knows that, because it is in the school geographies ; because there is a Japanese parliament with two houses ; because there are periodical elections ; because when the Diet is in session the newspapers are full of the atti- tude of this and that party; because the ministry annually submits a budget, which is passed upon by the represen- tatives of the people; because there is a prime minister, designated by the emperor. Politically, Japan seems a little England. When actually in Japan, however, the whole make-up of the government and frame of mind of the people is very different from that familiar in the United States, and also from the practices of a bureaucratic country like Germany. Japan is ruled, and well ruled. Nowhere can be found a nation with a more distinct and persistent national policy. No country in modern times is so suc- cessful in carrying through great projects step by step. Everywhere there is good order, and everywhere also the mark of a political power shaping the purposes of the nation. All the externals of government are imposing; besides the army and navy, which are much in evidence, and the imperial police, which extends to the rural regions, there are large government buildings, post offices, government telegraphs, dock yards and railroads. Things are done, and weU done; but who does them? 131 EULEES OF JAPAN As a general statement Tokio does them. France is not so centralized in Paris as Japan is in its capital. The old Daimiates no longer exist, even as administrative sub-divisions, the country is organized into provinces over each of which is a prefect quite in the French manner. The courts and magistrates radiate authority from them outwards. Some of the cities, particularly Tokio, elect their own mayors. Nevertheless, in all Japan there are neither states nor municipalities nor villages, in the West- ern sense; only provinces and prefectures, and communes, ships, and guns. The functions of the municipal councils and village assemblies are slender, and, as in Prance, they are constantly checked by the direct representative of the central government. This condition is of great signifi- cance, for it means that the Japanese people have very lit- tle experience of actual responsibility in government ; they may discuss, may suggest, may do what is assigned to them by laws none too liberal, provided they do not conflict with the imperial authorities, which exist side by side with the local. The former treaty ports are still abnormal; they are all controlled by foreign residents, who, since 1899, are subject to the ordinary laws of the empire, but who practically carry on the principal municipal functions of the wealthiest part of each city. In Tokio, where most is being done to change over the city into modern condi- tions, the imperial government practically controls the city through its great expenditure for imperial buildings and through its relative public improvements. For in- stance, the elevated railroad, which has for several years been nearly completed, is a part of the general imperial railroad system, and is out of the hands of the municipal authorities. The great street improvements are part of 133 LOCAL GOVEENMENT the preparation for the now postponed international exhi- bition. The elected mayor and council of Tokio would not venture to press an3'thing in opposition to the im- perial government. The only official organ springing directly from the people is the Imperial Diet, but that is chosen through a very limited electorate based on a property qualification. The total number of voters in the United States is about one-sixth of the total population; in Japan, it is about one-fiftieth. Hence the lower house of Parliament is the representative of interests rather than of the people at large. It is true that most of the non-voters are indiffer- ent and may be considered as represented by their wealthier neighbors; but there is a considerable discon- tented class. Furthermore, in Parliament there are no parties in the Western meaning of that term. Count Okuma, the veteran statesman and educator, for a long time headed what might be called the popular party, but he has long since retired from politics. By various transactions with the minister in power from time to time a sufficient number of members are held together to insure approving votes. The House of Peers includes not only the heredi- tary nobles, but men appointed for their services, their learning or their wealth. It can hardly be considered a conservative or restraining force, inasmuch as the House of Eepresentatives always comes to an understand- ing with the ministry. Under the Japanese constitution laws may be prepared by the Cabinet as well as by either House of the Diet, and in practice important measures are always framed outside of the Diet, while at the same time "The Em- peror" (that is "The Cabinet") has a right of veto on 133 EULEES OP JAPAN legislation. Out of the ordinary legislative powers are reserved for the emperor's prerogative several vital subjects — the organization of administration, the peace standing of the army and navy, declaration of war, the power to make ordinances for the application of laws when the Diet is not sitting; the emperor may even in case of necessity, supersede laws by his ordinances. In this distribution of power it is plain that the elected representatives have nothing like complete control of legislation; there may be a veto by the Emperor, and the Emperor may in some cases set aside laws to w'hich he has previously given consent. This seems to throw the responsibility for good gov- ernment upon the Emperor; but no one mind can carry on such complex machinery as the Japanese government, even were it gifted with superhuman power of decision. This conventional view of the emperor is a club wielded by the premier; but it is expressly provided in the con- stitution that members act in obedience to the emperor, and hence there is really no such thing as parliamentary responsibility. If the prime minister is troubled with the Diet (nobody seems to have trouble with the House of Peers), it may be thought expedient to appoint another prime minister; but the real forces of government are not affected, because the real authority is exercised by a body standing between the cabinet and the emperor. Nomin- ally this power is the Genro, or elder statesmen — a privy council, which is a permanent but flexible body. Here at last you approach the guiding force in the Japanese Government. The six men at present are Matsukata, Yamagata, Inouye, Katsura, Okuma and Oyama. They have all occupied various high state ofl5ces, though usually not that of premier. As a council, they have 134 DIET AND GENEO considerable constitutional powers; but they rule because the emperor listens to their counsel. The nominal cab- inet is only a sort of buffer between the elder statesmen and the Diet; and the ministers of state are the admin- istrative organs of the government. So far as the out- sider can judge, the only people who make their will prevail are the elder statesmen, out of whom three or four are the active men. It is supposed that the emperor shares in the councils of this body and that his judgment is valuable and respected, but when it comes to such questions as the war with China in 1895, and that with Eussia in 1905, the Genro and a few of their immediate councillors and associates, not one of whom is in any way chosen by or responsible to the people, make the decisions. Has the Diet no check upon these directors? Tech- nically it has, in its right to vote tie supply bill; but in practice this is not really a means by which the action of the higher powers can be restrained. In the first place there are means not unknown to other constitutional gov- ernments by which representatives who desire places for their friends and constituents and advancement for them- selves are led to see the course of the ministry in a favor- able light; so that as a matter of fact a genuine expres- sion of want of confidence in the ministry is almost never had. In the second place his majesty under the constitution may prolong the votes of the previous year, if the Diet makes no new provision. This is probably a leaf taken from Prussia, where Bismarck by this device kept up a standing army in the early sixties against the wish of the Landrath. In the third place ministers will not permit any budget to be seriously discussed, if discus- sion seems likely to interfere with their purposes ; all that 10 135 EULEES OF JAPAN is necessary is to state that the emperor desires the budget to go through, and further objection would be dis- loyalty to the Crown. Of course this is a means which cannot be used very often, but it is as though Senator La Follette should suddenly cease one of his most exultant speeches because Speaker Cannon says that President Taft is in favor of the pending measure. What is then the legal government of Japan and in what manner is it subject to public opinion? Legally the government is conducted by laws passed by the Diet, so far as they have been passed; and by supplementary ordin- ances of the Crown which go far in all matters and are decisive in naval and military matters. And these laws and ordinances are the result of an understanding between a small number of men, all of them at or above seventy years of age, whose astuteness and far-sightedness is proven by the successes of the Japanese policy, and who have behind them the consent of most of the nation cap- able of forming a judgment on political questions. The government of Japan is practically a steering committee made up chiefly of men who are not administrators, but in close touch with the emperor, who is sensible enough to see that his rule depends upon the services of this board. The Diet is a force for expressing one's mind within bounds and for ratifying conclusions which have been previously reached by the steering committee. This is curiously like the present system in "Washington except that the Japanese steering committee is smaller, has had longer experience and has a kind of place in the written constitution, as a nominal Privy Council. Whatever there may be in Washington, there is no popular government in Japan. Public opinion is expressed through the large and 136 PUBLIC SENTIMENT growing number of Japanese newspapers, some of which have a circulation rising above 200,000. These papers dis- cuss public policy, and, though like journals in more fa- vored lands they are subject to occult influences, they do gather public opinion. For instance when the ministry proposed to substitute measured service for the previous flat rate on telephones, the newspapers violently protested and the project was given up. Then many responsible and educated men in business and in the professions through their members in the Diet and still more by direct contact with ministers, premiers and elder statesmen, make their views known. The government has encouraged the crea- tion of local chambers of commerce which concentrate the opinions of business men. Japan has also been much influ- enced during the last forty years by books, especially those of Count Okuma, the founder of Waseda University and an eminent statesman. Of late years there have been mass meetings on public questions, one of which led to a riot because the police attempted to break it up. At the bottom of the scale the government is always aware of public feeling through the tax collectors, who quickly report the effect on the public mind of new impositions. In fact, the government of Japan is an oligarchy in close relation with a sovereign ; but it is a small oligarchy which holds its power not because of the titular rank or previous public service of its leaders, still less as in Eng- land because they have proven their power to defend measures in debate. The elder statesmen are nominally selected by the emperor, but probably choose their own members as vacancies occur, and undoubtedly reflect gen- erally what the people of Japan desire. If just now a genuine expression of opinion could be had from the electors as to the desirability of a large navy or the in- 137 EULEES OF JAPAN troduction of an income tax, it might very likely run counter to views of the Genro; but the Japanese people has complete sympathy with the purpose of its rulers to make Japan great. The confidence of the nation is justified by the char- acter of the controlling elements. Notwithstanding the chicanery within the Diet, the ruling statesmen of Japan are free from most of the petty ambitions of politicians: they are not required to manoeuvre for their elections; they are not members of the ministry ; they are not obliged to resign if out of sympathy for the time with their colleagues; they settle their difl'erences of opinion among themselves. The whole organization of Japan reminds one of nothing so much as the Doge and Council of Venice who conducted that fortunate state through a thousand years, to the satisfaction of the governed. Whether such a system can stand the force of universal education, and the quickening desire for an extension of suffrage, and for real elected representatives, is more than anyone can predict to-day. CHAPTER XV JAPANESE AMBITION FEOM the point of view of the passing traveler Japan exists in order to furnish to the jaded globe-trotter a new sensation. The whole country is like Venice or Athens in its charm of scenery, of street life, of unfamiliar figures. The shop windows are full of brilliant colors and beautiful shapes; the gardens are planted with the most artistic foliage; the pleasure seeker finds a Great White Way of delights, virtuous or sinful. The whole country is picturesque from beginning to end; the very trees seem to have imitated the pictures of Hoku- sai; Fujiyama is an elaborate decoration which you see to-day on tea plates and to-morrow against the evening sky; the people are infinitely interesting, from the by- lanes in the village up to the courtyard of the imperial palace. This charm is one of the material assets of Japan, for it fascinates travelers, and extracts their money. At the same time it helps to fix mankind's attention upon this small portion of the globe, to convince other peoples that Japan is interesting. Nevertheless Japanese art and social life are only the lesser part of Japanese relations to the rest of mankind. In all experience of the thinking peo- ple of Japan one is impressed with the seriousness of the race and with its sense of a mission in the world. The Japanese do not look on that mission as an artistic one; by far the greater part of the modern porcelain, the cloi- 139 JAPANESE AMBITION sonn6 and the bronze is designed for foreign buyers, and the country has almost been drained of its art treasures of former generations. There are only two or three art mu- seums in Japan, especially the Ueno in Tokio and the Imperial Museum in Kyoto; and the gaps and omissions in those collections are as significant as the beautiful things that one finds. The Japanese ambition is not to teach the world beauty, but to be the civilizer of eastern Asia. This is one of the sharp turns which the country has made since the days when the foreigners, except a handful of Dutch at Nagasaki, were excluded from the country; since the time when, by the Shoguns' orders, every Japa- nese craft built on foreign models was destroyed. Through- out its history Japan has been the recipient of civilization through Chinese and Korean channels, then from Eu- rope, and since Perry's treaty of 1854 from America and from Europe again. The sharp turn was made unwill- ingly; the records of the government and the annals of the negotiators of that year have now been made available in Japanese; and it is interesting to see that the argu- ment presented by men like Hotta and Count li, who signed the treaty, was that the Yankee admiral was coming back and unless they yielded they would suffer the same humiliation as the Chinese in the Opium War which was then only fourteen years past. Had the Japa- nese statesmen understood the affectionate character of President Franklin Pierce, and the unwillingness of the American Congress of that time to spend money on a war in the Par East, they would have permitted Perry's squa- dron to keep on anchoring indefinitely, and some other power would have been the first to break in the shell of Japan. 140 SHAEP TUEN IN POLICY Japan has long since accepted the political and com- mercial connection with the rest of the world; and the events of the last two decades have both revealed, and have furnished a theatre for, new Japanese ambitions. It has been said that the history of the world had for cen- turies proceeded in the same grooves, till America was discovered, an international force which no one reckoned on. This disturbance in the world's affairs has again oc- curred in the rise of Japan to be a nation in the modem sense. This has been made possible, first by the growth of population from 33,000,000 in 1872 to 48,000,000 in 1908. For a country already thickly populated with no wild lands, this is an astonishing progress; and it has been made possible only by the improvements in transportation and the growth of manufactures and the consequent growth of large cities. In addition Japan possesses Formosa, the population of which is over 4,000,000, only a small part of whom are Japanese ; and Korea has now been added to the Japanese influence. All together Japan governs nearly 60,000,000 people, from whom troops can be raised and taxes drawn ; and that is the basis of the Japanese national aspiration. There is a serious question whether the popu- lation can keep on growing indefinitely, though it seems established that only half the land of Japan that will respond to cultivation is tilled properly and there is much vacant space in Formosa and Korea, which undoubtedly can support some additional millions of people. The whole nation abounds in children, and if the death rate can be checked by proper care and sanitation the present empire may in 1950 contain 100,000,000 people. They are, however, a poor people, with a productivity averaging far less than that of Western communities. The 141 JAPANESE AMBITION Japanese work hard, but there are so many people to share the products of their labor, that the surplus above a mere maintenance is small. In a thousand years up to 1870 all the accumulations of the country from year to year were wooden buildings, which had to be renewed from time to time, small stocks of silk and textiles and metals, provisions to carry the people from one season to another, and a very small surplus which was invested in temples, works of art and a slender stock of specie. But for its borrowing power Japan could never have fought its two recent wars or developed its railroads, public works and modern cities. The country is growing richer, and shows its prosperity; mines, iron works and cotton mills spring up where a few years ago there were none; and these enterprises are in general owned by Japanese who have accumulated a large capital which finds profitable employment. Unfortunately, the country is annually withdrawing a large part of the surplus in taxes, which are set so high that they press heavily on the people. Public opinion is roused on this subject and the present Katsura ministry has announced that it will economize even in military expenditure; but so far the only considerable reduction has been in outlays for public works. For instance, the elevated road through Tokio, a much-needed convenience, more than three parts built, remains unfinished because the government cannot find the money. The telephones in 1908 were a government monopoly and though paying 20 or 25 per cent, on the investment, were inadequate because the government had not the money to open new lines; and you could only secure a telephone in case some one else gave his up. Japan, like the rest of the world, in 1907 entered upon a commercial crisis which 142 PUSTANCES has been much more severe in that country than in the United States; but when business shall improve, the de- mands of the government will probably be correspondingly greater. The government has managed to acquire the rail- ways by borrowing in Europe on its o^vn credit, which is of course, an improvement on any direct or bonded ownership by foreigners; but unless the governmental outgo is kept at its present figures (which no civilized government seems able to do), and at the same time the revenue shall be increased, the foreign debt will enlarge year by year. The possibility of retrenchment depends on the frame of mind of the military and civil authorities, who argue that the position of Japan as a first-class Power was brought about by being ready in 1894 and again in 1904 with a large trained army and navy. Universal military service is firmly fixed in Japan and has many good effects ; it takes young men out of their narrow environment, teaches them discipline and the arts of good health, and fijxes in their minds that intense devotion to country which is one of the chief assets of the nation. The military expenses are hard to reduce since Japan is now making heavy outlays on fortifications. The main expense which can be avoided by fiat is the maintenance and construction of a large navy. When in 1908 it was announced that the United States was to send a fleet of sixteen battleships into Asiatic waters, the Japanese hastened to ask a visit; and announced that they would pay the courtesy of meeting each of the American ships with a Japanese battleship. To those who saw the thirty-two powerful vessels anchored together in Yokohama Bay the lesson was obvious; but such compliments cost money, not only to Japan but to other countries: Chile, the Argentine, Brazil, the United 143 JAPANESE AMBITION States, Germany, all feel the stimulus of the Japanese fleet, particularly as it is very efficient. There is a school of writers who have made it their business ever since 1905 to prove that Japan was not really victorious in the Eussian War; that the Eussian fleets were destroyed not because they were inferior, but because they were weaker; that if the Eussian armies had retired a matter of three hundred miles, and if the Japanese had waited until the Eussian reenforcements came up, and if the defenders of Port Arthur had held out to doomsday, the Japanese would have been flanked by their enemy all the way to the Pacific Ocean, and the wise would have been otherwise. It seems hard for some people to admit that any other Asiatic nation (ex- cept Eussia) can have a really good army and navy. The Japanese can afford to ignore these "would -ha ve-beens," in view of their actual success in three great pitched battles, where the Eussians thought they had a chance of success at least. The Japanese are naturally anxious to show their preparedness when the next international difficulty comes along. One wishes, nevertheless, that one could overhear the discussions of the imperial council of the elder statesmen on the navy, and learn why to increase it they exact such sacrifices, such a straining of the national credit, such a postponing of the internal devel- opment of the country from which alone can spring future strength. A few months ago, an American editor who directs the universe from the office of the New York Journal an- nounced that Japan was getting ready to fight the United States; and a member of Congress has shrieked a like prediction in the ears of the American people. The visit of the American fleet has disposed of any theory 144 FEIENDSHIP WITH AMEEICA that the Japanese are hostile to the Americans. It was not, of course, without suggestion from above that every room and alley in Yokohama and Tokio were illuminated during the stay of the American fleet, and the school chil- dren who sang "America" and split their little throats in banzais for the American officers and American ladies and anything that looked American, might have sung a dif- ferent tune if their teachers had so directed them ; but the real Japan, the men and women who make and demon- strate public opinion, sincerely desire peace with the United States. This desire for friendship is embodied in the memor- andum exchanged between the two countries in 1909, and it also disposes of the theory that the Japanese are pre- paring for an ultimate attack on China. Leaving out of account that they have not yet a firm grasp on Formosa, which was ceded to them by China fifteen years ago, the memorandum is a positive pledge on the part of Japan not to wrest territory from China. In fact, the Japanese have hoped for a very different relation to China. When thousands of Chinese students came to Tokio after 1905, Japan looked upon herself as the medium of transmission of Western civilization; but the students were unruly, their number has greatly diminished, and many of the Chinese at present feel a positive antipathy to Japan. Even if there had been no American memorandum the Japanese could take no steps in China without coming into contact with highly-interested European powers. Is Japan preparing for another onslaught on Eussia? No one who glances at the map of eastern Asia can fail to sympathize with the Eussian desire for an ice-free port on the Pacific. Nature on the Baltic, Turkey and 145 JAPANESE AMBITION" the western concert of powers on the Black Sea, and now China and Japan on the Pacific, seem in a conspiracy to prevent Eussia from becoming a great maritime power. If Siberia continues to develop it seems likely that its people will never rest until they have a good connection with the Pacific, which can hardly be made unless through the Gulf of Pechili. To that ambition of Eussia the Japanese are not unalterably hostile. As late as 1905 they did not object to the Eussians taking Manchuria, provided Japan could have a free hand in Korea ; and until Eussia recovers from her internal difficulties there is no likelihood of a large Eussian naval fleet in the Pacific which can alarm Japan. Apparently the big Japanese navy is not directed against any particular power, but is intended, in conjunction with the army which it can transport and convoy, to im- press on other nations the physical power of Japan, and the necessity of listening to her reasonable desires. Not- withstanding their notable victory in two recent wars the Japanese are not aggressive in conversation or demeanor. Their talk is not of war. Some recent writers on Eastern affairs have unconsciously taken the position that there is something strange and unaccountable in the desire of Japan to be a force in Eastern affairs, that the ambition which has shaped England and roused the United States is uncanny when it appears in the mind of the yellow man. It is time for sensible people to give up the idea that China and Japan are abnormal countries for whose conduct one must find unusual motives. There is un- doubtedly in the mind of the Japanese statesmen a strong desire to be big. They like to see their merchant ships all over the globe, and their battleships in pro- fusion; they like to count their armed men and their 146 INTEENAL DEVELOPMENT guns; but that they have at present any more definite plan of action than to be ready for the next crisis is hard to discover. At present the immediate attention of the government is given to the economic problem emphasized by the panic of October, 1907. Japan had flourishing manufactures, especially cotton and shipbuilding. The cotton market was so affected by the changes in China, and shipbuilding by the general falling ofE in commerce, that there were for a long time weekly reports of new bodies of men thrown out of employment, although later returns showed a diminution of only 10 per cent, in the active spindles. The elder statesmen appear to realize that Japan must be prosperous if she is to be great. One result is what would be called in other countries advanced State socialism. The government owns the post office, telegraphs, railways, telephones, and exercises a camphor and tobacco monopoly. By its heavy subsidies to steamship lines it is a partner in the business of merchant shipping, and in many direc- tions by bounties and legislation it attempts to stimulate industry. Of course, such a control tends to undermine private initiative ; and Japan furnishes some proofs of the maxim of the political economist that in government industries the manager instinctively avoids sweeping improvements which may include himself. At any rate the economic progress of Japan is dependent upon the ability of the Japanese to manage great enterprises intelligently and honestly, for nearly all the European engineers and heads of works have now been replaced by Japanese. The railway managers and shipping designers are Japanese, and a new class of bankers, entrepreneurs and merchants has arisen. 147 JAPANESE AMBITION As to the commercial morality of these people, there is every shade of opinion among resident foreigners in a position to judge. Some tell you that the main object of the Japanese merchant is to order goods without taking them, and having taken them to avoid payment. The Japanese themselves admit that they lack a tradition of trade and contract obligation. The Japanese retailer, for instance, when he orders goods expects that the demand will keep up; and if hard times come, to his mind condi- tions have so changed that he is justified in refusing to accept delivery; but cases can also be mentioned where Japanese manufacturers have found foreign buyers eager t& take advantage of any technicality to avoid a losing contract. It is true that many of the banks employ some Chinese clerks, though it is hard to find out whether they are thought to be more trustworthy or simply better account- ants. Japanese banks know almost nothing of personal credit, their loans even to small men being almost inva- riably made on the security of tangible property; but that means simply that trade runs more to cash transactions than in other countries. Most candid residents, missionary officials and merchants will tell you that the Japanese, like other folks, are of all sorts, some honest and some dishonest; but that they in general mean to pay their debts and keep their promises. In 1909 there was an epidemic of commercial dishonesty in Japan, which caused the ruin of several reputed wealthy men, and the suicide of some financiers who returned to this primitive Japanese method of expiating a disgrace. So far as a visitor can judge, the main ambition of the Japanese is to be a world Power, strong, respected, and consulted on all questions of Eastern Asia. The direct 148 ACCOUNTABILITY means to this end is a powerful army and navy; but nobody realizes more clearly than the Japanese statesman that the basis of national influence must be wealth, pros- perity, and intelligence, sufficient to keep the nation strong. CHAPTBE XVI KOREA AND PRINCE ITO THE assassination of Prince (Marquis) Ito, in 1910, was the end of an honorable career, but only one chapter in a series of acts of violence, which have characterized the relations of unhappy Korea for a quarter of a century. Younger men will step forward to take up, though perhaps less sturdily, the work which Ito carried on for 45 years; but no one will be more successful than he has been in his attempt to bring content to the Koreans and good order to their distracted country. The assassination is in itself neither unexampled nor wholly surprising. It is not for a nation which has lost three presidents by assassination in thirty-six years, to set up the principle that the violent removal of great men is a mark of low civilization. Prince Ito was, by his office, the highest power in Korea. He was, on the whole, the first in the little group of rulers of Japan, he was on neutral soil, under the protection of a foreign government ; but neither his rank, his power to surround himself with armed men, or his great services to Japan and to mankind could protect him from an obscure assassin. His was the fate which has many times in history overcome the high- minded governor of a conquered province. The assassination of Ito recalls the many incidents of the kind which have occurred in the history of Japan since 150 ASSASSINATIONS the present empire was organized. The list fairly begins with Eichardson, the obstinate English representative who, in 1858, insisted on riding his horse on the great road to Tokio, though warned that the people were inflamed against foreigners, and that he was risking his life. He chose to run into a procession of the retainers of a Daimio, who promptly slew him; and thus began a record of violence. Some of the murders and assassinations of the disturbed period of the sixties may be thought inci- dents of strife between brothers; but the assassination of Viscount Mori in 1889, on the very day when the new Constitution was proclaimed, was a popular act, and the people made pilgrimages to the tomb of the assassin. Another attempt that is fresh in mind is the firing on Li Hung Chang, when he came to Tokio to negotiate a treaty of peace between China and Japan in 1895. A fanatic fired a shot which wounded him, at first it was thought fatally. An American who was present when Li Hung Chang was brought in, relates that the great man gasped out some remark to his attendants. Almost imme- diately reporters began to arrive; they rained down from the sky; they grew up out of the ground; they condensed from the fog; and they all demanded what were the last words of the supposedly moribund statesman. The young secretary applied to his principal for instructions and that experienced American diplomat said: "I should suppose that a man like Li Hung Chang would say something very elevated, I think you had better use your discretion," whereupon the young man informed the reporters, and through them the waiting world, that Li Hung Chang's words were: "If I die for my country I am content," or words to that effect. He had the curiosity, however, to inquire of an interpreter what the great man's expression 11 151 KOEEA AND PEINCE ITO really had been, who candidly translated it as follows: "Those inexpressible descendants of unprintables — don't you think I conld sue them ?" Li Hung Chang was saved and so was the present emperor of Eussia, then crown prinde, when in 1891 he was protected by the courage and disregard of their own lives shown by two rickshamen. The assassination of Ito is most nearly paralleled by the killing in 1909, in San Francisco, of Stevens, who had been the diplomatic agent of Japan in Korea and for that reason was shot by two Koreans. Both these cases are the acts of a desperate people, whose nationality is just disappearing. The Koreans are the Poles of eastern Asia; a race with many able and strong individuals, but cursed by centuries of misgovernment, squeezed between powerful enemies, weak in council and incompetent in warfare, the plaything for contending nations. Stevens, and later Prince Ito, paid the penalty of a relation to a process much resembling the partition of Poland nearly a century ago, of an attempt to keep order by wiping out of existence an uncontrollable neighbor. In the relations of Japan and Korea, Prince Ito has taken a commanding part at both ends of the line, as one of the Genro, the famous imperial council of six members, which is practically the governing force of Japan; and also as the instrument of the policy which he thus helped to initiate, through his service as resident general of Korea. In the history of Korea, during the last sixteen years, the assassination of Ito is rather a minor incident, less tragic than many other acts of violence. Troublous relations between Japan and Korea go back for centuries. Both China and Japan have several times established for the time being dominion over Korea; and China for two hundred years has looked upon Korea as a 153 KOEEAN GOVEENMENT dependency. ISTeTertheless, the country was practically in- dependent up to the war between China and Japan in 1894. It had the Oriental type of "despotism tempered by assassinations"; to-day a court intrigue; to-morrow a riot of troops; next day civil war; and the day after, the torture and execution of the vanquished. In 1894 a Korean, supposed to be favorable to Japan, named Kimokok Kuro, was murdered in Shanghai. There were plots to murder the king, and the Japanese sent over troops to keep order and used Korea as a base for the war against China. Out of the confusion of the period the facts that emerge are that the independence of Korea was proclaimed and that a desperate attempt was made to murder the queen by men whom the populace thought to be Japanese. Two years later the king of Korea took on himself the title of emperor and was aroused to this bold step by the support of Russia, who had compelled the Japanese by diplomatic methods to withdraw their troops. When two Korean dignitaries, supposed to have been connected with plots against the emperor, came back in 1900 on a promise of gentle treatment they were tortured to death by the Korean Government. The latest chapter in the history of Korea began in 1903 when the Eussians attempted to cut the timber on the Yalu River, thus raising a question of their pretensions in Manchuria and their designs on Korea, and that led straight to the occupancy of Korea by Japan in 1904 and the following Russian war. Troops were constantly passing through the country; a military railway was built to the northern frontier; the Japanese occupied the coun- try much as the Americans occupied Cuba in 1898, with benevolent intentions of improvement. A treaty was nego- tiated by Marquis Ito under which all the foreign affairs 153 KOEEA AND PEINCE ITO of Korea were thenceforth to be in the hands of Japan, and the country was to admit a "resident general." To that important office Ito was appointed in 1906 and held it to his death with great distinction. His career in many respects has been like that of "William H. Taft, in a similar capacity in the Philippine Islands. In both cases the power that had the men and ships overawed the weaker brown brothers; in both cases the finances were put on a reformed basis. The financial represen- tative of Japan in this period was Baron Megata, a graduate of the Harvard Law School, whose great success in this difficult task reflects honor on his alma mater. As in the islands farther south, the reformed element strongly objected to the process. Two of the royal minis- ters killed themselves as a protest against the Japanese occupation, and even then could not stop it. Thirty-five people who had conspired to kill the ministers who had given their consent to the treaty had to be executed in order to convince them of Japan's good faith ; the emperor in 1907 attempted to appeal to The Hague Conference, and was obliged to abdicate in favor of his son. A few days later appeared a second treaty, likewise negotiated by Marquis Ito, under which the administration of Korea was definitely placed in the hands of Japan. Though he promised to spend 30,000,000 yen in the development of the country, out of the Japanese treasury, the Koreans violently protested. Ito advocated bringing in Japanese colonists enough to swamp the community, and though that expedient was not adopted, and though Ito himself appears to have been a just and honorable man, it was impossible to take possession of a country against the will of the people without raising animosity. If the Japanese had been as wise and temperate as the angels they could not 154 JAPANESE OCCUPATION have satisfied the Koreans any more than the Americans have been able to satisfy the Filipinos. People living in Korea and visitors alike have expressed widely varying opinions as to the Japanese occupation of Korea. To some it seems neither more nor less than the exploitation of a helpless people; to Professor Ladd of Yale, who recently spent some time in the country, it is a beneficent piece of civilization, in which the Jap- anese are furnishing the capital and energy necessary to set Korea on her feet. Whatever the spirit of the Jap- anese oSicials, whatever the truth as to the passing of land into Japanese hands, the transaction is in effect an annexation, and the proof of its high importance is that Prince Ito should practically have designated himself to be resident general and to direct the whole operation. The mouth of the United States is stopped on the ques- tion whether more highly civilized nations have a moral right to take possession of the country of weaker races. The point of view of the Japanese in Korea is substan- tially the point of view of the Americans in the Philip- pines, and the difficulties of the two situations are much the same. In both cases the invaders have undertaken to transform the land which they have taken, partly for their own benefit and partly for the advantage of the people pre- viously on the ground. To be sure Koreans had a nom- inally independent government, but showed no more capacity for the life of a modern nation than the Filipinos, and in both cases the fierce and unregulated protest of the people concerned has made it hard to keep good order and harder to cultivate the arts of peace. In both cases, too, it is likely that many years will pass before there will be content with the government imposed originally by military force. 155 KOEEA AND PEINCE ITO The Poles are still dreaming of restoring their country after a century and a quarter, and the Koreans will never forget that they were once an independent kingdom. That the Japanese rule is apparently a good rule makes no difference with that feeling; the Koreans did not wish to he ruled well against their will ; and it is not in human nature for a government founded on military conquest to look on the conquered people as capable of taking care of themselves. The Koreans for the first time in their history have good roads, good police, protection to life and property, a reasonably even government; and Prince Ito, who is more responsible than any other man for that improvement, has been killed as a national enemy. The whole incident shows how hard it is to improve a people by military force. On the other hand, just as in the case of the Philippines, the alternative of independence is worse for the people and worse for the world than the compulsory civilization. Korea as an independent nation would again become an object of desire and conflict between Eussia, China and Japan. Neither Koreans nor Filipinos have at present either the moral or physical strength to keep up a national existence under modern conditions. Ito had not only a strong personality and a predom- inant power in Korea, he enjoyed also a peculiar status in the Japanese empire. In the first place, he has been a part of the governmental system ever since the fall of the Shogunate, and, indeed, began his career as interpreter to the present emperor, then a boy, in 1867. His name has been affixed to most of the great State papers of the last 40 years, to treaties, imperial proclamations and fundamental laws. He has been in many of the ministries, has been five times prime minister, negotiated 156 ITO'S POLITICAL SERVICES the treaty of 1885 with China on Korea and the treaty of 1895 for the cession of Port Arthur. He ended his life the greatest nobleman of the realm and the occupant of the most important civil office. This is the more remarkable because Ito was a self-made man; it is a tribute to the political wisdom of Japan that the two highest subjects. Marquis Matsukata, grand chamberlain of the empire, and Prince Ito, president of the Genro, both came from Samurai families, and pushed their way alongside the Daimios and their descendants by making themselves indispensable to Japan. Ito was a past master of political management, he knew how to combine forces in the Diet, how to ward off votes of lack of confidence; when out of power in 1903 he placed himself at the head of a party in the Diet and overthrew a ministry. He has generally been considered the most powerful man in the Genro, and seems to have remained always on good terms with the emperor, whose voice is supposed to have weight in this council. In all the shifts of government in and out, Ito's name constantly meets the eye. He helped to draw the proclamation of 1881 announcing representative govern- ment, and is generally supposed to have been the draughts- man of the imperial constitution of 1889; he worked out the existing peerage system; was at one time president of the House of Peers, a place now occupied by Prince To- kugawa, representative of the family of the former Sho- gun; and in 1897 Ito was raised to the highest dignity in the Japanese nobility, through the title of prince. Furthermore, Ito was the great Japanese statesman who had most knowledge of and contact with the Western world ; in 1864 he slipped off with Inouye to England as a sailor and learned the language; he made six or seven 157 KOEBA AND PEINCE ITO other journeys to Europe and at least two to the United States, where he studied the banking system of the coun- try and made use of this knowledge in reforming the Japanese banks; he visited England repeatedly, once as Japanese representative at the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria. So far as outsiders can penetrate the privacy of the Genro, Ito appears to have been the Japanese statesman who was most insistent on cultivating friendly relations with the West, and he is probably more responsible than anyone else for the two recent treaties of alliance with England which have raised Japan to the rank of a first- class Power; and his influence was undoubtedly east for the acceptance of the terms of peace in the treaty of Portsmouth in 1905. The death of Ito will make little difference in the gov- ernment of Japan, for the Genro is like the trustees of an American university, it fills up its own vacancies and moves steadily forward in a long policy. There is, how- ever, no Japanese statesman, except Inouye, who has had such a long and varied experience both in the East and in the West. His death is a loss to Korea, which will find no easier and considerate master; it is a loss to Japan, the development of which he has so much affected; it is a loss to the world, out of which has gone one of the ablest and most fearless spirits of our time. CHAPTER XVII WILL JAPAN BE WESTERNIZED? WHEN" Mr. Buckle 40 years ago applied to nations the theory of natural development and the survival of the fittest, he obviously had in mind Great Britain. An insular people, he argued, must by its natural conditions become a commercial, sea- faring and naval power. In Japan you have all those conditions, but few are the automatic results. England is insular and therefore founded a colonial empire; Japan is insular and therefore for centuries forbade a commercial marine and had no navy. England, with all its world- wide connections still remains a great conservative power, closely bound to its past; and Japan, which for centuries refused access to the rest of the world, now passes for one of the most radical and changeful nations of history. Upon the face of it, a vast alteration in Japan since 1854 is due to its contact with the West. As soon as you land in Japan you feel sure that the country is rapidly being Europeanized. First of all, you see all about you Western costumes worn by the military, the police, railway men, and a great many civilians. In this par- ticular there is every degree of change. The old-fashioned headgear of the Japanese men, except the rain and sun hats of the coolies, gives place to European types. Even in the back country a great number of people wear a light cap or a soft hat. White or striped knee breeches are 159 WILL JAPAN BE WESTEENIZBD? also much worn, and with a black stocking makes a very neat appearance. European suits with long trousers are abundant among Japanese in Yokohama and Tokio; and the full dress of the Japanese gentleman in his own clubs and meetings is the long frock coat. Very soon one realizes that this state of things prevails chiefly in cities, and in large cities at that; and that the people whom one sees in European dress in the morning may appear in the afternoon in the Japanese kimono or hakama. The kimono is simply a gown, worn by either men or women. The hakama can be traced back to the costumes of a thousand years ago, and particularly to a wondrous garment of white silk, which in front looks like wide trousers, and in the rear is literally four or five feet broad. This hakama is, in its modern form, the almost universal garb of schoolboys, and is rather incongruous with the uniform caps which they almost all wear. Another variety of hakama is worn by girls, and is one of the prettiest of Japanese garments, particularly if it encase the swarm- ing maidens in the Peeresses' School in their annual ath- letic exercises. Even there a few of the little girls wear the short skirts and black stockings of the West, but people say that women are less inclined to wear European dress than they were twenty years ago. It is difficult to believe that European dress has really made great inroads, when one sees the easy-going costumes of the country people in general and of many city people. Per- haps it is reasonable that a gentleman making a pedes- trian tour in the mountains with his friends should provide himself with neither kimono, hakama, breeches or trousers, and should appear like a Eoman general who has not put on his armor; but it is odd as you pass a city shop to 160 COSTUME look in upon a middle-aged business man well dressed except for the same informality as to trousers. In one direction the Japanese are frankly accepting Western ways, and that is by their study of English, which is a part of the course in all schools of high-school grade and above, and is taught also in some lower schools. It is not unusual when you go into a shop for an old man to put forward a shaver of twelve or fourteen who can speak a few words of English. This resort to our mother tongue is a great comfort to the Britisher or American, for it enables him to buy his ticket, make pur- chases and communicate with the people in many of the native inns. However, English does not in the least degree take the place of Japanese. Educated men must still study Chinese in order to master the characters, and English is an additional and difficult study. At the shops at all frequented by foreigners, there are numerous signs in a kind of English, of which a few samples may be interesting : BEEP AND HENMET. Here the ''Henmeat" is obvious, but does it mean chicken or eggs? MAKES OF BAG AND PORFMANIPEAUS. NO PAYMENT ANYONEKALWED TO SEE HEEIS CUTING THE HORN OP DEER. This is a sign at the shrine of Nara over a life-sized group showing men cutting off stag's horns. These signs are probably much nearer correct and ele- 161 WILL JAPAN BE WESTEENIZED? gant English than any Japanese sentiments which an American shopman might put up in San Francisco to catch the Asiatic eye; and they illustrate not so much the language of the Japanese as the fact that he is angling for a foreign customer. Many Japanese speak English with correctness, and a few, who have passed years in England or America, with fluency and grace. It must never be forgotten that the Japanese speak English as the Americans do French, not because they think it superior to their own tongue, but because it is a convenience. The permanence of the Japanese language is so sure that as yet no headway appears to have been made in the direction of an official system for expressing Japanese sounds in Eoman letters. The Japanese have a phonetic spelling of their own in the Kana system of 48 characters, which all school children learn, and in which most Japanese words can be represented. One would think off-hand that these characters could be rendered into equivalents in Eoman letters, perhaps, with additional letters or hard and soft signs; but that result seems further off even than the simplification of English spelling. The object of the cultured Japanese in learning foreign languages is partly to converse, but quite as much to read, and thereby to know what is going on in the West. Many treatises and text-books have been translated into Japanese, especially in science, but the Japanese are com- ing to the point of making their own summaries of knowl- edge in every field. In several lines of science the Japanese have placed themselves at the top of the tree. For instance, in medical sanitation and seismology (the science of earth- quakes) the Japanese are abreast of the world. The Jap- anese take kindly to scientific medicine, and their cen- 163 LANGUAGE AND EELIGION tralization and bureaucratic system makes it possible on occasion to put into effect sanitary regulations which Western nations find it hard to carry out. They are good doctors, and besides numerous public hospitals, have set up many private hospitals for the sick and for surgical operations. In law the Japanese have now less to learn from the West than in other professions. Their code has in it much Eoman law, with which the autocratic traditions of the Japanese chime more readily than with the common law of the English-speaking countries. The lawyers as a class have less influence than in other countries, partly because a parliamentary career is not usually open to them. In religion the Japanese have for centuries been learners from abroad. Buddhism was established something like 12 centuries ago; and the foreign collector may to this day pick up one of the million little wooden pagodas, each containing a part of the Buddhist scriptures, which an emperor in the year 770 sent through his dominions to spread a knowledge of the true religion. Buddhism is the antipodes of the bustling and material- istic West; and yet Western religion has once all but converted Japan. If the Christian missions of the 16th century could have kept out of politics, if they could have reconciled obedience to the Shogun with obe- dience to the Church, possibly Japan might have been Christianized once for all, and must have received a flood of European ideas of every sort. When after 1860 Chris- tianity had its second and fuller opportunity it found a different soil. One of the main reasons for the downfall of the Japanese Church three centuries ago was that its heads quarrelled among themselves; and the Japanese is bound to feel some confusion nowadays when he faces 163 WILL JAPAN BE WESTEKNIZED ? fifty different kinds of Christian churches, established in his own country. The missions have had a wonderful effect in Japan, first by their gospel message ; secondly, by the personal influence of highly devoted and educated men who pushed into the Japanese towns immediately the doors were open to them ; and thirdly, by their work of teaching, which has affected many Japanese who have never given formal adherence to Christianity. The Westernizing influence of the missions is not to be measured by their 150,000 converts, but by their disturb- ance of old prejudices and ideals. The missionary's house, so far superior in comfort to all others in his neighbor- hood ; and his relations with the outside world have been an object lesson to the Japanese, which has been accentuated by his preaching, and quite as much by his conversation. The missionaries still include the largest number of foreigners who can talk to the Japanese in their own language, and who make it their calling deliberately to seek the acquaintance and cultivate the friendship of the people of the empire. Just now the mission work turns in another direction; the native churches in the Japanese Protestant missions are eager to take charge of their own churches, to furnish their own missionaries and workers so that the mission- aries are coming more into contact with that part of the population which has already accepted their teaching, and less with the heathen, leaving it to the Japanese clergy to convert their own countrymen. Here, however. West- ernization is arrested; for a Japanese church of Japanese Christians, with a Japanese pastor at the head, is not a Western institution, even though the people sit in pews and sing familiar hymn tunes and exactly follow the pulpit 164 MISSIONS observances of their particular church in America. It ought never to be forgotten that Christianity, like Mahom- etanism, arose in Asia ; that there are still several anciently established Asiatic Christian churches ; and that the narra- tive and the allusions in the Scriptures are more easily understood by Japanese than by Europeans. The rice- planting coolie knows what it is to cast his bread upon the waters; he understands the injunction not to muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn; his mind is full of appreciation for one who by his own noble life and sufferings atones for the sins of his fellows. Christianity is not all Western to the Japanese. Though the Western ideas of a popular vote and a free representation have not as yet taken root in Japan, many other Western ideals have had direct effect; the abolition of torture, brought about in France in 1789, and in Ger- many in 1816, was not accomplished in Japan till about 18 73, and then under strong Western influence. Jury trial, which has not yet culminated in Spanish lands, has found its place in Japanese law. A systematic imperial ministry regularly appointed and held together by a premier is a great advance upon the old irregular councils of the Shogun. The centralized bureaucracy with all the faults familiar to the people of continental countries, is at least efficient; things are done in Japan. In what affects the happiness and liberty of individuals, Japan owes much to the West. The Japanese have also been quick to avail themselves of many conveniences of civilization. Matches, iron stoves, the Standard Oil Company kerosene tins, telferage for the transportation of materials over mountainous regions, tramways, telephones, telegraphs, railroads and such things the Japanese have enthusiastically adopted, always with 165 WILL JAPAN BE WESTERNIZED? the limitation that the handicraftsmen in their little shops still make most of the small articles of wood, straw, paper, iron and tin that are used by the people. Shelf hardware, knickknacks, toys and the like are still made on a small scale. Here is a point where Westernization is likely to advance much further. It looks as though Japan were on the brink of reorganizing its production and distribution. In all the large cities exist so-called bazaars, which are on a small scale something like the old Wanamaker's in Philadelphia, a large building where various dealers exhibit and sell their wares. If people find in such department stores more choice and better goods, the day of the hand indus- try will pass, and that will mean a great revolution in Japanese life. Already in Tokio and Osaka factory chim- neys occupy the foreground in any view. The people, crowded out of handicrafts, will be turned into factories, and that means a disruption of the ancient Japanese ideal of a little business carried on by the whole family in the front room of the house. Nobody can say what the results of such a change will be except that it is likely to bring forward a new class with new wants and grievances. One great agent for Westernization in Japan is the trolley lines, which make it possible for people in the suburbs of cities to buy in the main city, and that hastens the breaking down of local manufactures and of small shops that supply their own neighbors. In the same way the new railroads build up an industry here and tear down elsewhere according to the relative distance to markets. It would be a great mistake to suppose that all these changes and all the infiltration of Western conveniences will necessarily bring about an acceptance of Western ideals. There is a large factory class in India, but it 166 BUSINESS does not seem to be a bulwark of the English Govern- ment. The railroads, though they originated in the West, can be used to carry images of Buddha as well as copies of the Bible. Western locomotives and trolley lines do not bring with them Western civilization. The real ques- tion is how far the old ideals of Japan have been dis- turbed by using these Western materials. In many cases that disturbance is perfectly clear. For instance, universal military service is a Western notion, and has superseded the old idea of the Samurai, a separate soldier class. Where every man is a soldier, one expects in the long run that every man will also be a voter. In lilfe manner the old idea of restricting commerce is giving place to the belief that the career of Japan requires such com- mercial relations that it is worth while to subsidize mer- chant shipping. The old ideal of the self-sufficiency of Japan breaks down. The Japanese freely acknowledge their need of the West, although — and this is one of the most important points in the whole thing — they prefer to select for them- selves the things they think adapted to their own country, and then apply them without making use of foreigners. This means, of course, that the Japanese believe some things in the West are better than others; and some things they can get on without. It means that Japan is not really a Western nation nor likely soon to become such. The ideals of Japan have gone through a series of shocks. Harikari, for instance, has disappeared along with other incidents of the antiquated feudal regime. The two swords have gone because it was to the public interest that quarrels be settled by the courts and not by fist-right. Perhaps the most significant change now going on is in the status of women. The Japanese women have been IS 167 WILL JAPAN BE WESTERNIZED? by no means toys; all over the country one sees thousands of self-respecting and masterful middle-aged women whose countenance and mien show that they are accustomed to make decisions in their own families; and such women have always had their due influence. High-class women know how to read^ usually in the Kana characters. Japan is now making a systematic efEort not only to educate the girls but to break some of the fetters of grown women. For instance, Japanese ladies now freely appear in public ; they meet not only women travelers but foreign men, which is a new thing in Japan. Steps are being taken also to break up the concubinage which, if outwardly intended to assure an heir to the household, entails much of the dreary misery of the Mormon plural families. A career has been opened for trained nurses, a calling in which the Japanese excel; and there is a multi- tude of women teachers in the schools. Women's colleges are almost certain to be established for the talented girls. This upsetting of deep-seated traditions is not every- where accepted. For instance, a gentleman educated in America, when he came to be married, begged his mother to find for him a wife who had some modern learning, and who was in sympathy with his intellectual life ; instead of which she chose the most conservative and obstinate girl that she could find, and the ultimate result has been that the unlucky gentleman has been obliged to build two houses, one in which to receive his friends, and a Japanese one in which the wife may receive her friends. Another Japanese ideal which has given way before Westernization is that a son must follow his father's call- ing. When the Samurai were thrown on the world this tradition was already destroyed, for the sons of soldiers could no longer find a soldier's billet. Nowadays men 168 SOCIAL CUSTOMS of the lower class and their children have a chance of working into a higher plane. The country is still so poor, the well-paid appointments are so few, that often highly-trained men possessing one or more foreign lan- guages are glad to accept small places in libraries, under- paid schoolmasterships and clerkships, but competition is there, the opportunity is there, and that means that men of capacity throughout the empire will have some chance of bettering themselves. The mayor of one of the large Japanese cities earlier in life hawked fish through the streets. What is to be the future of Japan? Is it to be the most western part of Europe and America, or the most eastern part of Asia? The Japanese do not know, they have worked out no scheme as to where they will stand a century hence; they have had the good sense to adopt forms of education, legal principles, machinery, inventions and moral ideas where they found them. They have set themselves simply to replace an outworn institution with something better. Perhaps no great nation in history has ever gone about such a work with such system and such willingness to discard that which was no longer usable. The Japanese are eclectics; they have copied the institutions of no one country, they have taken here and there and everywhere whatever they have found most to their advantage. We are accustomed to think that this willingness to accept the experience of other people is a Western trait, that Asia is the home of age-long conserva- tism. With a popular rising in Persia, a Parliament in Constantinople, a movement for local self-government in India and a reform spirit in China, who shall say that a nation must be Westernized in order to progress? So far as a casual observer can estimate and so far 169 WILL JAPAN BE WESTEENIZED? as anyone can judge of the future, Japan will not in the next two centuries become like the United States, or England, or France, or Germany. Its national cos- tume may disappear, its language may be freed from the tyranny of the Chinese character, but the Japanese expect to remain Japanese to the end, and to keep many of their old customs and observances. They drink quantities of beer but more sake. They read foreign books and they very likely will produce a fresh literature of their own. The Japanese cities will be transformed and rebuilt in Western fashion; the rural population will change more slowly. But, so far as one can look forward, the Japanese have no notion' of giving up their ideals; they will still be more different from all Western nations than any Western nation is from any of its neighbors. Ill CHINA CHAPTEE XVIII ATHWART CHINA IT is worth going around the world to get the thrill of seeing a strange country for the first time; and China is as far out of all American preconceptions as Japan, although the approach to the coast from the east is not so imposing. Most of the big steamers engaged in the trade from Europe or America to Asia, drop anchor in the roadstead in the mouth of the Yangtse Eiver, below Woosung, twelve miles from Shanghai; and the tender carries the passengers up the Whangpoo to the city. The trip opens up a new world, for the river is crowded with Chinese junks, gayly painted, with hollow sterns which seem to invite swamping by following seas, and immense lateen sails. How the Chinese navigate them, how often they go to the bottom, what they carry, who pays the freight, are commercial problems beyond a traveler's knowl- edge. Intermixed with them are steamers of every kind, and a flotilla of boats, small "three planks" (sampans) with high painted sterns, larger sampans of varnished wood, a kind of little sloop, and houseboats teeming with children. Through all which the tender picks its way to the "Bund" on the waterfront of Shanghai. Ever since the treaty of 1841 made Shanghai an open port, it has been a center of Chinese foreign trade, but it was 1860 before foreigners of any nation were oihcially 173 ATHWART CHINA allowed to go into the interior of China, and only in the last five years has travel been made easy. Nowadays anybody who has the time, money and patience may betake himself to the farthest limits of the empire. The most ancient and honorable means of travel is by the highway, and writers on China extol the splendid roads built by earlier dynasties. So far as the traveler sees, however, there is not, outside the neighborhood of the large cities, a single main road which could pass the inspection of so easily convinced an expert as, say, a county commissioner in Pennsylvania. In the 600-mile stretch from Peking to Hankow the railway does not cross a single wagon road equal to the trails of southern Texas. Chinese farmers have a way of enlarging their fields by digging into the sides of any roads that may be made; and most of the highways that you see are gullied tracks, some- times winding across tilled fields in a new course each year. There are many small stone bridges and a few of considerable span._ Wheeled traffic in many parts of China knows no wider gauge than a wheelbarrow track. North and central China has the two-wheeled cart of a strength and solidity which can stand the jolting, and transfer it to the pas- senger; and a few four-wheeled carts navigate in dry weather. Unlike Japan, China abounds in beasts of burden. The commonest carriage in the south is the pack animal, though porters and sedan chairs are also used frequently. The camel in north China is still locomo- tive, baggage wagon and trolley car; out of Peking every morning move many hundreds of these big, fat, two- humped beasts, looking down with the contempt of their country on the foreign devil. The traveler who pene- trates into that China which has not yet known Europe, 174 CAETS AND BOATS must use these primitive roads and means of transpor- tation; the more casual visitor chooses quicker methods. The oldest sister of the Chinese cart is the Chinese boat, which has been passing up and down the rivers so long that the tow-ropes along the rapids of the upper Yangtse have worn long grooves into the solid rock. A network of canals is spread through the eastern and southern provinces, including the over-rated Grand Canal from Tientsin south to Hangchow. Wind and human muscle were the only motive power for all this navigation, till the coming in of the steam launch and still more of the gasolene motor. Throughout eastern China, bay, river and canal traffic have been suddenly enlarged by this new and convenient traction force, delivered in small parcels. An example of the new system is the daily boat service from Shanghai to Kashing and Hangchow. It is a regular train, with a water locomotive of a steam launch towing from two to six houseboats. Including any private craft that choose to pay the moderate towage. Lacking a boat of your own, you can take passage in the public boats, which are a kind of marine Pullmans. The normal fare is about a third of one cent (gold) per mile, including supper. A typical houseboat has an open prow, crammed with baggage and freight, a small forward compartment holding three or four people, a middle compartment spaced for eight persons, a double stateroom, a single stateroom, an open space upon the stern, with a cook-stove and the tiller, both of which are managed by the laodah, or boat- keeper, who along with his wife and twelve-year-old boy, runs the craft, cooks the meals and, like a Pullman car porter, collects a fee, which comes down to a fixed amount of "wine money," amounting to about a fourth the cost of the passage. As the laodah says: "We are 175 ATHWAET CHINA many; all have mouths; mouths must be filled; we hope the foreigners will be gracious." On the roof of the boat, under an awning, is a kind of roost, which is usually occupied by a wriggling mass of Chinese on a cheap tour. On a trip of a hundred miles to Kashing with two other Americans, we took the whole middle compartment at eight fares, carried our own provisions and rolled our- selves up in our rugs on the hard boards. A Chinese woman and her maid, who had undertaken to jump our reserved compartment, discontentedly went into the for- ward compartment, where the lady smoked much of the night. On the return trip, two of us had a good state- room; and the middle compartment which was not too large for three, was now occupied by about a dozen Chinese, including a buxom woman who exchanged with the men brisk repartee, which nobody offered to translate. On the houseboat you are only a few feet from the bab- bling water, and just under a layer of Chinese deck pas- sengers ; the launch shrieks, the tow-rope snaps, the deathly odor of opium fills the boat, from time to time the laodah crawls over you on his way to the prow. Now and then you pass other craft and boat trains. At daylight are revealed the low shores of the Grand Canal, with rem- nants of stone facing; along the bank a few farmsteads and temples and "pailows" (memorial arches erected by special permission of the emperor to the highly virtuous dead), and thousands of graves. You pass a saw mill called "Forest-original-flourishing wood establishment," then you reach the custom house and the landing at Kashing. The boat trains are well patronized by the Chinese, and are very safe, so long as the unskilled engineer does not allow his machine to blow up, and provided the pirates do 176 BOAT TRAVEL not come out to amuse themselves with you. Only a few months ago one of the party, Mr. Hudson, a resident missionary, in his own boat on this very stream heard two men suddenly Jump on the prow and stern of the boat, followed by a cry from his boatman; being a mem- ber of the Church militant, he instantly raised his revolver and fired, just in time to prevent a sword from cutting into him; the revolver bullet bit first, there was a splash, the sound of running feet on the towpath and shouts of "revenge." A launch train happily came along and took the boat in tow. The next morning a dead man with a bullet hole was found in the canal. The missionary draws no inferences, but other people infer that but for his cool- ness and courage the body floating in the river would have been his. On the main rivers and protected coast waters, large steamers abound, except on the Hoang Ho, which though one of the great rivers of the world is too shallow and changeable for steam navigation. The "West Eiver near Canton and the Yangtse Kiang with its numerous branches are international highways. On the Yangtse along the 600 miles from the mouth to Hankow there are five or six regular lines of steamers the year round. It is a picturesque river with bold banks, numerous cliffs and rocky islands and a necklace of typical Chinese cities, besides uncounted Chinese watereraft. European first- class from Hankow to Shanghai, a three or four days' trip, costs about $15 gold; Chinese first-class is about $1 gold; and third-class 30 cents on German steamers and 8 cents on Japanese. Naturally great numbers of Chinese take advantage of these low fares, and at every landing big flat boats put off crammed with passengers. The coasting trade is provided for by excellent steamers 177 ATHWAET CHINA of many lines. Out in the Bast, the luminaries in the world of transportation are the two shipping firms of Jardine, Matheson & Co., and Butterfield & Swire, who are the agents of extensive lines, including some invest- ments of Chinese capital. The late Li Hung Chang was said to hold a large interest in the chief native line, the China Merchants' Steam Navigation Co. From Shanghai run daily or frequent steamers to Hankow, to Ningpo, to Japan, to Tientsin, to ports all along south to Hong Kong. Japanese lines have entered these waters with sub- sidized steamers, to the disgust of the private lines. The Hamburg-American Company has good steamers to the north via Kiaochao; and the through lines from America to Hong Kong, and from Japan to Europe almost all touch at Shanghai. The journey up the Chinese coast in clear, mild weather around the Shan Tung peninsula with its bold mountain coasts is an interesting trip, and gives an easy opportunity to visit the German colony at Tsintau, and the eastern end of the Great Wall. It has become the fashion to speak slightingly of the wall, as a waste of human energy, as an absurd attempt to keep out armies by the sight of a parapet. Travelers, geographers and military men have jeered at a fortification 2,000 miles long, carried over the summits of inacces- sible mountains. A day on the end of the wall at Shan Hai Kwan brings doubt upon these criticisms. The wall was intended for protection against the fearful scourge of Mongol horsemen, who swept down from the north and west, just as their first cousins, the Turks, harried the frontiers of the Greek empire. Their tactics was a swoop, a dash and a retreat; they had neither time nor skill for sieges. Hence a 40-foot wall was a real obstacle; even if they scaled it, they could not get their 178 THE GREAT WALL horses over. But they could force their beasts across most of the mountains in northern China, and the wall had to cross the ridges in order to be of real service. The streams were bothering interruptions, and the wall is bent about so as to avoid crossings so far as possible. It was never intended for a rampart across which armies should fight, but as a kind of masonry wire fence; and as such for twenty centuries it protected the empire. The proof of its usefulness is that it was repeatedly repaired. It is now so much neglected that parts of it are forgot- ten; and an American, who is making a study of it, chanced \ipon a little stretch of two hundred miles which was not on the maps. 'No other work of man compares with the Chinese Wall for the human labor which it cost. It contains the mass of a hundred pyramids; its masonry would build a dozen Eomes or fill six Panama Canals. The stretch of five or six miles across the plain to the mountains at Shan Hai Kwan is a majestic structure about 50 feet high and from 20 to 100 feet thick. In most places it has a stone foundation 10 or 13 feet high, above which it is built of large brick about 15 by 10 inches and 31/2 inches thick. Outside is a dry moat, apparently much later than the wall. In some places, especially in the crossings of streams, the inside is also a masonry face; but usually it is simply a slope of earth. The top, where preserved, is a paved road about 30 feet wide, with a para- pet, in which are openings intended for swivel guns or cross bows. At intervals of a half mile or so are square towers which once had vaulted rooms for the guard. Outside the mountain section are remains of a much older and smaller wall. On the steep slope the wall rises inside by masonry steps about 3 feet high. Where the wall crosses 179 ATHWAKT CHINA streams there are remains of arched bridges now fallen in, but defended by unusually strong towers. A walk along the top of the wall is delightful. On the outside to the north is a rolling country dominated by four enormous mud forts, some of which were built in 1895 to head off the Japanese. Inside lies the city of Shan Hai Kwan, surrounded by a wall 5 miles in circumference, over the entrance gates stand the lofty gatehouses which are the pride of Chinese cities, and it fits into the Great Wall, which strikes out on the west to the mountains and commands a wide area of farms, villages and count- less graves, a brown and unpleasing landscape. At Shan Hai Kwan acquaintance is made with the Chinese railroads, the relation of which to the foreign- ers shall be discussed elsewhere. For half a century rail- roads were abhorrent to the Chinese ; the usual explanation is, "Fengshuey" ; that is, spirits ; if you allow anybody to disturb your ancestor's grave, the Fengshuey will make it warm for you; but suitable (still more, excessive) money payments to the owner of the land placate the Fengshuey, and the Chinese themselves have no serious trouble in securing right of way for their railroads. Most of the present lines have been built by foreign engineers and equipped from foreign countries. The through ex- press train from Moukden to Peking, passing Shan Hai Kwan, has a first-class corridor carriage, with four com- partments at each end and a large central space with big chairs, very like an American parlor car; by tacit agree- ment, one end of the car is taken by Europeans and the other half by Chinese. The trainmen, except the conductor, are all Chinese, and the guards, in silk wadded overcoats and cloth boots, parade the train with rifles. A much longer and extremely interesting rail journey is 180 BAIL TEAVEL from Peking to Hankow. The weekly express train makes the whole distance of 800 miles in about 30 hours, but some people prefer the slow train which lies up at night and takes the best part of three days. The accommodation is good. As the only first-class passenger, and for most of the distance the only foreigner on the train, I held the one first-class compartment, which was tolerably heated and lighted, and by special permission I was allowed to stay in the coupe over night instead of seeking the ter- rible Chinese inns. An outfit of provisions, supplemented l}y the excellent raised biscuit and fruit which can be bought at the stations, and the tea and coffee prepared by the boy in the den next the coupe make the ]'ourney comfortable enough. The row of second-class compart- ments was filled with well-to-do Chinese, one of them a Mongol nobleman and his family. He wore a very dirty pink silk tunic with a yellow jacket (a mark of high rank), a leather cap faced with orange satin, with red streamers and blue strings. His garment had broad fur lapels and was bound by a red girdle; below his pink wadded petticoat showed black boots. His womankind wore elaborate silks, abounded in jewelry, had the imposing Mongol head dress, which is very like the Alsatian bow, walked on the Mongol clogs and were painted like Japanese dancing girls. Apparently they had never been on a train before, for their lord pointed out a locomotive to them as a great curiosity. This railway cuts a section through one of the most fertile parts of China, the enormous agricultural plain of the Hoang Ho basin, the home of perhaps a hundred mil- lion people. It is not unlike a journey from Buffalo to New Orleans, except that the population is in most places so dense as to make almost a continuous town. Eight and 181 ATHWAET CHINA left appear high-walled cities, interspaced with smaller places. The villages are pitifully poor and foul, shut in by ruinous mud walls, and from the train hardly a build- ing can be seen of any consequence. The villages and farmsteads are simply mud walls with fiat roofs. The country is tilled like a garden, for in China the farm that supplies a family may not be more than an acre, on which several crops a year must be raised. The open country is punctuated with tumuli and tombs, with some- times an absurd little temple; very rarely one sees a Christian church or mission refreshingly clean and neat. At the stations, which are always placed outside the large towns, crowds of people assemble; here descends a demure "golden-lily-foot" with gorgeously painted face, her soberly-clad mother protecting her ; there comes aboard a bold huntsman in long black robe carrying a red ban- ner and a gun over his shoulder, muzzle down, perhaps bearing some little hunting eagles on a perch like the old hawks. At every large station the platforms are crowded with passengers, with uniformed railway guards drawn up in a military line, with sellers of food and com- forts for the journey, hot soup out of little hand kitchens, dainties that look like pieces of rope and old slippers, pieces of cotton cloth to wrap up one's belongings, and furs to keep the feet warm. It is a good-natured crowd, and just at present kindly disposed to the foreigner. For hundreds of miles the railroad traverses this broad and fertile plain, with a fringe of forest behind and the interior mountains in the distance. Here, as in most parts of China, the eye is caught by the millions of graves. In most parts cofRns are placed anywhere in the fields, sometimes left indefinitely on the ground, sometimes en- cased in brick, sometimes covered with earth. In many 183 THE INTBEIOE places a tenth of the available land is occupied with graves, frequently protected from Fengshuey by a crescent- shaped embankment. About the middle of the second day the train approaches the banks of the Hoang Ho, which winds back and forth in a channel about half a mile wide and at this point nav- igable for junks. The bridge is a remarkable feat of engineering; it crosses a good mile of sandy bottom be- fore reaching the channel, and there have been times when the whole width was filled with a raging stream which rose almost to the tracks. Since no rock bottom can be found, the bridge is supported by iron piers going down to supports, which rest simply on sand; and after every train passes the bridge must be inspected anew. At the south end the line strikes the Loess country, a region of hills 200 or 300 feet high, of stiff, fine ma- terial supposed to have been blown from the interior. It stands in fantastic cliffs and pinnacles and is full of caves, many of which are occupied as dwellings by ladies in green and red trousers, who till the soil in the fore- ground or hobble about in their bound feet. This bit of Loess is only a little corner of a deposit thousands of square miles in extent. Beyond, the country becomes rougher, mountains rise on both sides, and the railroad finally crosses a small range, which is the watershed be- tween the Hoang Ho and the Yangtse rivers. Prom Peking to this point hardly a growing tree or a stone has been visible along the track. Now scanty patches of forest appear, and outcrops of rock. The hills are terraced for rice, and houses are seen with peaked roofs. The moun- tains look barren and worthless, although there are pros- perous villages hidden among them. The Yangtse slope gets more rain and the country looks prosperous. 13 183 ATHWART CHINA This railway, which is part of the projected system from north to south, is a eommereial success, and proves that new lines through populous regions will draw a large native passenger travel. The change in transportation is perhaps the most profound influence at work to change China; more important even than education; for it makes possible a real national life. The Chinese are beginning to traverse their own country, to visit relations from whom they parted a century or two ago. Every mile of railroad is a new bond to hold China together. CHAPTER XIX CHINESE CITIES FROM the railroads you see the open country of China, which is poor, squalid and monotonous ; the land is sub-divided into small plots, on which, not- withstanding hard work and intensive culture, there is barely a living for the family. Another section of the population of China, however — ^half or a third of the whole — lives in towns and cities, some of which are enormous. For centuries the conditions were such that a town had to be walled if it did not wish to be sacked ; and as late as the Tai Ping rebellion, only about 50 years ago, the siege and capture of fortified cities was the chief thing in war. Nowa- days the walls are kept as boundaries and for police pur- poses, and some of them are prodigious works. At Nan- king, for instance, the circuit of stone wall varying from 50 feet high upward is 21 miles. During the Tai Ping rebellion the city was for eleven years besieged by the im- perialists; they finally breached the wall, and 600,000 people were put to the sword. The city of Kashing, about a hundred miles from Shanghai, a city hardly known by name in America, has walls higher than those of Rome and half as long. The walls of Peking are one of the wonders of the world; they stretch for 15 miles around the rectangle of the Tartar city (besides 11 miles of wall shutting in the Chinese city), nearly 40 feet high and 50 185 CHINESE CITIES feet thick, and still in almost perfect condition, with splen- did gate houses covering the few openings. Even the vil- lages are usually closed in by mud walls, mostly ruinous. In one of the cities of north China the blown sand dunes have been allowed to heap up till they actually comb over the parapet. So important are the walls that almost the highest mark of imperial displeasure is to tear out the corner of the wall of cities where a parent has been killed by a son — so horrid a place is not to be defended longer ! Inside, most native Chinese cities are dusty and di- lapidated. Various schools of philosophers in China differ as to which is the dirtiest city, but from an experience of about a dozen the writer's vote goes to the native city of Shanghai; Nanking is more poverty-stricken; Wu Chang, opposite Hankow, has a very choice selection of bad smells; Kashing, with its mosquito-breeding canals, is probably more healthy; but Shanghai is at the same time foul, dark, close, noisome, squashy underfoot and full of the mingled Chinese perfume of food, filth and opium. It seems incredible that human beings can live by thousands in such a reek. The main streets of all the native cities except Peking are from 4 to 10 feet wide; and the practice of putting in the front window the stock in trade, especially raw liver, makes the passer-by, in spite of himself, absorb some of the stink. The streets are crooked, interrupted by bridges and narrowed by the encroachment of the abut- ters. It is a Chinese habit to set a new building or door- way at least a few inches into the street, which in course of ages thus becomes a pathway. Some streets have to be left wide enough for a horse to pass, because other- wise the magistrate's military escort would have to walk; 186 STREETS AND BUILDINGS but in a great part of the Chinese cities no wheeled vehicle can make its way. Like Venice and Nantucket, these places have the distinction of excluding automobiles. The city gates are always notable as the weak places in the wall. They are, therefore, protected on the outside by a great semi-circle, on the side of which is the en- trance for trafEc; the roadway makes a sharp turn within a courtyard, commanded from the walls above, and then goes through a narrow arched gateway into the city. Above is usually built a gate-house of wood, in several stories with a broad, curved roof. With the exception of the gates, few buildings in a Chinese city are notable. The pagodas, for some reason connected with the Fengshuey, commonly stand just out- side the walls, and that is why the wonderful porcelain pagoda at Nanking came to be destroyed by the Tai Pings. Some of the pagodas, such as those on the river below Canton, are in the open country, but almost all are in a state of decay, carrying a live load of shrubs and trees which have grown up in the crevices of the roofs and balconies. An exception is the painted pagoda at Ngankin on the Yangtse Eiver, whose beauty is the pride and ornament of the city. A little broken pagoda within the walls of Kashing has a mournful history. Ages ago a magistrate passing that spot saw a child strike his mother, and instantly brought him up to judgment. The mother pleaded that he was too young to know what he was doing, whereupon the magistrate ordered sugar and salt to be set before him, and when he unhesitatingly chose the sweet powder, judgment was rendered that he was old enough to know right from wrong, and he was walled up alive on the scene of his crime. This was a little strong even for the Chinese, and the Fengshuey 187 CHINESE CITIES were so disagreeable about it that this pagoda was set up to conciliate them. The civil buildings in China are few, and outside of Peking inconsequent, and the temples are in general dis- appointing. The Buddhist structures are much less in- teresting than in Japan; how that pure form of religion can be degraded is seen in the Lama temple in Peking where indescribable bronzes are among the treasures of the place. The Taoist temples, with their rows of un- lovely gods and their tawdry decorations, are ugly curi- osities. The Confucian temples are better built, the statues of the great philosophers and the tablets of their chief disciples and successors have a simple dignity. The temple of Confucius in Nanking reaches from colonnaded court to court, rising to the great hall with its roof of imperial yellow tiles. Here, once a year, is held a solemn service by night. However mean the ordinary Chinese street, the retail quarters of Peking and Canton are gorgeous ; the shops are open to the street, but the valuable goods are likely to be packed away in cupboards or warerooms. The store fronts, especially in Peking and Canton, are often elabo- rately carved and gilded, with a display of emblems which are tokens of the kind of goods offered for sale. No- body understands better how to hook and play the tour- ist than the seller of silks and ivories and wood carvings, of porcelain and aged brass. The curio shops are almost irresistible with their jade and jewelry and arms, plaques, alabaster and bronze. Tien-Tsin and Peking possess also an industry of weaving carpets of camels hair, to which few people in China are awake. The only kind of pri- vate business which is always housed in large and showy buildings is that of the pawn brokers, whose lofty struc- 188 SHOPS AND PEOPLE tures look very like the old towers of Florence. They are built so as to discourage robbers, for they act not only as the "uncle" of the needy, but are also the safe deposit vaults of the rich. To come from the general to the particular, China has half a dozen very populous cities and some hundreds of small ones. The actual population of Canton, the largest city, is only to be guessed. The Chinese chief of police guesses at about 450,000 "heads of families," which may mean a population of 2,000,000 including 200,000 or more boat dwellers. Peking has much under 1,000,000 ; Hankow with its two neighboring cities of Han Yang and Wu Chang about 1,000,000; Shanghai about 500,000. Of the smaller cities Chefoo may be taken as an example. It contains 60,000 people, of whom 1,000 are Japanese and about 15 are Europeans. It is a seaport with a good landlocked harbor and a large junk and steamer trade. Behind it runs a stretch of wall, said to have been built or repaired in the forlorn hope of keeping out the Japanese in 1895. In a modern suburb are several mission com- pounds. Inside the walls is a tangle of streets, the prin- cipal one of which is paved with long stone blocks, over which a ricksha can slowly travel. . The shops are hardly more than little boxes, with a small stock on the shelves, and contain scarcely anything to attract the visitor except a kind of raw silk. Some- what different in type is Shan Hai Kwan, which is well walled, and across which runs a wide and excessively dirty main street, which shows the Chinese habit of encroaching on the highway; in the gate a poor artist is selling his own crayon pictures on rolls five or six feet long. Ka- shing is more Chinese than either of the other places ; out- side the wall is a tablet which shows that the city was 189 CHINESE CITIES 'there more than 3,000 years ago. The place suf- , fared fearfully from the Tai Pings. Some people think that if these revolutionists had come out victors, China would have got rid of the Manchu dynasty, and would now be on the high road to something better ; but the Tai Pings were terrible fellows, who burned and destroyed, uprooted the old governments and knew not how to replace them. When they were at last driven out of Kashing they left the city almost a waste; and so many people had died without record that the land titles were all twisted up. In consequence a new city grew up outside the old walls; and to this day two-thirds of the area once covered by streets is left to market gardens. A similar fate on a greater scale was that of Nanking, which gave a name to the cotton trousers of the last generation (much the same thing as the modern khaki). It was for some centuries the capital and most splendid city of the empire. The Ming sovereigns who founded and walled it, left their magnificent tomb in the neigh- borhood, with a winding avenue of stone animals; and built a Tartar city within the walls, which has now almost disappeared. It is literally true that of a great precinct adorned with beautiful marble buildings, there is not one stone left upon another with the exception of the Tartar gates, and "the cold palace," a small building used by the emperor as an involuntary rest house for wives who wanted the last word. Some little marble bridges and pavements are all that remain of a palace comparable with that in Peking. As for the rest of the city, much of the glory of which must have lasted till the Tai Ping times, it appears to have been devastated and almost abandoned after its capture ; then people drifted in and put up miser- ,able structures out of the fragments of the old city; Nan- 190 NANKING AND HANKOW king remains a shrunken town within its mighty array of walls. But Nanking now has a railroad to Shanghai, and will in a few years be connected westward with Han- kow. It will again be great. The three largest cities of the empire now and in the future must be Hankow, Peking (with Tientsin) and Can- ton. Hankow aspires to be the Chicago of China, an am- bition which seems to show a lack of acquaintance with Chicago. In situation the city, at the head of the deep- water navigation of the Yangtse, is more like St. Louis. At high water ships lie upon its water front loading for European and American ports ; at low water they stick for days on the bar a few miles down stream. It is the ter- minus of lines, built or building from Peking, Canton and Nanking, and will sooner or later have a direct line to Shanghai and others to the west and the southwest. Its situation is superb, a succession of large buildings along the high bluff overlooking the immense stream, here almost a mile wide. Across the Han is Han Yang, with the great steel works established by the viceroy; across the Yangtse is Wu Chang, a busy native city. In the neighborhood is the coal, iron ore and limestone from which steel is made. It is a distributing point, a manu- facturing center and a railway junction for the vast interior of China. This big and busy place depends for its cartage on human muscles. I saw about twenty men carrying an iron roof-truss, weighing upwards of two tons, keeping step and moving easily; they will take a locomotive from a steamer, getting it up a bank 50 feet high, and then move it half a mile back to the railroad tracks. The great drawback of Hankow is the hot weather, which drives all the Europeans, women and children, and some of the men, to a mountain resort of Kuling, which 191 CHINESE CITIES Mr. Little, of Shanghai, discovered and has made a boon to all the foreign residents of central China. The most interesting distinctly Chinese city is Canton. Most tourists and some residents have an exaggerated notion both of the dirt and the danger of visiting Canton. In staying there three days and repeatedly visiting the native city without a guide one goes contrary to the most sacred principles of the tourist agencies; for the whole visit is fitted together upon the expectation that you will arrive early in the morning from Hong Kong, take chairs with bearers for every member of the party, in- cluding a guide, carry a lunch up to the Eive-Storied Pa- goda and return to the same boat for departure at 5 p. m. To stay over two nights and make your own researches is quite out of order. The danger has not quite disappeared; on the way up the river the captain of the Paul Beau ad- mitted that some months earlier Chinese pirates in the guise of third-class passengers tried to take the steamer; but that is an unusual excitement. As to danger from Canton mobs, there is little or none to the foreigner now; but one day we got a notion of what might have hap- pened a few years ago. As the family was going through the native city with no guide, but with responsible chair- men, in turning a corner the poles of the chair behind me touched and possibly upset a vendor of food; at any rate, he went over and, seeing a chance to make some- thing out of the foreigner, he tumbled farther and dropped his stock in trade in the roadway. In 30 seconds the street was crowded with people, to whom the peddler yelled his woes. A few coins passed to him seemed to drive him wild, for he seized hold of the chair, turned up the whites of his eyes, and shrieked with rage. In 30 seconds more a policeman was standing alongside, who listened to the 192 CANTON tale of the chairmen, and then bade the procession move on. Ten men in a fury like that of the peddler could set a city on fire; and a hundred could drive the foreigners to the gunboats. Canton appears not to deserve its claim to be the dirtiest large city in the world. There are Italian hill towns that are dirtier than Canton. In fact, except for the butchers' meat with which you have to become intimate as you go along, Canton is reasonably clean; it is the new broom that has done it, the viceroy and his belief that dirt brings disease. In what city of the world is travel on foot or in chairs so picturesque ? You wind through miles of shop windows; you are one of a Chinese throng; you see thousands of rich Chinese costumes; painted Chinese ladies stare after you from every corner. The curio shops are full of things which you cannot afford to buy, but which somehow you find in your trunk when you get back to Hong Kong. Canton is the best place in the East for embroidered grass linens and ivory combs, and Chinese jewelry and brooches of enameled kingfishers' feathers, and brocaded silks which you see the workman weaving, sitting with his feet in a hole in the ground, while another man separates the threads of the woof as a skilled musician plays the harp. In Canton you stiU have Chinese life, little deflected by contact with the outer world. The most striking Chinese city is undoubtedly Peking, though it differs from almost all other cities of the empire in plan, population and objects of interest. Peking has many broad streets crossing the city from wall to wall, upon which since the siege of 1900 a macadam strip has been laid in the middle, with soft bands outside and deep ditches just within the sidewalks. The broad streets are 193 CHINESE CITIES swept with filthy gusts in summer and with frozen dust in winter, but they give abundant space for perhaps the most varied and picturesque street life in Asia; for the passage of camels, donkeys, horses, carts, drays, broughams, rickshas, chairs with bearers, dogs, beggars and babies. The street is a market, a theatre and a race course. This gay cart, with its blue tilt, contains seated on the flat floor the wives of a Manchu prince going to make a call ; those fierce-looking fellows in worn crimson velvet, fur- lined caftans, caps and boots of yellow leather, are rich Tibetans, who look down upon Peking and its people as becomes free mountaineers; this official in a brougham, with mounted escort, is a viceroy on his way to court. These ragged rascals in green gowns are the heads of the funeral procession of a Tartar prince, as is shown by the fact that his cart, which is led in state, has its house forward of the axle, the privilege of none but Manchu princes. The procession is half a mile long and includes three or four hundred hired mourners, men in red carry- ing standards, a tablet setting forth the rank and dignity of the deceased, held by eight bearers, a green sedan chair with a red band carried by eight men, the state chair in which the deceased was allowed to sit when he went to court, two boy choirs in white robes, chanting alternately, and at last the cofSn hung from a system of cross-beams, which are supported by 64 bearers. Behind this pure emanation of Cathay may come along, driving in a smart cab, a pretty young lady from Baltimore, or a less attrac- tive German count, or a smug Japanese consul in frock coat and tall hat, or a servant of the palace in a long crimson gown. Peking is not so much Chinese as Asiatic. It is a motley of costume and color. Peking and the vicinity contain more notable buildings 194 PEKING than almost the whole empire besides, chiefly the work of the art-loving Ming dynasty, who were coeval with the Emperor Charles V. Besides the walls, which are archi- tecturally stunning, there are several towers, particularly the great Bell Tower; the temple of the Llamas, a congeries of buildings very like a Japanese Buddhist temple; the temple of Confucius which is about to be rebuilt. Above all, superior to all and to be compared only with the most splendid cathedrals of Europe is the Temple of Heaven, which is inarvelous both for beauty and for remoteness. To reach it you go out into what we should call a piece of woods in the midst of the Chi- nese city. Gate after gate opens (at 10 cents gold each opening) and presently you come upon a circular marble platform with a beautiful balustrade; here once a year the emperor, or his deputy, pitches his tents and worships the God of N'ature. As for the buildings within the imperial palace, of which the golden roofs alone are now visible, their secrets were revealed in 1900, and they proved to be exceedingly simple halls, sometimes sumptuously fin- ished and decorated, but remarkable for their elegance and their proportions rather than for their splendor. All that is again "the forbidden city," but you may talk with people who then found their way to the emperor's private study, and opened the books that he had been reading, when the court took flight, books which showed his interest in things Western. "The Siege" of the embassies in 1900 is a great land- mark in the history of Peking, though only two or three remain of the many walls which showed the prints of bul- lets shot at the legations. On the ground it is easy to see that the defense was a haphazard matter in which there was cooperation, but little united action between the 195 CHIISrBSE CITIES difEerent legations. The only reason why the foreigners were not rushed and every person massacred is that the imperial troops would not do it without orders, and the empress dowager disliked to give the orders. People out- side do not understand that when the legations were re- lieved they stretched out their hands right and left, and without any disagreeable formalities or payments, seized a good part of a strip a mile long and a third of a mile wide along the inside of the south wall of the Tartar City. The very bricks of the old examination hall have gone into German barracks. CHAPTER XX A DAY IN A CHINESE COURT IF you were skirting around the outside of an inelosure in which a body of interesting people were shutting themselves up from your observation, you would be grateful for a window through which you might see some of their unfamiliar behavior. China is such a walled-in coun- try, where Western eyesight does not readily penetrate ; but perhaps the best point of view for customs, motives and character seen at close range is the daily process of the courts. Many travelers have recorded their visits to the seats of Chinese justice, the bastinado, the prisoner kneel- ing on chains, the long pillory sentence in the cangue ; and foreign ladies and gentlemen sometimes went out in the morning to see criminals decapitated, with real blood spurting from the headless trunk. Such scenes are now hard to come at, for the Chinese have a suspicion that their system of justice shocks the Western mind. Torture still goes on both as a punishment and to elicit testimony; for, as a former Chinese minister to the United States explains, it is doubtful whether Chinese witnesses could be depended on to give true evidence without torture. There is a certain reason in this statement, for in China, as in trials for witchcraft in the Middle Ages, ordinarily people can be executed only on their own confession, and they cannot be expected to confess without adequate in- ducement. 197 A DAY IE" A CHINESE COUET Eepeated efforts in various cities may not bring you within reach of any of the old-fashioned courts ; and when you try to visit a real Chinese prison in Peking you are courteously referred to a model jail on the Western system and to a house of detention where the prisoners have visibly been washed up for the traveler's benefit. Through the courtesy of Consul-General Denby, of Shang- hai, I nevertheless spent a day in a court through which passed a succession of cases illustrating many occult habits of the Chinese mind. This is the so-called Mixed Court, for the "international settlement" of Shanghai; that is, for the area of that city set apart for all the for- eigners except the French. This external government has jurisdiction over the large Chinese population living in the settlement. The standing magistrates of the criminal sec- tion are Chinese, but with them sits upon the bench every day an "assessor"; that is, a representative of England, Germany or the United States. By invitation of the American assessor, Mr. Butler, I was allowed to sit behind the rail alongside the judges and within hail of the Euro- pean police officers, one or the other of whom translated for me when the proceedings were not otherwise clear. The court is held in a room of the European type, with the usual apparatus of witness box and railings and spec- tators and court officials. On one side stands a row of the dreaded Chinese "runners," the native agents of the court, who are a kind of cross between the detective, the deputy sheriff and the agent provocateur. ISTear them sit or stand the police sergeants, Scotchmen and Irishmen. In the back of the room loimge some Sikh police, big, handsome men in gorgeous turbans, and also some native police in reversed washbasin hats. On the judges' table lie two records and charge sheets, one in Chinese, the 198 MIXED COUET other in English. The Chinese magistrate speaks in Mandarin, which an interpreter repeats in Mandarin or in local dialect; there is also an interpreter for the for- eign counsel and witnesses. The decisions are usually announced by the Chinese judge, but it is understood that nothing stands without the assent of the assessor, who may if he likes, in extreme cases, overrule his colleague. If the cases are simple the court may rush through a hundred in four hours; but to-day there are several un- usual matters and only about 30 will be disposed of. A report of the proceedings just as they come along, after a few bail cases, will tell the story for itself. A bad-looking Chinaman whom the policeman shoves up by his queue, is charged with stealing property worth $600; his defense is that the complainant is a liar; the Court gives him a week in jail. He is a type of the pro- fessional criminal. A loafer who cannot give a good ac- count of two sheets of galvanized iron is sentenced to one day in jail, to give him a chance to remember. A building contractor appears upon whose job an ap- prentice boy has been killed by the breaking of hoisting machinery; in quite modern fashion photographs are in- troduced in evidence. The man is also accused of at- tempting to bury the dead boy without giving notice to his parents; the life of a boy is no great matter, but neglect to inform the family would be contrary to Chinese morality; the evidence on that point is doubtful, but the contractor is fined $10 for not reporting the accident to the police. The next case might have come up in the "Tenderloin" of ISTew York; a girl is charged with street walking and the unprepossessing woman keeper of her house for send- ing her out on the street. It appears that the woman 14 199 A DAY IN A CHINESE COURT was, at the time, out on bail for a similar offense; tlie girl plainly has no volition. Penalty, five days. The next woman is charged with having in her house a girl under the prescribed age. She says a few words in defense, and no decision seems to be reached. Such cases would probably not arise in a strictly Chinese court, where there is no foreign population, for solicitation on the street is uncommon in China, except under Western example. The Chinese are not a model people, but vice is not so flaunted in virtue's face as in the West. A woman had sold her daughter-in-law to a brothel. The girl ran away and sought refuge in the Door of Hope which is a house kept up by the generosity of Euro- pean ladies, in order to make it possible for such victims to regain their freedom. The director of that institution, Miss Bonnell, an angel of light, known from end to end of Shanghai, appears and the reception of her testimony by the police shows how much confidence is inspired by this quiet, slight woman. Upon her testimony and that of the girl, who tells a straight story, the victim is sent again to the Door of Hope till other members of the family can be brought before the court to testify. Probably in a Chinese court the case would be thrown out, these obligations of servitude being recognized by law. In quick succession follow a series of cases any one of which could be settled in any American plain police court. For instance, a normal gambling case; in a so- called club with a bad name a lot of non-members have been found; fined $15. The next man is in trouble for stealing a brass watch from the person of the complainant; watch duly subpoenaed. Another Bowery case: a man is told to move on by a policeman in plain clothes and there- upon assaults the clothes and their occupier; the clothes, 200 CHILD STEALERS or what is left of them, are produced in court; penalty, two weeks in jail. A shoplifting gang of five people is ar- raigned, including a boy of 14, against whom stands a previous conviction ; all look degraded and hopeless. Next comes a tailor who has pawned goods committed to him to make up; he restores the goods and is let ofE. The next series of cases could not occur outside of China, where the stealing of children is a regular trade, practiced often to provide little drudges to those in need of them, but quite as often to give to childless families the opportunity of acquiring an adopted son. The stealing is tied up with the mysterious Chinese bond slavery, about which foreigners know very little and the Chinese will say less. Throughout the empire there are numbers of household slaves, the total undoubtedly amounting to mil- lions; but there is no open market for them and they usually remain slaves of one family all their lives and their children are slaves of those who feed them, owners or parents, as the case may be. The system is recruited by buying children from their parents or from those who have stolen them. In Chinese cities such child-stealing may go on with little interruption, and the purchase of children without any inquiry into their origin is not thought a serious oilense. The first of these cases to-day comes upon a complaint by a disreputable-looking person against a much better appearing person for stealing a child nine years old, six months ago. The judge finds no convincing evidence, and supposes it to be a malicious charge, such as the Chinese love to bring against an enemy. Dismissed on security. Now comes a genuine case of kidnapping. A child has been found that morning on the premises of four desperate-looking people who say that they bought it of 201 A DAY m A CHINESE COUET some of its relatives; the child is in court, fast asleep in the arms of its furious mother. One of the accused women is also carrying a baby asleep. In the haul is in- cluded another child, a boy who babbles to the court his piteous little story. He remembers that he was stolen from parents whose names he can say, but he cannot tell the town. A previous record of kidnapping is presented against two of the accused, and papers found on them show that it was their regular business. They own up that the price of the boy was $45; girls of the same age would be worth from $14 to $150. The case is con- tinued. Some of the results of kidnapping and child slavery appear in the next case. A little girl, nine years old or thereabout is produced in court by Miss Bonnell. She was found running about in "Frenchtown," and she gave her name, but steadfastly refused to tell where she lived. It was evident that she must be a runaway slave, and Miss Bonnell sent her runner through the city to look for the usual posted notice that so-and-so had run away. He found such a notice of the loss of a child bearing the name which she had given, on the door of a young China- man, an employee of the customs, who appears in court, in European dress and testifies that he has always treated the child kindly. The girl is standing among the spec- tators, and at sight of that man she instantly dives into the press of people and forces her way to the most dis- tant point that she can reach. She says not a word, she cannot be induced to testify, she simply shakes from head to foot, as the rabbit trembles before the dog. She would go through the window or throw herself into the river, to escape that man. Even the stolid Chinese judge is moved, for he takes advantage of a special statute, applying 202 SLAVE GIELS only to Shanghai, under which slaves if ill-treated, may be taken from their masters, and the child is handed back to Miss Bonnell. In that custody she is found a few days later, serenely happy, unless some stranger appears who she thinks may come to take her back to her master, about whom she has never said a word, but at thought of whom she is overwhelmed with terror. The heroine of the next case has also been in the Door of Hope, and has there so conducted herself that they have sent her to the Mixed Court. She says that she wants to get out and get married, but there is some evidence that she already has a husband, who has little reason to be satisfied with her conduct. She is sent for six months to the Eefuge, which is almost the only reformatory for women in China. In another kidnapping case three women figure. The complainant testifies that her child went into the house of her next-door neighbor, disappeared, and was sold by third parties as their own child to a Cantonese lady. The defendant, present in court with two children, is not able to deny this accusation, particularly since the stolen child, a boy about six years old, is put on the stand and clearly testifies that that woman stole him and that other woman bought him. This last is a most respectable old lady wearing red mittens of the fingerless type, purple gown, a black net head dress and jade head ornament. She comes along with her son in European dress, and is evidently without any sense of guilt. The child stealer gets two years and goes out of court screaming and revil- ing. The police sergeant asks the assessor for a warrant to arrest the purchaser, for, he says, "if nobody bought children, nobody would steal them," but it appears that the Chinese judge does not think the old lady ought to be 203 A DAY IN A CHINESE COUET prosecuted, and undoubtedly she meant to treat the child as a son. The next criminal, a thief, whose trial lasts one min- ute, is sentenced to two weeks in jail. The next man, a vicious-looking beggar, has stolen four pieces of wood; he bears across his head the marks of recent blows, "prob- ably the watchman's," says the assessor, for Shanghai police sometimes pay off grudges in the station house. A teamster who has run over a child pays $100 fine and $10 to the child's mother. A singular case illustrates the solidarity of Chinese business men. A charge of stealing has been made by a foreign fuel firm against an employee who has furnished 16 tons of coal to a customer and charged for only 10. The firm wishes to recall the complaint, because they have been notified by their Chinese customers that otherwise they will be boycotted. Query : who, in the long run, pays for the extra six tons of coal ? After a simple ricksha obstruction case, comes the most dramatic of the session, for at the bar is produced a live Chinese anarchist who stands before the judge silent and watchful. It appears that Sikh policeman No. 355, adorned with a majestic red turban, and wearing a splen- did black curly beard, heard a row on the street and found some people taking possession of the prisoner, who, they said, was a bad man. The people were runners of the viceroy who had been tracking the man, and were on the point of carrying him away to a Chinese prison. But, un- der the "concessions," arrests in the international settle- ment must 'be made by or in understanding with the local police. The Chinese authorities of the native city then set up the plea that they are entitled to jurisdiction under the concessions because the man is guilty of crimes for 204 AlsT ANAECHIST which the penalty is more than five years' imprisonment. The hitch is that the man is a genuine anarchist, who ar- rived from Japan only ten days earlier, is wearing a false queue, has lied about his movements, and had in his lodg- ing quantities of literature, garnished with inflammatory pictures. He has undoubtedly come to Shanghai to agi- tate against the Chinese government, but he has com- mitted no overt act, and if he were handed to the Chinese would probably be on the rack within 24 hours and dead within three days. Presently he is given opportunity to speak for himself; the dull eye fixed upon the judge with the intensity of a man who sees there the power of life and death, suddenly lights up, as though a red flame were be- hind it. He passionately asserts that he is not the man that the Chinese suppose and that his literature is harm- less. Although he is undeniably a conspirator and a dan- gerous man, in the end the judge remands him, and he probably is safe from further trouble from the Chinese officials. In another kidnapping case the man admits the act, but shows that it was committed outside the settlement. Turned over to the native authorities. The watchman of a building lets a friend go inside. He has 10 days to raise $100 to pay for the stolen property which resulted. Now comes a characteristic Chinese case; nominally, of obtaining money on false pretensions. The defendant when comprador (porter) of the Grand Hotel at Shanghai is charged with receiving 200 taels (about $100, gold) for which he was to secure for the complainant the post of shroff (cashier). His counsel, a European who cannot speak Chinese, undertakes the difficult task of getting the truth out of the complainant and his witnesses, and un- earths several curious things. First it is proven that 305 A DAY IN A CHINESE COURT the complainant never knew the defendant, and never sought employment at the Grand Hotel, being, in fact, a money lender, who advanced the 200 taels to a third party, who did want the place. Secondly, the money was paid over by the shroff to the proprietor of the hotel who later ' became a bankrupt. Thirdly, a receipt in the defend- ant's handwriting, duly produced was not given to the complainants at all, but to the other man, and was not a receipt, but simply an acknowledgment that the money had passed through his hand. Fourthly, the money lender and the really aggrieved party, who had found the money and supposed he had bought a place, had assaulted the defendant a few days earlier, "trying to take it out of his hide," had been brought before this very court and there punished, and now by substituting persons and getting up testimony were simply doing their bad best to get even. Case continued. The last few cases were a ricksha man who had run his shaft into a man's eye and was remanded till the victim recovers; two simple thefts, quickly disposed of; and two burglaries. Thus in four hours passed a panorama of Chinese so- ciety. The bottom layer of thieves, burglars and prosti- tutes, the more respectable swindlers and child stealers and slave owners; the kidnapper, the cruel slave owner and the maker of artificial testimony; some honest people and a few gentlefolks. The justice administered was quick and fair, with little check from the assessor. Here was a place where most of the Chinese, even the criminals themselves, told the truth without torture. At the same time the window opened for a minute on the elaborate interweaving of Chinese trades and callings, the domestic life of households where mothers-in-law sell their 206 AETIFICIAL CASES daughters-in-law, and masters terrorize their little slaves. In the midst was the most modern of all Chinese, the pro- fessional anarchist, the passionate soul of protest ! And then I went to lunch with a table full of European resi- dents who really knew no more of the Chinese than the chance visitor. CHAPTEE XXI REALITIES OP CHINESE GOVERNMENT PART of the heritage of the American Revolution is the notion that a country which has a king or emperor must be a despotism; and that countries with presidents and congresses are enlightened republics. Hence our sympathy with Peru and our suspicion of Great Britain. This idea that an individual because he is called emperor really has power to impose his will upon his subjects, is nowhere more absurd than in China. The ceremonial side of government is complete; the highest officials have for ages been in the habit of kowtowing to the emperor; and foreign ambassadors in the early days of diplomatic relations with China did the same. In theory the Chinese empire is a centralized monarchy with a titled nobility in which the laws, the rules of administration and the appointment of public officials all proceed from the emperor. In practice, whatever powers the emperor may have are exercised through a group of persons who are, in part, a council to guide the emperor, and, in part, are local mag- nates who are nearly independent of him. China is not so much an empire as a loose federation of provinces, some of which are so near Peking that the imperial influ- ence does control them; and others pay tribute to the emperor and accept general edicts, but actually govern themselves. To say that China is ruled by a bureaucracy 208 DEMOCRACY is not the whole story; there is in China no bureaucracy in the European sense, no body of officials closely bound together by an elaborate system of statutes, ordinances, rules and customs; the official class has its standards and traditions, but is without that strict sense of responsibility to a superior which is the foundation of the French or German system. And its personnel is certainly subject to shift and change by orders from Peking. It would not be far wrong to say that China is a demo- cratic country in which the claims of members of distin- guished families to receive public support or office or head- ship plays a smaller part than in, say, the Swiss republic. In many ways the Chinese come nearer the great prin- ciple of equality of opportunity than most Western nations. Chinese history is full of great statesmen, even of em- perors, who had humble beginnings. If the kindly visitor to a Chinese school does not pat an urchin on the pigtail and tell him that he may be President of the United States, he may, nevertheless, encourage him to look through a lane of years with a vice-royalty in the dim vista. The mainspring of Chinese education is to open a career of public service to likely boys who have only their talents to put them forward. This is the reason for the old-fashioned examination sys- tem. In Nanking up to a few months ago was still stand- ing the great examination corral for the neighboring prov- inces. The entrance gate is very like that of a temple and opens upon an area of many acres surrounded by a high wall and occupied by long rows of sheds sub-divided into the 21,000 cells of the candidates. Here every three years was held the examination for the first degree and the place was filled ; the gates were sealed, and if a student took sick or died, he was drawn up and let down over the 209 EEALITIES OF CHINESE GOVERNMENT wall. For nine days this terrible test lasted and in due time a few score successful candidates were announced. Out of these by further competitive examination came the few holders of the third degree. A special degree is some^ times conferred by the emperor upon extraordinary schol- ars and places them alongside the highest officials in dignity. The examination halls in Nanking are to be torn down in order to make room for a public park; for through- out the empire that system of tests, after ages of use, has passed away. Why was it ever established? Simply be- cause of the eager desire of Chinese to get into the public service, which is limited to the holders of degrees, and the places of most promise are likely to go to the most successful scholars. The Chinese learned his classics by heart and trained himself in the art of writing an essay adorned with quotations not because he liked litera- ture, but because he loved power. The West has long scoffed at this method of selecting bookworms for public office; but the system has had much to commend it. China is a country in which the avenues of distinction are few. The priests, whether Buddhist, Taoist or Confucian, are not leaders of the people. The untrained physicians practice a trade rather than a pro- fession; there is no class of lawyers separate from judges and notaries; the professional soldier has been a despised man; the scientific man and the engineer hardly exist, outside of those who have been educated abroad. Most of the business on a large scale is done by a class of wealthy men, who transmit their holdings to their sons; and no country has such close-knit trade unions and com- mercial organizations as China. How is an energetic man without capital to break into this iron-bound circle. No 210 EXAMINATION SYSTEM wealthy land-owner class exists. To the poor man of brains public employment is one of the few roads to repu- tation, fortune and power; and the only way of keeping that calling open to the poor man is to insist on some kind of competitive test. It must not be supposed that standing among the few successful candidates in examination means an appoint- ment; it simply puts a man on what corresponds to the register of a Civil Service Commission; unless he is regu- larly appointed somewhere, he will go through life disap- pointed of his hopes. The scholar without a patron, with- out employment and without hope is a familiar and mournful sight in China. How shall his abilities be made known to the appointing powers? Family influence, wealth, acquaintance with a favoring magistrate, a strong impression left on the minds of the examiners, all have their part. The young man tugs and pushes to be taken up by some magistrate; there is a regular class of "ex- pectants" attached to the yamens of mandarins. The best start is to become secretary and confidential adviser to a great man, and let one's fortunes rise and fall with his. The relation is singularly like that of the young railroad man in the United States, who follows his chief into promotion or exile. The further progress of the mandarin depends about equally on his native abilities and his influence at court; for while the minor posts are filled on the nomination of the provincial governor or viceroy, the good places are given out from Peking. The Chinese know little of the sub-division of the func- tions of government. A mandarin is at the same time a governor, the executor of imperial edicts, a law-giver, a military commander, a judge and a financier. The hoary principle of all Chinese government is that the official is 311 REALITIES OF CHINESE GOVERNMENT entitled to "squeeze" out of his transactions his personal expenses, liberal savings and the money necessary to pay his way to promotion. The Chinese hardly know how to get along with the man who never takes a bribe, never sells a privilege, never takes a percentage out of the public revenue. You cannot get forward in the high Chinese service without cash in hand, and the salaries are fixed far below the necessary expenses. A man is a good magistrate if contented with moderate squeezes, if he does not allow his subordinates undue plunder. The Chi- nese talk about the wealth of a magistrate as we do about the income of a director of the United States Steel cor- poration. Last year this taotai put away a hundred thou- sand dollars, for he had a chance at the famine funds; this city magistrate agreed to pay the Peking government more than the office was worth and lost $100,000 because the rice crop in his district failed. All this means bad and unequal government, but it is closely connected with an ancient fiscal system. Contrary to many impressions the Chinese people are, on the whole, lightly taxed. The first of three main sources of public revenue is the import and export duties, by treaties with Western Powers limited to 5 per cent. ; being pledged for interest on foreign loans, they are managed by a staff of European ofiicials. Sir Robert Hart has long been the head of this service, and very near to him for many years has been Mr. Edward B. Drew, now of Cambridge, Massa- chusetts. The second source is the likin, which is a transit duty levied at irregular distances on lines of com- munication; it is a throttling tax, which prevents the natural movement of goods throughout the empire. The United States is now foremost in a movement to permit China to raise the import and export duties to 15 per cent. 213 SQUEEZES AND TAXES on condition that the likin be abolished and the currency reformed. The third main resource is a land tax, or rather, in the country a produce tax, which is the largest increment of the national revenue. It is collected by local ofBcials. In practice the magistrates collect more on the gov- ernment account than they pay over; that is, they prac- tically farm the revenue, but are prevented from making the taxes too high by public opinion. If the people are squeezed more than the taxpayers think right, they make a hubbub, and perhaps the Peking authorities remove the magistrate, because he cannot get on with his people. Naturally there is a desire to be appointed in rich and profitable provinces, and there is a movement of officials from one province to another, and sometimes a general "ghake-up," with the limitation that mandarins are not to be appointed to a high office in the province in which their family lives. Officials are sent to poor provinces as a punishment, but many governors and viceroys are retained for years, because they are efficient and beloved by their people. The Chinese government, therefore, comes down to this: a body of officials in the empire of whom probably not more than four or five hundred have good opportuni- ties, is made up of men who have shown their ability first in a literary examination and then by actual service. They draw meagre salaries, and depend for their expenses and wealth or success on squeezes ; but in many cases they are capable and energetic men with a passion for ruling well, with a desire to make their people happy. They are ap- pointed and transferred by the central authorities, but so long as they keep up the agreed payments to the imperial treasury are little disturbed; a cloud of imperial edicts encompasses them, but the machinery for enforcing the 313 EEAWTIES OF CHINESE GOVERNMENT laws is almost all in their own hands. Sometimes they venture on flat disobedience, as in 1900, when the em- press dowager caused to be sent out an imperial edict commanding the governors to kill and destroy the for- eigners. The edict was withdrawn within 24 hours, and that probably saved the lives of the people of Shanghai. Two viceroys, however, took counsel together and issued the proclamation, changing only the words "kill and de- stroy" to "cherish and protect." The Europeans in these provinces were saved, but not the magistrates, who by imperial orders, were executed by the torture of the thousand slices, for their disobedience. When the war was over the empress dowager, by one of those topsy-turvy acts of which she was fond, erected a monument to the fearless and patriotic courage of those two men. What is the Peking government from which comes so many orders and so little order? Nominally the emperor, actually those who for the time being control the emperor's will. The real ruler for many years was the empress dowager, whose influence was such that the emperor's own guards obeyed her rather than their sovereign. Even the empress dowager was not absolute, for she had to listen to, and act through, the small cabal of men at court who discuss and carry out orders. This surrounding and sometimes deciding council is composed in large part of Manchu princes, members of an invading race, and sup- porters of a tottering dynasty. Many of the great magis- trates are Chinese, but most of those favored and trusted are Manchus. In every province there is an official known as the Tartar general who, on some important questions, outranks the governor; as far south as Canton there is a little Tartar colony, which includes the guard of the Tartar general. 314 IMPEEIAL POWEE The head men distribute among themselves and their friends the great offices in Peking, the governorships of the provinces, the ambassadorships, but include some men of ability not in their confidence. Such people stand in slip- pery places, as Li Hung Chang, in disfavor because the Japanese had beaten his troops, found when he was stripped of his offices for the nominal ofEense of going to sleep in the emperor's garden. These men negotiate the treaties, make concessions, arrange with foreigners and also get from the emperor such edicts as they desire. If the emperor, as did the late Kwang Su in 1899, tries to act for himself, he finds his power lessened. The defect of most attempts to understand China is the supposition that the government in Peking can carry out its will freely throughout the empire. It is not a government, but the heart of an immense, loosely joined and unruly country, something more than a confederation and less than an organized nation. The roots of Chinese government, and the hope of re- form in China, must be looked for not in Peking but in the provinces. By courtesy of Mr. Hudson, of the Presbyterian mission, I had the opportunity of calling upon and receiving visits from several of the resident Chinese magistrates at Kashing. We took chairs on a wet afternoon, an exciting amusement, for the men walk over crooked bridges with high steps and short turns, and the leading coolie begins to grunt the moment he feels an American's weight. The pad-pad of the chairmen's bare feet on the wet flagstones is a Chinese sound which one never forgets. Every Chinese magistrate lives in a yamen, which is a combination of office, court house and official residence. Opposite the outside gate is always a stretch of wall, on 15 215 EEALITIES OF CHINESE GOVEENMENT which is painted as a moral lesson to the magistrate, the portrait of a fabulous animal which was so greedy that one day he gobbled up the sun (painted very hot) with a destructive efEect in his own inside — a warning to all magistrates to be moderate in their squeezes. The prefect, Yang Se Hsi, as highest of the officials, was visited first, in a yamen built by the Tai Pings. We advanced from courtyard to courtyard through three gateways to the in- ner entrance of the yamen, where a waiting crowd of run- ners, soldiers and bystanders gaped at us till a secretary escorted us to the anteroom and seated us near a table loaded with cakes, candied and natural fruit and about a dozen bottles of assorted liquids, ranging from cham- pagne to beer, for the prefect has a fondness for alcoholic drinlcs uncommon among the Chinese. The prefect soon entered and greeted us, a lively man with a strilcing head and an expression such as the French call "malin." He carefully placed the visitors in the regulation seats on a raised platform, and through a telegraph official who could speak English carried on an animated conversation. He served us with tea and offered us everything else in sight, smoking his long pipe and looking with pleasure on his little son, who ran freely about the room. Meanwhile every door and window was filled with attentive heads, for there is no privacy in China. From his yamen we went to the highest of the two magistrates who are to be found in every prefectoral city. The system is very like that of the district and circuit courts in the United States ; if either of the two is absent the other takes his place and performs his duties. The district magistrate, Cyin Kuh Chu, was an elderly man, hard featured and rigid, a good example of the old- fashioned mandarin. From him we went to the city 216 MANDAEINS magistrate, Wu Wi Hu, a young man, eager and bland, who showed his progressiveness by having wall paper on his reception room. The next day the two magistrates came together to the mission compound with an escort of most unsoldierly sol- diers in black turbans and loose Jackets, and another kind in blue jackets and trousers with white stripes. Later came the prefect with a larger train, borne in a chair by four bearers, preceded by a banner and followed by three horsemen on miserable ponies. All of them presented the red visiting cards, six inches long, inscribed with beautiful characters. With almost unheard-of courtesy the prefect asks for the lady of the house. His talk is of Chinese administration of his schools, of his two brothers and a son in the imperial service, of his dislike for Japan, where he had once been a consul, and he retained a passionate resentment for that country. The younger magistrate was the only one of the three who had much knowledge of the West, but they were all aware that the United States has shown respect for the Chinese interests and stood for the open door; and showed corresponding good will for an American. In a similar interview with the governor of Peking he was full of plans for improving his district. His yamen was a clean and comfortable place and included a room with European furniture for the reception of foreign guests. He was very inquisitive about windmills, believing that there is a substratum of water about 200 feet below the plain outside the walls. I happened to have some knowl- edge of drive wells and windmills which I could not have sold for what it cost me, and discoursed so sagely that before I left the magistrate commissioned Mr. Ten- 2Vt EEALITIES OF CHINESE GOVERNMENT ney, the secretary of the American embassy, to order him a windmill. The same desire to learn some of the practical wisdom of the West was shown by one of the greatest men of China, Tuan Fang, viceroy at Nanking. This astute ruler, a potentate (with very little interference from distant Peking) over something like 90,000,000 human beings, shows that a Manchu can be progressive; he has visited foreign countries, has been in Boston, and would like to see it again; admires his friend. President Eliot. I was introduced by Dr. Beebe, head of the Methodist Hospital at Nanking, and much appreciated by the Chinese, and the great viceroy took time out of his busy hours to give us an excellent luncheon and some inside view into his pur- poses. The man is a marvel; he was educated in China, selected by the old-fashioned examination system, is cele- brated for his beautiful Chinese characters, a specimen of which he kindly gave me in an autograph upon a pic- ture of himself, author of a Chinese book, of which he gave me a copy, yet he eagerly reads translations of for- eign books and has them published. He openly protected the refugee missionaries in the Boxer troubles. Tolerated, if not favored, by the court (he is said to be a blood rela- tion of the late empress dowager), he is as open-minded and progressive a man as could be found in Pennsylvania or Texas. He has built a railroad from the landing and terminus of the railroad to Shanghai, seven miles up to the present city, and expects to continue it into the country. He has a school of a thousand boys; stranger still, he has in his yamen a primary school in which boys and girls are taught together. He is the leading spirit in the new railway from the north bank of the Yangtse, oppo- site Nanking, to Tientsin, and was eager to inquire 218 GEEAT ADMimSTRATOES whether trains could be ferried across a river two miles wide, which varies in level more than 50 feet. The suc- cess of the Southern Pacific over a similar problem at New Orleans was news to him, and perhaps will be a model to him. Still another of the great men of China is Sir Chentung Liang Chen, formerly minister of China in Washington, then constructor of the railway from Canton northward. Once a student at Yale College, he talks English like one born to it, and gave a whimsical account of the troubles of a railway manager whose construction parties were sys- tematically held up by robbers ; when he tried to get away from Canton he was held back by a petition of the nota- bles of the city. It is an open secret that he has been kept in Canton in order that he may be pocketed as one of the progressives, who naturally aspires to a share in the conduct of affairs at Peking; but in 1910 he was made minister to Germany. These are but a few out of the three or four hundred high officials of the empire, but with perhaps one exception they all seem to feel a sense of their responsibility for helping China to advance. Probably the greater number of man- darins are out of accord with a reform movement which threatens their own privileges, especially by making the imperial control a real thing through collecting taxes directly on imperial account. If this is the spirit of the older men, what a change may come over China when, in the course of twenty-five years, the viceroys will come from the young men, many of them with European or American training, who are now the secretaries and aides of the progressive magistrates. Just now the whole thing is in confusion, but it looks as if the prizes were to fall to the best graduates of Chinese schools and to those Chi- 219 EEALITIES OF CHINESE GOVEENMENT nese sent abroad to be educated. Harvard, Yale, Cornell, and the University of Wisconsin are now helping to shape the Chinese government of the future. Will it be a Western kind of government, or simply a better type of Chinese government? CHAPTEE XXII ALIEN INFLUENCE IN CHINA THE moment a traveler lands at Shanghai he becomes conscious that he is not only in a strange country but in a double country; at the wharfboat Chi- nese coolies in very little clothing seize on his baggage, Chinese rickshamen clamor for his custom at 10 cents Mexican (four cents gold), and Chinese cabmen with elaborate liveries and bare feet take him to his hotel. But the streets abound in Europeans who give orders, and are, in fact, the masters of the place. The foreigner in Shang- hai lives in a "settlement" set apart for the foreigner, an island of foreign territory removed from the laws of China, yet inhabited by thousands of Chinese who fre- quently come there in order to be free from obligations to their own government. These "concessions" were created by the Chinese against their will and much to their dismay. For the long in- sistence on a right of foreigners to live and to travel in China, the missionaries and the traders have been about equally responsible. The so-called "extraterritoriality" is of the same kind as the similar privileges in Turkey, and is due to similar abnormal conditions. The foreigner goes to Turkey or to China either to make converts or to make money ; when there, the local government is not able to protect him, and has not a system of laws and jus- tice which he understands or would submit to. The Chi- 231 ALIEN INFLUENCE IN CHINA nese theory has been that under such circumstances the stranger had better stay away ; the Europeon theory is that he must receive reservations of foreign territory taken out of the soil of China, in which Chinese laws do not apply either to foreigners or to relations between foreigners and Chinese. By the treaty of 1842 England compelled China to desig- nate six treaty ports, in each of which should be a tract of land, set apart for the foreigners and under their con- trol. The United States shared in some of these privi- leges by the treaty of 1844 and formally secured extra- territoriality for Americans in 1859. The number of treaty ports has been much enlarged. In Peking the lega- tions, each of which, under international law, has the privi- leges of extraterritoriality for its compound, since 1900 have made a diplomatic quarter for themselves which is practically another settlement. At present there are about 40 acknowledged "ports" in which foreigners may live and carry on business. The right to settle in the interior of China has been claimed by the missionaries, contrary to the wishes of the Chinese. Under the treaty of 1868, by the "most-favored nation" clause, Americans got the right to travel in China and to practice their religious worship, but they had no treaty right to buy land outside the treaty ports. Never- theless, the missionaries could not carry on their work without grounds and buildings, and so they did buy land, and though they could not claim to take the aroma of for- eign jurisdiction around with them in their own persons, still their servants and other Chinese on their compounds sometimes claimed not to be subject to the Chinese courts. The result of all this has been that the foreigners have come to look upon this peculiar state of things, which no 333 THE CONCESSIONS strong Western power would tblerate on its own soil, as natural and permanent. The number of foreigners has been of late years enlarged by the Japanese, who have secured concessions and stand alongside Europeans in their exemp- tion from Chinese criminal law. The foreign settlements difEer very much in size and importance. At Canton they include about a hundred acres of land; in Shanghai there is an area of several square miles, on which exists a government which for com- plexity is hardly to be matched. First comes the native walled city, with the usual Chinese system of magistrates and a prefect. Alongside lies the French Concession, a strip about three-quarters of a mile on the river and two miles deep, the government of which is the French consul acting as a despotism tempered by a few score French taxpayers, through their municipal council. Similar strips were assigned to Great Britain and the United States, but our country never took up its assignment, and Great Britain subsequently merged her strip into what is called the "International Settlement," a large and rich city, with a population of several hundred thousand Chinese, and less than 10,000 foreigners. This main Shanghai is governed by a municipal coun- cil, which is elected by the rate payers and reports to them once a year in a public meeting. But the body of foreign consuls has superior powers and holds meetings on public questions; if they disagree, the matter goes to the foreign ambassadors at Peking. In the last resort, therefore, the government of a proud city which looks for- ward to being the New York of Asia is an understanding between the diplomatists of foreign Powers. The basal ordinances of Shanghai, though framed by the consuls, must be ratified by the body of diplomatists. Under these 233 ALIEN INFLUENCE IN CHINA limitations, the nine members of the municipal council carry on the city by what is actually a commission sys- tem. They lay taxes, make municipal improvements, direct the excellent police force, see to the health of the city, and even publish a little official paper. The Municipal Gazette. In externals Shanghai is well cared for, and economically administered. A part of Shanghai's system of government is the mixed court, which has been already described, in which Chinese law is applied to resident Chinese. For the foreigners there are precisely as many courts as consuls, for a civil or criminal case against a Belgian, for instance, must be prosecuted before the Belgian consul, unless that govern- ment sets up a special court for the purpose. This ex- plains the trouble over the "American Girls" which brought into such limelight Judge Wilfley, who, in 1908, was appointed to such a court newly created by the United States. Up to that time genuine American citizens could not be prosecuted before the mixed court, nor by anybody else except the American consul, who had not the machin- ery of the law nor the precedents for cleaning up resorts carried on by American citizens. Judge Wilfley performed this thankless job in a thorough-going, untechnical, slam- bang fashion, which made him plenty of enemies. The maintenance of law and order in Shanghai is evidently not only complicated, but uncertain, for it depends upon the various consuls. If the Cuban consul seems to have no other business than to protect gamblers nothing can be done. Europe thus loses an opportunity to prove the majesty of Western law and administration, in a territory delivered over to foreigners, professedly so as to avoid the inefficiency of Chinese government; it abounds in sinks of iniquity which the Chinese justly look upon as evidences 224 POEBIGN COLONIES of a bad state of European morals. Shanghai has one of the worst reputations in the East, and under the sys- tem of extraterritoriality it is hard to see how it can be bettered. To measure the foreign influence in China it is necessary to take account not only of the cities which have received concessions and thereby are separated from real Chinese territory, but also the territory which has been annexed outright and made into European colonies. The oldest of such colonies is the Portuguese settlement of Macao, which has been an European possession for about 350 years. It is now a little island port with a pretty crescent water front, a fine old castle and the beautifully carved fagade of a vanished church. It is a place inhabited chiefly by Chinese, with an upper society of Portuguese Eurasians, and a few full-blooded Portuguese, mostly ofli- cials. It is chiefly noted for its fantan houses, for Macao is the Monaco of Asia, a licensed gambling town. There is little of the passion and excitement of Monte Carlo; when the croupier slowly counts out a heap of cash in fours, which corresponds to the turn of a color, the players take winnings and losses alike stoically. Three of the foreign colonies on the coast I have not seen. Of these the French Cochin China is the only con- siderable conquest ever made by a European Power in the neighborhood of China. The Japanese settlement at Port Arthur is also practically a foreign colony, which seems to bring few advantages to Japan except that they have shut out the Eussians from this ice-free port. Wei Hai Wei was taken by Great Britain in 1899 as a protest against the German annexation on the other side of the Shan Tung Peninsula, with the promise to give it up whenever the Germans withdrew. 225 ALIEN INFLUENCE IN CHINA I was able to visit the German colony at Tsintau, com- monly called Kiaochao, from the bay around which it lies. It was seized by the Germans in 1898, on the pretext of the murder of two missionaries, but really because Ger- many thought the time had come to take some of the spoils of the Mongol empire: when Russia was fortifying Port Arthur, and the English absorbed Kowloon, the Ger- mans wanted a footing on the Asiatic coast. By freely spending money they have made a small but satisfactory deep water port; they have also built a railroad westward through Shan Tung till it taps the Hoang Ho River. They expected to develop a large coast trade from the mines in the interior, but so far the output has been disappoint- ing. As an emporium of the trade that has not come, they have constructed a new town of Tsintau with spacious public buildings, barracks, a post oflBce, a governor's palace, a church, a hospital, a sanitarium and five hotels. Not- withstanding the rawness of the place it is the cleanest and neatest settlement in the East. No Chinese are al- lowed to live within the city limits; they have a town for themselves several miles away. Nevertheless one wholesale house after another closes its doors, the traffic from the interior is disappointing, and Tsintau is too far from productive plains of China to compete with Tientsin and Shanghai for export trade. The population is almost all military and official; genuine German colonists will not come out to Tsintau on faith. Still millions of money are spent on the colony; if the Germans adhere to it, it will be worth the outlay, and the treaty of cession pro- vides that if the Germans give up the territory, the Chinese are to repay them all that they have expended upon it. The other colony taken out of the side of China is Hong 236 TSINTAU AND HONG KONG Kong, which in 1840 was an almost uninhabited island in south China, as barren and as malarial as a dozen other similar submerged mountains along the coast. Its advan- tage to England was that it covers a winding strait nearly landlocked, with deep water and excellent anchorage, a splendid port ; and that it lies only 90 miles from Canton, which was the principal port for Chinese trade. The British took it nominally "to careen their ships," in addi- tion to a heavy money indemnity for the opium war, actually to be the entrepot of British commerce in eastern Asia. The Chinese have always resented the loss of it, and nothing but the weakness of the empire after the Jap- anese war made it possible to secure the cession of the other side of the strait. Hong Kong is practically a free port, and the great distributing center for the commerce of all nations, at one time the second port in the world for shipping arriving and clearing in a twelvemonth, though great part of the cargoes simply pass through without unloading. Besides the treaty ports and the foreign colonies there is in China a center of foreign influence in Peking; ever since ministers have been regularly exchanged with China the representatives of the various Powers have coaxed, bullied, threatened and terrified the Chinese Foreign Office. The rivalries of outside nations in Constantinople are repeated in Peking, where sometimes the ambassadors of Eussia, England, France and Germany have played chess with each other, using Chinese statesmen as pieces; the trouble with the game is that the castles, knights, and espe- cially the queen, stray off the board and confuse the play- ers. The diplomacy of the United States has always been more direct and unselfish ; but our country has occasionally put on China a pressure which could never be used toward 227 ALIEN INFLUENCE IN CHINA any large Western government. Sometimes the foreigners have demanded reforms, but more often damages or eon- cessions or more privileges. The principal influence of foreigners in China is, after all, not so much official as individual. Some of the people who came out as traders or diplomats have, for years, been in the Chinese service. Anson Burlingame, of Mas- sachusetts, sent out as minister of the United States, later headed the diplomatic mission from China in 1868; and John W. Poster was the envoy of China who negotiated peace with Japan in 1895. Sir Eobert Hart, an English- man, has for many years been head of the Chinese cus- toms service. There is a career for a few foreigners in that service and in some similar posts. By far the greater number of resident foreigners are drawn to China to make money, and many of them live in an atmosphere of con- tempt for all but a few high-class Chinese. Some for- eigners often find it hard to keep servants on ordinary wages because of their habit of striking and kicking their household, and, of course, people of a higher class are sometimes abused by mistake. On the other hand, the Chinese in general look down upon the foreigner, and an innocent child may habitually be called by the Chinese in her neighborhood "little for- eign devil." The Chinese feel a latent hostility to the foreigner in all the treaty ports. When a year or two ago there was some uneasiness in Shanghai the Chinese police were sent to their barracks, for the city government would trust only the Sikhs and their foreign officers. Considering that there is not a foreign settlement in which the Chinese on the spot are not many times as numerous as the foreigners, there is a real danger of race riots, and the mob is held back only by the belief that the for- 338 OFFICIALS AND MISSIONAEIES eigners always make rioters pay dearly at the moment, and still more after the regular iighting is over. Nevertheless since the Boxer troubles the popular feel- ing toward foreigners has grown kinder. I have met middle-aged American and English ladies who had been traveling alone in the far interior and were so charmed that they meant to return. The outsider is really safer in China just now than the natives, for pirates and magistrates both know that the foreigner has behind him an influence which is bound to be felt at Peking. The remaining class of foreigners is the missionaries, who have a strong influence, because they are widely scattered, learn the language, come into contact with the officials, read the literature and have a clientele of con- verts and adherents ; while through the missionary hospital the foreign doctors get deep into the home life of the Chinese. Missionaries, as a class, are disliked by many Chinese, because they are looking for converts who will give up their heathen gods, burn the tablets of their an- cestors and learn something of Western ways. They are hostile to missions for the same reason that the Eomans persecuted the Christians — the converts forsake the official gods. The Catholics have been especially under suspicion because, for a long time, they claimed and received official rank for their clergy and are quick to demand special consideration for their converts if they get into difficulty with the magistrates. The missionaries are not always men of peace and have sometimes called in the army and navy to help them out of trouble. The actual number of foreigners outside of Manchuria in China is probably not more than 25,000, including the Japanese. Some of the best authorities think that the general population of China is much exaggerated, and that 229 ALIEN INFLUENCE IN CHINA it would come nearer 200,000,000 than 400,000,000 ; even at those figures the foreigners are not a thousandth part of the people in China, and they have power and influence only so long as China can be kept in tutelage. It is impossible to believe that either the present influence of foreign governments and individual foreigners in China will continue or that the settlements can last indefinitely. The state of mind of the Chinese on those questions will be the subject of the next, and concluding, chapter on China. CHAPTER XXIII WILL CHINA BE WESTEENIZED ? THE most interesting country in the world just now is China. Not the most picturesque, for, outside a few cities, the people live in squalid and monoto- nous fashion; nor the most suggestive, for the Chinese are self-contained, reserved and do not open out to foreigners ; but it is the part of the world in which the greatest change is going on and the most important preparation is making for future history. As a study in strange customs and startling incidents, China is interesting because it has changed so little in point of view during the last 2,000 years. The characteris- tic of China is satisfaction with the wisdom of the fathers, slowness to let go of principles tested by ages. The good old-fashioned Chinese soldier slouching along in his baggy clothes, or doubled up on a pony, the shave-pated priest, the magistrate with his glass button and peacock's feathers, the coolie in his blue cotton drawers, the plump merchant in his silks, have been coming and going for two or three millenniums, just about the same. Up to two decades ago the land seemed unchanged and unchange- able. The empire has an organization under which the nation has as much internal peace, and more prosperity, than most of its neighbors. Nevertheless, even a month or two in China makes it clear enough that China is rapidly going through a great 16 231 WILL CHINA BE WESTERNIZED? change. Many Chinese in the treaty ports wear European dress, telegraph wires are strung all over the country; a Chinese post office takes your mail, unless you make a point of turning it over to the foreign posts; Chinese steamers splash along the rivers; locomotives frighten Chinese donkeys; iron works clang; schools spring up; modern buildings arise; newspapers appear; armies are created; public opinion has become a fashion. China has gone through more changes of law and custom in the 10 years since the Boxer trouble than in the previous 10 centuries. It is easy to jump to the conclusion that these novelties prove that China is becoming Westernized; but there is room to doubt whether it is an adoption of the West or a reassertion of the East. Westernization is what the foreigners in China have been working for since 1840. The mission, with its allied church, school and hospital, has been trying to teach the Chinese that there is some- thing better than his country has ever provided, a broader standard of conduct, a higher religion, better family life; and some 200,000 or 300,000 converts have accepted this lesson. In intellectual things, as in the material side of life, this Westernizing influence has not gone far with most of the converts. Very few of them have adopted foreign dress or understand any foreign language, or take in the wonders of foreign science. Nevertheless, the brightest boys and girls in the mission schools and churches have absorbed some Western culture, and are fur- nishing the present native religious teachers and leaders. Some of these mission-trained people have found their way into public service, but most such dignities go to a dif- ferent class. Thirty-five years ago the government sent to foreign countries, especially England and America, prom- 232 WESTEEN EDUCATION ising young men, who went through schools and universi- ties, and brought back foreign learning. Some of the eager ones perished in the Boxer trouble, others have lived through those dangers and are now among the active reform magistrates. Since 1900 China has again taken up this system, which is a frank admission that there are things to be learned which are not yet well taught in China. The impossibility of defending China except by foreign methods of warfare has made it necessary to send some Chinese abroad to get a military education, as well as to bring in ofBcers from foreign countries to organize and train the army. The result of these combined forces is that China now has a few thousand men, mostly still young, who are eager to make use of Western learning and science for the advantage of their country. The foreigners in China have made a great efEort to increase the number of Western-inclined Chinese by edu- cation. The various missions and churches carry on many excellent boarding schools ; St. John's College in Shanghai is a good example; though a Protestant Episcopal school it takes any promising boys that come along and gives them a healthy indoor and outdoor life. On the parade ground the boys make about as good appearance as in schools in the United States. It is a curious comment on the relations of the United States with China, that the head of this school. Dr. Hawks Pott, a born IsTew Yorker, hesitates to send his family to the United States so that his boys may go to college, because their mother is a born Chinese lady, though under the law she became an Ameri- can citizen through her marriage. Besides the schools, several colleges and so-called universities have been founded in various parts of China, some of them by joint action of several denominations, for the missionaries are 233 WILL CHINA BE WESTEENIZED? coming to see that it is hard to explain to the Chinese why the enlightened West should send out about sixty- kinds of Christians to the empire. The work of the missions in preparing the ground for the widening of Chinese life has been notable in every direction. Chinese Christians showed themselves in the Boxer troubles faithful to their religion; Chinese students do credit to their teachers, but the number of persons who have so far come under mission influence is small in proportion to the need. To their work is now added the efforts of the Chinese themselves to educate their sons in the Western fashion. The fall of the old system of examinations practically means that the old methods of education, which led up to those examinations, must go also. Under any system Chinese education is a hard road ; the task of memorizing several thousand Chinese characters cannot be avoided, and there is complaint that the men who, as boys, were sent overseas to be educated have never properly learned Chinese. But the prestige of the Chinese classics has gone the same road as that of the Greek and Latin classics in the West. Still studied and still praised, nevertheless the con- viction grows that a real education is possible without them. Hence, all over the land, enlightened governors or viceroys have established modern schools. The whole thing is new and crude; nearly all these schools teach English, and an American long in China, now a professor of Chinese in an American university, complains that in this haste to learn a Western language the Chinese are turning their backs upon their own literature. The same complaint has been heard in America over the new sci- entific schools, yet, as in America, competent and able boys flock to these schools. The main trouble in China 234 CHINESE EDUCATION is that programmes are framed and instruction is given by men who have little knowledge of modem education. To help on the Western movement several attempts have been made to appeal to the existing governing class, of which one of the most interesting is the International Institute of China, which is, to a large degree, the work of Dr. Gilbert Eeid, who has a remarkable vernacular use of Chinese and an acquaintance with about 300 man- darins, and calls his plan, "The mission among the higher classes in China." A formal institution to that end was planted in Peking, but was so uprooted by the Boxer trouble that it was moved to Shanghai. In general, the foreigners in China have almost no personal relations with their Chinese neighbors; as officials and as business men, they meet the polished and inscrutable Chinese, and go away without either side finding out what the other is thinking about. The International Institute is intended to be a place where Chinese and foreign gentlemen may get acquainted with each other and come to a mutual un- derstanding, but the handsome plant is principally a boys' school. The mandarins and merchants who need Western- izing do not seem keen for conversation or lectures. All this goes to show that the Westernization of China can only be brought about by the Chinese themselves; the country is too big, too populous, ordinarily too well satis- fied with itself, to be much affected by either direct or indirect appeals from foreigners. The most powerful in- fluence for Westernization has been the rifle and the iron- clad of foreign Powers and the iron-clads and rifles of Japan turned against Eussia. Notwithstanding humiliat- ing defeats by Great Britain in 1840 and again in 1858, by the French and English in 1860 and by Japan in 1895, China was not roused up to its helplessness till, between 235 WILL CHINA BE WESTEENIZED? 1875 and 1890, Eussia, Germany, Japan and Great Bri- tain all seized territory not far from Peking. It is not an accident that the Boxers first started in Shan Tung, out of which two of these annexations were taken. Now can it be wondered at that in a blind and confused way a large section of the Chinese people, including the em- press dowager, thought the only thing to do was to sweep the foreign devils into the sea? The effort to rid the country of the foreigners brought another invasion, which humiliated the court, arbitrarily punished the people and laid on China a debt of many millions for indemnity. But for the United States, or rather for a common-sense pro- test voiced by the United States against the attempt to carve China into fragments, the Boxer trouble would have been followed by more annexation. As it was, the thinking statesmen of the empire began to ask what could be done to prevent such disasters. The first thing was to keep order and stop such movements as the Boxer agitation before they got under way. The remedy has been to set up police forces in all the prin- cipal cities, composed of young men uniformed and acting together on orders. When a rickshaman in Pekin selected me for his prey, because I engaged him for one drive, and offered to fight every other rickshaman whom I tried to hire, a policeman finally settled the trouble by giving the man a violent box on the ear, which did as well as a club- bing by a New York member of the force. Nobody seems to know where the viceroys find the funds for the police, but they are efficient and make the cities safe for the for- eigner, as well as the resident. Eailway lines are also protected by uniformed guards. The next step has been to build up an army which should at least make it impossible for a few thousand for- 236 OEDEE AND DEFENSE eign troops to capture the capital by storm. One must see the old Chinese soldiers in order to understand why Peking was so easily taken in 1900. Several Asiatic vice- roys, among whom may be mentioned Tuan Fang at Nanking and Yuan Shi Kai at Peking took the responsi- bility of bringing in military instructors, chiefly Japan- ese, and making a body of modern troops. By all ac- counts they have been successful, so much so that the of- ficial reason for the disgrace of Yuan Shi Kai in 1909 was that he had brought these improved troops into Pe- king, which was precisely where they were most needed. China has now 50,000 to 100,000 troops who, properly officered, would make a good showing against Europeans. If the country is let alone five or six years longer, it is expected that there will be 250,000 trained modern sol- diers, who with any sort of generalship, ought to protect China against any more invasions. These troops are uni- formed in European style, carry excellent rifles made in government arsenals, and there seems no doubt that the Chinaman, properly commanded, makes a good soldier, patient, obedient, and reckless in battle; that is the testi- mony of both Gordon and Lord Wolsely. Another striking change in China is the coming into favor of railroads, which are especially needed, because perhaps half of China is out of reach of any water trans- portation, and north of the Hoang Ho, canals and even harbors are frozen up in winter. One of the main causes of the helplessness of the country is the difficulty of carrying men and supplies. In recent times there have been instances of famine in a province within a few score miles of plenty; but there was only one road by which food could be brought in and that a camel track, and it was not physically possible to carry surplus grain enough 237 WILL CHINA BE WBSTEENIZED? to feed the starving people. It is a mistake to suppose that the Chinese of late years have been opposed to rail- roads; every new line has been a success. The Chinese Eastern, from Tientsin up along the coast to Mukden, divides 10 per cent, and the additional profits go to build- ing other lines. Whatever the former objections of the Fengshuey, the people now welcome railroads and want more of them. The main trouble is to get the roads built without in- volving the country in a new set of obligations to for- eign countries. The Eussians began in Manchuria by asking the privilege of building a cut-off line across that province to Vladivostock, with leave to provide armed guards to protect the railroad. From these premises they somehow inferred a right to build the city of Harbin, to take possession of northern Manchuria, and to make them- selves masters of Port Arthur. Since the last war Japan has made similar claims in southern Manchuria. The Germans have built in from Tsintau; the French have reached Southwest China, the English are putting through a road from Kowloon, opposite Hong Kong, to Canton. The Chinese are now afraid of a theodolite in the hands of a foreign railway surveyor. China has been plagued by railway concessions. Be- tween 1895 and 1900 the country was overrun with capi- talists and promoters who used every possible influence to secure rights to build railroads, open mines and "de- velop the resources of the country." This was the period of the so-called "Spheres of Influence"; European coun- tries undertook to parcel out China as friendly trusts sub- divide the United States into selling districts. The Ger- mans selected eastern China, the French southern China, the British the Yangtse; the Belgians came in for sev- 338 EAILEOADS eral of these good things, and a United States syndicate got a concession for the railway from Hankow to Can- ton. Some of the concessionnaires seemed to think they had obtained the government of the country, as, for in- stance, a mining syndicate which got the right to open coal deposits and then insisted that the native Chinese, who, for generations, had been mining and selling coal in a small way, must not interfere with their monopoly. After the Boxer troubles the Chinese government came to one fixed and unshakable resolution; that the Chinese railroads must be owned by the Chinese. Hence the con- cession market was closed, the Hankow-Canton project, which had come under the influence of Mr. Morgan, was bought out by the government; the Peking-Hankow line, under a fortunate clause of the concession, could be taken over by the government at a valuation, and on January 1, 1909, they took possession accordingly, borrowing a few million dollars for the purpose with great difficulty. The lines from Ifanking to Shanghai and farther on to Han- chow are built on borrowed capital. The result has been delay, for the Chinese have not shown themselves able to rush a great piece of construction. They are building only 20 or 30 miles a year northward from Canton, where an American company would built two or three hundred. But they mean to wait for their railroads until they can be sure of controlling them and be certain not to give anybody a chance to come into the land, demand protec- tion and call on a foreign government to intervene. It is not easy to finance these roads. When China tries to raise money for them, foreign capitalists ask some kind of guaranty that competent foreign engineers shall locate and build the road and spend the money. The Chinese dislike to commit themselves even to that degree 239 WILL CHINA BE WESTEENIZBD ? of obligation, and they are driven hard to raise capital from the wealthy Chinese, but so far with moderate suc- cess. A few months ago there was a mob in Canton which made an uproar in front of the viceroy's yamen; their grievance was the arrest of two notables. The ofEense of the notables was that at a banquet given by the viceroy they smashed their plates on the floor ; this demonstration, in which a large number of the guests took part, was an expression of resentment because the viceroy, having got the "merchants and gentry" together, put a great pres- sure on them to subscribe to the stock of his railway. The Chinese moneyed men seem to have the same doubts as the foreign brothers as to whether Chinese mandarins and engineers can be trusted to build long lines of railroad; it is now announced that the money for the Canton road has been raised abroad. If the American syndicate had been allowed to go on and build that line it would prob- ably have been finished ten years earlier, but their de- termination to control their railroads is a credit to Chinese statesmanship. The country has got on somehow for thou- sands of years without them and can endure a little longer. China is wise to wait. What light does this episode cast upon the question of Westernization ? In railroad building, as in education and in training soldiers, the Chinese look for those ideas which will serve China and not those which may make closer relations with the outer world. Exactly as in the case of Japan, the Chinese as a people are not seek- ing for Western civilization as a whole, but for such ma- terial and intellectual aids as will enable them to do without the foreigner. There is nothing occult about railroads and post offices and telegraphs, power presses, electric lights and chemical dyes. China might have 340 SELECTIVE PROCESS them all, and yet believe in the great yellow dragon. No doubt in a few years China will be covered by a network of railroads, will have a real army and navy, will avail her- self of the learning of Western engineers and chemists, and will fight disease in Western fashion. The neces- sary contact with the West will break down many of the barriers which shut the Chinese out of understanding the West. The Chinese will, as the Japanese now do, travel, learn foreign languages, read foreign books; but that is a long way from accepting either the religion or the popular government of the West. Though many of the advocates of Christianity are liked by the intelligent Chinese and are helping to mould the next generation, the Christian religion is not popular in China. There is more equality of conditions and oppor- tunities in China than in most countries, but the instincts of the race are against republican government, and repre- sentative government is a doubtful project, notwithstand- ing the constitution promised for 1917. China would be one of the finest fields in the world for machine polities; it is the home of secret societies and open alliances and trades unions; it is remarkably skilled in making com- binations ; it has a low standard of public duty and a weak central government. Western notions of education are more likely to get a headway; girls already admitted to mission schools will infallibly ask for more general edu- cation. The idea of public education for all the children fits in with the Chinese habit of expecting the government to provide for the people. Whether China is Westernized or not, it is certain to be great. The people lack a national spirit, but they are humiliated by the weakness which has made other nations look upon China as a cow to be milked. The ideab of 241 WILL CHIFA BE WESTERNIZED? the West still known to only a few Chinamen, include the strong sense of nationality. The more China knows the West the stronger will be the cry of "China for the Chi- nese." Chinese students cannot live in the United States or England or Germany without inquiry as to the source of national power in those nations. Intelligence, science, training, military skill, inventions, are popular in China just now principally because they seem to be necessary for China's existence as an independent Power. Think of what a nation of three or four hundred millions may do in this world? When once the railroads are built China could put into the field every year an army of a million men, and if it were lost, could furnish another mil- lion the next year, and so on indefinitely. Such a force, seated in the midst of Asia, on a splendid sea coast, is bound to react on the history of the Eastern hemisphere. It will do it, whether Westernized or not, and the likeli- hood is that both Japan and China will remain Oriental in their ideals and their designs. In any case it is a wise nation that seeks by fair treatment to hold the friend- ship of such a mighty weight in human destiny as the empire of China, for the most populous, richest and powerful people in Asia are certain to afEect the destinies of both Europe and America. IV AMERICAN COLONIES CHAPTER XXIV CONDITIONS IN THE PHILIPPINES EVEN" Mr. Dooley has long since become aware that the Philippines are not canned goods, and when you sail into the splendid Manila Bay and see the American flag over the city and the distant arsenal of Cavite, it is pleasant to find home in these excessive lati- tudes. Everything is American, from the strilce of the longshoremen and the consequent vexatious delay in get- ting off the ship, to the passing through the custom house, where the inspector appears to be detailed from a Jersey City wharf to keep people on the dock; the rapacity of the hotel people who bring your baggage ashore also recalls Little Old New York. Once fairly on shore the likeness to home scenes ceases. Many kinds of people live on the East Side of New York, but none of them wear the Filipino pink trousers, outside undershirt of mosquito netting, and elaborately careless straw hat. The taxicab is nothing like so engrossing as the caribao, the water buffalo, when he takes command of the highway and switches aside carritelas and trolley cars. The only thing on the street that is undeniably American is the pretty girl in her unfailing white, the only thing before whom the caribao yields right of way. The longer one stays in Manila the more foreign the place becomes. In spite of American signs and American stores, American 345 CONDITIONS IN THE PHILIPPINES soldiers and American prices, Manila is the daughter of Spain and the granddaughter of the Orient. To a large degree Manila is the Philippine Islands ; for here, or near by, are concentrated not only the civil gov- ernment, but the military and the navy and the commerce of the islands, besides most of the American civilians. Manila has undergone great changes since the American occupation; the old walled city has been stormed, not by troops, but by sewer diggers and pavement layers. Out- side it, along the bay, is the new commercial quarter (as yet almost unbuilt) and the new piers (not quite fin- ished) and the site of the new hotel (still in treaty), and the carnival grounds (now again silent). In every direc- tion there is evidence of American enterprise; broad and clean macadam streets, all ready for new houses; an ex- cellent trolley system, radiating for miles from the city; a breakwater with 30 feet of water inside; a new medical school and hospital in progress ; space reserved for the capi- tol of the Insular government ; a big military camp at McKinley, which is a township in itself; and the new works across the harbor at Cavite. The population of Manila is, however, not a thirtieth that of the archipelago, and the principal concern of the capital is to look after the interests of the rest of the country. The area of the islands is about two-thirds that of Japan proper, and it is probable that the acreage which can be cultivated is not much smaller than in Japan, a country which supports nearly 50,000,000 people. The sea is a road which leads to the doorway of nearly a third of the population; but on the large islands, and particularly Luzon, there is a dense population inland, and smaller and more scattered groups in the mountains, all of which are dependent for connection with the in- 346 PACE OF THE COUNTEY terior either on treacherous rivers or roads. It is either a tradition or a myth (authorities are contradictory on the point) that the Spaniards had a system of good roads. Though small stone bridges abound near Manila, and rem- nants of them are sometimes found in the mountains, few sections of highway can now be traced which were in good condition when the Spaniards gave up the islands. The insurrection and disorder for several years assisted the decay of whatever there was, so that Luzon was, at the end of the Civil War in 1903, no better provided with highways than the State of Washington or the interior of Louisiana. Nature has been bountiful to the Philippines in fur- nishing earlier and later rains alternating with a tropical sun; and it is the home of four staple crops, rice, sugar, tobacco and hemp, each of which flourishes best in some particular section of the islands. In addition, copra has become a valuable export, and fruit is abundant and might find a foreign market. Enjoying such a climate and situa- tion near populous countries, the Philippines ought to have a good trade ; and it is discouraging that since the Ameri- can occupation the natives have ceased to export rice and are obliged to import large quantities from Siam to feed the people. As to religion, few people stop to think that the Philip- pines contain the only large body of Asiatic Christians. The Catholic mission work has failed to do what it hoped in China and Japan and India, but succeeded in the Philippines. The greater part of the population was brought into the Church, which has remained the great historic institution of the islands, though its prestige was much shaken by that bitter hostility of the people to the political power of the clergy, which was chiefly responsible for the outbreak of 1896. 17 247 CONDITIONS IN THE PHILIPPINES The Christian natives are a good deal mixed with Spanish blood. There are still a few pure Spaniards in the island, and many more Mestizos, mixtures of Span- ish and Malay blood, corresponding to the mulattoes in the United States, or Chinese and Malay, which is a very strong combination. The Christian natives are divided among several tribes or races, each with its own language. In the southern islands are two groups of Mahometans, the Sulus and Moros of Mindanao, who received the re- ligion of Islam about 1475 and have held it to this day in the face of Christian missions. In addition there are some 500,000 members of wild tribes, of whom seven or eight well-marked divisions can be made in the island of Luzon alone. They range all the way from the Negritos, whose house is a branch of a tree stuck slantways into the earth, to the Tingwans, who are so virtuous that they extermi- nated two companies of Spanish soldiers who interfered with their women. These non-Christian wild tribes are the special charge and interest of Commissioner Worcester, who at the outbreak of the Spanish war was almost the only American who had spent time among them. They may be compared with the American Indians in civilization and in their relations to the civilized people. Many of the people in Luzon live in small villages and scattered farmsteads, but the usual effect of the Spanish rule was to build up small towns around the parish church, and many of those churches are fine examples of the architecture with which the Spanish missions of Cali- fornia, New Mexico and Texas have made Americans familiar. Alongside most of them is a "eonvento" (priest's house) and occasionally a school house; and there are some good Spanish municipal buildings and an occasional triumphal gate. In the city of Manila, notwithstanding 248 EACE ELEMENTS the numerous earthquakes, there remain several stately churches and monasteries, and the city walls, fortunately preserved by a sensible administration, are extremely pic- turesque. Eace feeling is complicated by the presence of several elements coming from outside the islands. Of these by far the most numerous is the Chinese, who, though once en- tirely rooted out of the islands by a kind of Sicilian Ves- pers, returned and form more than a third of the popu- lation of Manila, and are far more energetic and thriving than their Philippine neighbors. The Americans have forbidden the further introduction of Chinese, and, in the course of a generation, they will presumably much dimin- ish. Next in numbers are the Spaniards, for when their government departed in 1899, many merchants and pro- prietors were left. The pure Spaniards and their Filipino descendants number some hundreds of thousands of people who speak Spanish and consider themselves the aristocracy of the country. Notwithstanding the efforts to introduce English, Spanish is still the common medium of com- munication; in Manila the notices in the trolley cars are printed not only in English and Spanish, but in the Taga- log dialect. There are a few Germans, English and other Europeans in the islands and some thousands of Americans, most of them having some connection, direct or indirect, with the civil government, army or navy; but some of them are settled down as business men or owners of estates. In the interplay of social classes, the typical Filipino is the peasant on the land, a Malay, probably speaking no language but his dialect, intensely unprogressive, moder- ate in his wants and in his standard of accomplishments, eager to get a better price for his crops and to that end willing to see good roads which bring him to his market, 249 CONDITIONS IN THE PHILIPPINES but essentially an Oriental to the bone. His best repre- sentative is his own caribao, clumsy, good-natured, slow, dirty, unamenable to precept or example; yet the wild caribao is a fierce and dangerous beast, quick to scent and to charge an enemy. In the towns the Filipino is a pleas- ure lover, patron of the national sport of cock fighting, fond of social events and delighted with the carnival, which has now become an annual institution. The Fili- pino spectator is not disturbed by the patent fact that not a single figure on the float representing China (in a city with thousands of Chinese residents) is clad in an accu- rate Chinese costume. The bands — and Filipinos are su- perior musicians — the military companies and gun drills, the scene-shifter's picture of the city of New York, are all joys to him. Wise is the American government in giv- ing countenance to these innocent amusements. This brief analysis of the conditions shows at once some of the difiiculties which the Americans have encountered in the Philippine Islands. The first is, of course, the want of knowledge of, and intelligent interest in, Asiatics which is the cherished possession of most people in the States. Partly because of the controversy about annexing the country and the subsequent charges of cruelty and bad faith against the army and the civil government; partly because the Philippines have no electoral vote for Presi- dent, and partly because the welfare of the islands is only a small incident in the advance of the Colossus of the West, most Americans feel very little concerned in either of their two tropical colonies, Porto Eico and the Philippines. Some financial combinations are interested in hampering the Filipino trade, and for ten years they controlled a majority in Congress; but it has been quite impossible to arouse a sense of responsibility among Americans at home. 350 LACK OF COMPEEHENSION President McKinley, President Eoosevelt and President Taft have all felt a moral duty toward the Philippines; and the people of the United States have been willing that they should do that duty if they would keep quiet about the matter. The second difficulty is that none of the people whom the Americans found here have wanted their conquerors, liked them or cared to have them do what they thought to be their duty. The Spaniards were dispossessed of power, and every efEort to establish an American civiliza- tion is, of course, a reflection upon the Spanish regime which came before. The Filipinos, so far as they have a national consciousness, desired no master from outside, and fought with all their might against the new dispensa- tion. The Chinese have exchanged King Log for King Stork and have no special love for the Americans. The wild tribes had for centuries resisted both Spanish troops and Spanish missions, and what is a respectable head- hunter to do with a government which constantly inter- feres with his ancestral calling? Then the internal war, followed by brigandage, put everybody in an evil temper, and has left seeds of violence and mutual hatred. To over- come such a cohort of opposition is, at the very best, a slow task and in some ways an impossible one. The next difficulty is economic. The islands had their trade relations under the Spanish domination, and the term Manila came to be applied as a favorable brand to their hemp and tobacco. The war destroyed a great many farms, and even in the neighborhood of Manila less land is under cultivation than 15 years ago. Meanwhile the improvement in shipping has brought the island's prod- ucts into a great world competition. And though there is no fiscal obstacle in the way of exporting what- 351 CONDITIONS IN THE PHILIPPINES ever the islands produce, the United States, till 1909, took the ground (which is probably without a parallel in his- tory) that it would make no attempt to stimulate the trade of its own dependency. There really was nothing more grotesque in the world than the spectacle of a great nation taking possession of a group of islands on the other side of the world, because a tropical colony was in some un- defined way to build up national trade, and then shutting that colony out of profitable trade with the mother coun- try. One of the main reasons for the American Eevolution was the belief of Americans that the trade relations with England were so arranged as to give that country an un- due share of the profits, although England gave to her colonies an advantage over other people in the sale of colonial products. Either John Adams and Benjamin Franklin were wrong and stupid, or Congress is still stupid and wrong in refusing to bring the Philippines alongside. Porto Rico within the customs boundary of that Union of which they are politically a part. . Another difficulty and a very serious one is the language. Of course the civil officials make themselves familiar with Spanish, which is the official language in judicial and ad- ministrative proceedings. But a very large part of the population does not understand Spanish; and although the schools are making great efEorts to teach all the school children English so that the 20 or more dialects may cease to divide the people, it is an uphill piece of work ; it will certainly be 25 years before Spanish can be replaced and the dialects will begin to decay. Some of the dialects haye alphabets and a little written literature of their own, and in view of the desperate attempts to restore Irish, it seems likely that several of the dialects will try to keep themselves going indefinitely. 253 ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL Another problem is the church. Since the occupation, the church no longer has any support or official backing from the government, and Protestant missionaries have had good success in the islands. The Friars' estates, which were endowments for the religious orders, have been taken over by the government, to be re-sold in small parcels, and that has settled a very ugly question. But the churches are there, the clergy (mostly Filipinos) are there, the hierarchy is there, and there is no getting away from the fact that 7,000,000 Catholic Christians are governed ulti- mately by Congress ; that is, by a few hundred people of an alien race, nearly all of whom are Protestant. The Agli- payan movement for a separate Filipino church has lost ground since the courts have decided that the seceding congregations could not carry their church buildings with them. Another difficulty is in the character of the Filipinos. Much was made in 1899 of the 40 different tribes in the islands and the impossibility that they could get on under a government of their own. The argument was pushed unreasonably, for of the 8,000,000 people 7,000,000 are members of two or three racial families of whom the Tagalogs and the Visayans and the Ilocaans are the prin- cipal ones. Though these various elements cannot make themselves understood, they are all Malays, all Christians, all somewhat interfused with Spanish blood, and hardly anybody can distinguish them by their outward appear- ance. These people, inhabiting the large islands, make up the real Filipinos. Have they the stamina for civilization ? Physically, they have not; most of them are much inferior to the Chinese and Japanese in strength and hardihood. One reason is, according to the best medical authority in the island, 253 CONDITIONS IN THE PHILIPPINES that 80 per cent, of them harbor intestinal worms of some kind (many of them harmless), and more than half have amoeba, or chronic dysentery. If the health of the people can be improved they may make better farmers and workmen; but as a race they are lacking in initiative. When a Filipino is put in a position of responsibility and authority in a crisis he shows a lack of head. Most of the so-called Filipinos, who have been members of the commission, or judges, or successful provincial governors, are really Spaniards or have Spanish blood. It remains to be proved whether they can handle the large affairs of a complicated business or a public office. The question of disease is one of the most perplexing and discouraging in the Philippines. The mortality of the American troops was very great, chiefly because they were poisoned by malaria and amoeba germs; but great progress has been made in the health of the white people in the islands; and there are medical authorities who will prove to you that if people will drink nothing but pure water and very little whiskey, will protect themselves from mosquitoes, and otherwise exercise simple common sense, they are as safe in the Philippines as anywhere in the world. Is not the death rate in the Bilibid prison only 12 in a thousand? But somehow none of the white ladies in the Philippines have any natural color, and it is gen- erally believed that women do not keep their health out there. The medical authorities have rooted out bubonic plague, have almost exterminated smallpox, and have much reduced leprosy, but a tropical country with heavy rains and much flat land is bound to be malarial, and the cholera lurks in the back country all the time. The story of the fight of the government against this scourge is a splendid one. In Manila, during the worst epidemic 254 HEALTH since the Americans came in, the cases have been about one-fortieth what they were in similar epidemics under the Spanish government. And in the provinces, by desper- ate effort, the disease has, in each epidemic, been headed off. Nevertheless, in 10 years there have been 137,000 deaths from cholera, and notwithstanding the advance of medical science about two-thirds of the cases are still fatal; that there have been in that period only 348 cases, and 134 deaths from cholera among Americans shows that precaution and care are great safeguards, but the Fili- pinos have not yet learned to protect themselves properly. CHAPTEE XXV THE INSULAR GOVERNMENT OF all the contrasts in the Philippines, the most striking is that between the face of nature and the aspect of government. The country is soft, easy- going, sensuous, the essence of the tropical old world; the government is brisk, novel and aggressive — a fine example of Western energy. In fact, the present regime of the Phil- ippine Islands is one of the marked successes of the Ameri- can people. It stands high among the tropical colonial gov- ernments of Christendom, for the skill with which it is framed and the ef&ciency with which it is carried on ; it is immeasurably the best government that has ever been known within the archipelago; furthermore, it is not too much to say that no territory, no city and no State within the United States has a system of government so carefully thought out, so well concentrated and so harmonious in its parts as that of the Philippine Islands. This result is obtained at the cost of that local self- government and that representative power which is so dear to the American citizen. With its sister colony of Porto Eico and the city of Washington, the Philippine Islands are the only examples of American domination from above downwards, of a method by which the main motive power is an executive appointed from without and not responsible directly to the people governed. Out of the executive springs a judiciary which is far from possess- 356 GOVEENMENTAL OEGAOTZATION ing the independence of the judges in America. Still weaker and, as yet, without the powers ordinarily given to such bodies, is the legislature. Beneath this general system, which is commonly called the "Insular Govern- ment," are the provincial and local authorities. And all government in the Philippines is founded on repealable acts of Congress and on the discretion of a President in whose election the Filipinos have no share. Perhaps the problems and success of the government can best be understood by going through the various parts of it in succession. First in origin, first in authority and first in prestige is the executive, which is lodged in a com- mission of nine members, of whom four have a joint share in the general action of the commission, but are not heads of departments. Chronologically, the first form of Ameri- can authority in the Philippines was that of the general commanding the forces sent out to hold the islands ; Gen- eral Merritt, or General Otis, or whoever else might be in command, was legislature, governor and court, all in one, and issued many statutes, including a tariff, which was subsequently disallowed by the supreme court of the United States. As soon as it became evident that the Philippines would be retained, a civil commission of five was appointed, on the report of a commission of investiga- tion headed by President Sehurman, of Cornell University. This first commission, which derived its authority from the President, and acted as adviser to the military com- mander as well as a legislature, was followed by a second commission, established by an act of Congress, which, with some slight changes, is still in effect. The executive authority in the islands is concentrated in the hands of this board, in which, however, there have been so many changes that Mr. Worcester, who was a. 257 THE INSULAE GOVBENMENT member of the Schurman commission, is the only one who has outlasted the 10 years since civil government was established in the islands. Though the commission acts as a body, and, in fact, made all the insular laws (sub- ject to acts of Congress) until an assembly began its work in 1907, it is sub-divided into five executive depart- ments, finance, interior, commerce and transportation, edu- cation and justice. Four of the present commissioners are Filipinos, one of them holding a portfolio; the remain- der come out from the United States for a longer or shorter service. The commission is created by Congress and its functions are regulated by the Federal statutes. It is also appointed by the President and reflects his policy. The colonies are at present directly attached to the war department, so that the secretary of war is, in a sense, the superior of the Philippine Commission ; and the action of the commission is traversable by the Federal courts, in specific cases relating to the extent of their au- thority. This system plainly differs widely from the ordinary type of territorial government ; in the first place, there is a commission instead of a single governor; in the second place, there is, in the statute of the TJnited States or- ganizing the islands, substantially a written constitution defining the relations of the parts of the government to each other; in the third place, there is a system of insular finance, with local taxes and a budget. Furthermore, there is within the commission one individual whose title and prestige place him above his fellows and practically make him responsible for the action of the commission. This is the governor-general, who is a good deal more than the presiding officer in the commission; he is the head of the executive bureau, which has general super- 258 THE COMMISSION vision over the provinces and nmnicipalities, and over the bureau of civil service. Of the five men who have, in the last ten years, been at the head of the insular civil government, the iirst was William H. Taft, to whom, as governor and later as secre- tary of war, is due in considerable part the skillful form of the present government. Luke Wright, who had been vice-governor and acting governor, was promoted to be governor, a title which during his term was changed to governor-general. When Wright, after two years, was transferred to Japan (afterwards secretary of war) ; he was succeeded by Ide, who served about a year as acting governor and governor-general. Ide had been chief justice in Samoa, then four years on the commission and two years vice-governor: Governor-General Smith was out in a military or civil capacity from the time the army first came in 1898 till the end of his three years' service as governor-general in 1909. He is one of the Justices of the new Federal customs court. His successor was the previous secretary of commerce and vice-governor, W. Cam- eron Forbes, who is remarkably well fitted for governor- general, by character, experience in the insular service and enthusiasm in his work. That the governor-general- ship calls out the best powers that a man possesses is shown by the training which the office gave to the ex-presi- dent of the United States and the recent secretary of war, Luke Wright. In a community which includes so many races and interests a successful governor-general must have unlimited good nature, tact and diplomatic skill. The governor-general lives in a handsome public man- sion, which would be called a palace under any but a democratic government; has a salary of $20,000 a year, 259 THE INSULAE GOVEENMBNT which is not a bit too nmch for the service and the dignity of the place, and he conducts no single department of the public service. Besides the five commissioners with port- folios, already mentioned (finance, justice, education, in- terior and commerce), there are some additional executive officers, like the attorney-general and the chairman of the civil service commission, and all these have a staff of assist- ants, subordinates and clerks. In addition, as will be shown later, the police of the islands is a part of the insular government and comes within the department of commerce, which happens at present to include several other important parts of the system — the post office, rail- roads, highways and irrigation. The second great department of the insular government is the judiciary, which works upwards from the justices of the peace and a body of lower courts direct to the Supreme Court of the Islands, a part of the judges in which are Filipinos. This is the invariable practice, partly from the principle of bringing into the public service as many of the people born in the islands as are found competent, and partly because the court must apply the Spanish law, which is the common law of the country. The American judges speak very highly of the learning and character of their Spanish confreres and greatly admire the Spanish law for its clearness, its agreement with itself, and its substantial justice. The court has been called upon to decide some very difficult questions. Appointed from Washington, in many cases doubtless on the recommendations of the governor-general, and remov- able by the President, the court has no such independent position as in the States of the Union. Prom their de- cisions appeals lie in Federal questions to the Supreme Court of the United States. 260 JUDICIAEY AND LEGISLATIVE The third department of government, the legislative, is a new thing in the experience of the Filipinos, both under Spanish and American rule. Up to the conquest by the Americans the Filipinos never had any share in their own government except through membership in appointed councils. The law was made for them and administered for them from top to bottom. That, how- ever, is no argument for the Americans denying them some form of popular self-government. . Outside of the doubtful benefit to trade and the remote relation of the islands to the influence of the United States in Asia, the main reason for the annexation of the Philippines is that the Americans can offer the Filipinos something better than they have ever known. In general, the military authori- ties have thrown cold water on any suggestion of giving the Filipinos representation in their own government, and it might not have been brought about for years but for the broad and sympathetic Americanism of William H. Taft as governor-general, secretary of war, and a warm friend of the Filipinos. His influence and that of men of his way of thinking secured from Congress a statute for a Filipino legislature, which began its work in 1907. In two ways this assemblage has disappointed onlookers. In the first place, it was supposed that the friends of the American government in the islands were so many that they would return a respectable minority pledged to ac- cept the American government at least for the time being ; but the result was that nearly every man elected was either an out-and-out opponent of the American regime or in favor of rapid steps toward independence. The Philippine assembly refiects the rigid confidence of the native people of the island sufficiently intelligent to take part in poli- tics, that they are competent to take care of themselves 261 THE INSULAE GOVERNMENT forthwith. The other disappointment was a happier one. It was supposed that the assembly, especially since' it rep- resented a protest against the American government, would not work in harmony with the commission and the gover- nor-general; but its functions are, under the organizing statute, much less than those of state or territorial legis- latures, and its leaders have shown a willingness to use the limited share of government assigned to them in a sensible way. The poorest proof of capacity for self-government that the Filipinos could furnish would be to hold back the supplies or embarrass the government in its efforts to improve the country. The commission's veto has not been necessary, as a serious check on the as- sembly. The governor-general and commission have been tactful; the assembly has been good-natured; and, so far, the representation of the people has caused no crisis in the government and it is undoubtedly a safety valve for much hitherto compressed ill-will. The assembly is the only legislature in the islands. Though sub-divided into many provinces, not one of them has a local legislature or any form of government except the commission of three for each province, consisting of a governor elected by popular vote, and, with one or two exceptions, always a Filipino; a treasurer, appointed by the Insular government, and with one or two exceptions, always an American, and a "third member," also elected. The treasurer, as the representative of the Insular gov- ernment, is a check upon the other two, whose powers at best are very limited. Each province is divided into mu- nicipalities, in each of which is an elective "presidente," and council, which is a Filipino body, but has very little power. The striking thing about the local governments, which 262 LOCAL GOVERNMENT marks them ofE from that of any State in the Union, is the thorough-going supervision from above. Through the provincial treasurers, who are instructed by and remov- able by the Insular government, the provincial finances are bound to be kept in order. The provincial treasurer also supervises the accounts of the municipalities. The result is good bookkeeping throughout, reasonable hon- esty, and the power to call attention to and to rectify any serious faults in local finances. One or two of the prov- inces have got themselves head-over-ears in debt for local improvements, but the shiftlessness and downright dis- honesty from which so many American counties and cities suffer is simply not permitted in the Philippine Islands. The financial system of the islands is rather compli- cated, and need not be discussed here. There is a poll- taz, which is collected from most of the civilized men; there is a land tax ; there is an excise. The main reliance up to 1909 was a system of import duties paid under a tariff peculiar to the Philippines, and applying to im- ports from the States. The mutual free admission of goods from and to the States took away most of this source of revenue, and hence there was lively opposition to the new tariff in some quarters. The proceeds from some of these taxes go wholly to the Insular government ; of others, they are divided with the provinces, which are also allowed to lay special taxes for local improvements. The Insular government, notwithstanding its large ex- penditures for improvements, has very little debt, except the $11,000,000 paid over to the Friars for the surrender of their land to the State, and it is expected that all that money will come back through the re-sale of that land to individuals. There is not a State in the Union 18 263 THE IlSrSULAE GOVBENMBNT which might not learn a lesson of economy and good finance from the Philippine Islands. The annual per capita taxation is hard to calculate exactly, but according to the best estimate, it counts up to about 3.85 pesos, which is $1.93 gold throughout the islands. This is about one-eleventh of the per capita of the Continental United States, and for this the Filipinos are receiving what they never got from the Spaniards under any regime. The only direction in which the Insular government seems to move too slowly is in railroads. Considering what the English have done in railroad building in the similar island of Ceylon and the enterprise of the Straits Settlements in constructing its line from Singapore to Penang, the Philippine railroad system is short, discon- nected and light. The government, which in its organiza- tion had the opportunity of taking over the one line in existence and laying out a public system, has definitely committed itself to private ownership under strict govern- ment supervision; but for both military and commercial reasons, the Filipinos seem fairly entitled to a trunk line running all the way to the north end of Luzon, a piece of construction which would be no more difficult or ex- pensive than the Ceylon government road through the mountains. Eecent contracts and agreements provide a steady growth of railroads in all the large islands. Another inestimable benefit to the Filipinos is that, for the first time since the records of the islands run, there is peace in the archipelago. The Spaniards kept a little army on foot which usually held the civilized tribes from civil war, till the explosion of 1906; but the islands were re- peatedly raided or invaded by Chinese, English or plain ordinary pirates, and the wild tribes (nearly a fifteenth 264 EAILROADS AND BANDITS of the whole population) were never subdued. Within historic times they have been known to cut off whole Spanish commands and to uproot border towns so that they were never rebuilt; while head-hunting between the wild tribes was the popular sport, corresponding to Ameri- can bridge in its excitement and to football in its results. The Americans have not been able to put an end to brigandage or head-hunting, but they have practically stopped civil war between tribes and against the govern- ment. The battle with the Filipino insurgents in 1899 and 1900 was long and cruel; many thousand lives were sacrificed, and a great deal of property was destroyed. There are still conquests that are very much like the frontier Indian wars. People tell you that just now a tribe is in insurrection and that the troops have been sent down. "We don't say much about it, but we all know that the army is cleaning them up." People seem to sup- pose that if Dewey had sailed away and Merritt had not arrived, this destruction would never have come about; but it is certain that the Filipinos would have fought the Spaniards until they had driven them out, and it is alto- gether likely that they would then have fought each other. Just as soon as possible the American army was drawn out of the islands, though a necessary garrison was left. Troops are not now employed to keep order, except on the requisition of the civil government. Part of the army is a body of Filipino scouts, with American officers, on the general model of the native regiments of India. Use of the military is unusual, because the Philippines possess a constabulary, which is a general police force under military discipline. The privates are Filipinos, the officers all Americans. This body of about 5,000 men is one of the best institutions in the islands. They are 265 THE INSULAE GOVBENMBNT distributed in posts and detachments wherever they are most needed. In case of trouble any desired number of constables can be quickly brought together. The privates know the people^ speak the languages, and have a strong feeling of esprit de corps. The officers are a picked body, many of whom feel the greatest interest and enthusiasm in their duties. There are also some municipal police, but they are considered by the Filipino authorities to be prac- tically a waste of money. A few months ago it was announced that somebody had made a descent on an estate only a few miles from Manila, had killed one man and had carried off a hundred people ; within a few hours the constabulary was tracking the brigands, for it proved that there was nothing political about the affair; they had simply murdered an unpopular land agent. Within two days, with the aid of the efficient governor of the province of La Laguna, Cailles, a former insurgent general, the disturbers were rounded up. Every State in the Union ought to take a leaf out of the Phil- ippine book. The tramp, the train robber, the bandit, the kidnapper of rich men and their children, would soon disappear if every State had such a body of semi- military police under control of the State government. The advantages of the Insular government in all its forms are clear enough. It is put together with extra- ordinary skill. Not a State in the Union has such good articulation between the central authority and the local, such safeguards against robbery of the treasury and also against the crime of putting weak and incompetent men into power. Probably no State in the Union has brought about such changes in the order and prosperity of the community in a single period of 10 years. The single de- partment of the interior in the island has charge of non- 266 POLICE AND CIVIL SERVICE Christian natives, health, forestry; a bureau of science, which is a practical laboratory course; the friar lands, public lands, agriculture, the weather bureau — hardly one of these sciences was known to the Spaniards. Nevertheless, the time has not come for the people of New Hampshire, Indiana and Oregon to move to the Phil- ippines so as to enjoy good government. Admirable as is the machinery in the Philippines, it after all depends upon the character of the men who make up the government, and that depends on the sense and good will of the Federal government and especially of the President. Washington is not so free from self-seeking officials that we can be sure that resolute and upright men will always be sent out as mainsprings of the Philippine Government. There have, at times, been factions within the commission, and even weak spots. The subordinate service of Americans, though carefully chosen, is not very happy. The salaries seem, to many of the officeholders, less than called for by the risk to life and the separation from home. Very few of the youngsters expect to spend their lives or any considerable part of them in the Philippines. The Insular government now commonly requires a contract that its servants shall at least stay tw,o years ; but it is a significant and uncomfortable fact that almost everybody in the Phil- ippines expects to go back to the States. So far, very few people in the government have made plans to die there. This means a rapid turn-over of the personnel. The minor places are, as they should be, almost all filled in by Fili- pinos who come in under civil service examinations. Some of them are strong and competent men, but there is com- plaint that they do not like to take responsibility. Another defect of the government, discussed in a previ- ous chapter, has at last been remedied. For 10 years 267 THE INSULAE GOVEENMENT the islands were neither admitted to the customs boundary of the United States nor allowed to make their own tariff. In everything that relates to trade, they are still subject to the authority of Congress, which somehow has very little sympathy with the dependencies. It took a long time and the determination of three presidents to arrive at the one simple method which may do more than anything else to reconcile the Filipinos with their masters, namely, to permit practically unrestricted trade with the States of the Union such as the States and territories have enjoyed amongst themselves since 1789. The re- striction in the amount of free imports is plainly only a makeshift. There was no argument nor logic which could make it right to forbid the Filipinos making their own trade arrangements and at the same time to lay a protective tariff against their trade with the country which had conquered them. From the Filipino's point of view the main criticism on the government is not that it is bad, but that he does not wish a good government imposed upon him by the Americanos. It is true that the Filipinos have not the physical force to protect an independent existence; that they have never exhibited the organizing power shown in the construction and working of the Insular government; that they are now more peaceful and have a better chance in life under the Americans than they could have if independent. ISTevertheless, the Filipino is perfectly will- ing to take his chance on all that. He has read some- where something to the effect that "governments are insti- tuted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." It may be, if the Insular gov- ernment is properly backed up from Washington, so that it may keep on in its present good course, that the Fili- 268 CIVILIZING AGENCIES pinos may come to feel a loyalty towards the Stars and Stripes, a sense of membership in a great empire; but let no one suppose that they will patiently accept the perma- nent status of dependents and inferiors. The visitor to the Philippines is impressed with the feeling that the Americans in the island are all engaged in a great missionary enterprise ; that they are setting them- selves to the problem of elevating a people; that they are spending energy, money and governmental force for the benefit of people who do not feel the need of better lives. Sometimes one wishes that this force could have been turned towards some of the low and inferior people within the continent of the United States, but it is applied in the Philippines uprightly and with determination. If the the- ory is true that the greatest benefit of foreign missions is on the people who send them out, and whose lives are there- by quickened by this sense of responsibility to the ignorant and the debased, the Philippine government is doing the United States at home a service. Certainly, it is a genu- ine altruistic attempt to carry Western civilization where it is sorely needed. CHAPTBK XXVI PROBLEMS OF THE PHILIPPINES THE natural difficulties in the way of holding the Philippines and still more of making the people contented are serious enough, and they are aggra- vated by a set of illusions and misconceptions in the minds of the American people. The first of these hurtful notions is that the Philippine Islands are a fountain of wealth for the United States of America or the people thereof. A well-known Boston business man has been heard to say that when the United States annexed the Philippines it bought a gold brick. If the hope of making big money in the western Pacific was the thing that turned the scale in favor of ratifying the treaty in 1899 the United States was indeed buncoed; for the islands, though reason- ably rich by nature, are no Eldorado, either for the natives or the newcomers. The best that can be said is that the Philippines are a potentiality, depending on "if" and "if" and "if"— i/ there is no revolution, if the people take to new ways, if they learn to be thrifty, they may support themselves, increase in numbers and pro- duce a surplus to divide with the capitalists. What are the elements of Philippine wealth ? The first is the soil, which, as has been shown in a previous chapter, is apt for various tropical crops ; but the good soil of the lowlands has been under cultivation for several centuries, and though there are large tracts, abandoned 10 years 370 NATURAL RESOUECES ago, which can be restored, though wild land can be re- claimed, though irrigation will open up lands now unavail- able, the really fertile area of level land in the islands is probably not larger than the State of Alabama and not so valuable. For reasons not quite obvious cotton does not flourish either in the Philippine Islands or in southern China — it will grow, but is not marketed to advantage. Apparently the country must depend on its present staples, and the only one which, at present, is flourishing, is copra. Some Americans are carrying on cocoanut planta- tions and may make fortunes out of them, for there is a steady demand at good prices. When the Americans first took possession timber was supposed to be a great resource, and practical lumber- men came out, and, in some cases, made large investments. It was awkward and expensive to get ready for timber cutting, and it was next to impossible to discover the combination of a practical sawmill man, a man who can speak both Spanish and the dialects, and a man who can manage the natives. Furthermore, the transportation from distant islands to the main market at Manila eats up the slender profits. The only large lumber concern in the islands now is a coalition of two rival firms who have forests very near Manila, and combine lumber with cabinet-making on a large scale in the Grand Eapids man- ner, except that they use solid woods instead of veneers. This industry, which really has no competitor in the United States, was long deprived of its natural market by the heavy American duty on furniture. The main drawback in lumbering in the Philippines is not the lumber, but the trees, which grow in mountain ranges far from tidewater, and many of them are so heavy that if they roll into a river they go to the bottom. There 271 PEOBLEMS OP THE PHILIPPINES is beautiful wood in the Philippines, especially the narra, commonly called the Philippine mahogany, though it ha? a very different grain from the true mahogany. A few residents have beautiful pieces of furniture made by native workmen from native woods. The American pro- vincial treasurer at Santa Cruz found in the old Span- ish office a greasy table which he had cleaned and polished till there stood out a slab of narra 37 inches wide and about 12 feet long; and he has two circular table tops that are more than 50 inches wide; but such large pieces are uncommon. Mr. John Gibson, the American capitalist, who has paid most attention to the lumber business, has also established a furniture factory with Filipino work- men. Then come the mines, consisting of a few workable gold placers; copper; and in several of the islands, notably Cebu, coal. The governor-general of the islands has a project for building a great coal pocke.t at Manila, which is to be supplied from the mines of Cebu, and from which an ocean steamer can be coaled in a few minutes as is done on the Great Lakes at home. Cheap fuel is, of course, necessary for industries and for electric power and light, as well as for steaming. The islands have an unused source of wealth in the water powers of the mountains, which are certain to be harnessed before many years. Still there is no evidence as yet that the Philippines are richer in metals or in coal than Japan. Another resource which is as yet hardly touched is the fisheries. You see in the neighborhood of the Philippines none of those fleets of bold fishermen miles off shore that are almost always hovering round about Japan, and the people at large do not make use of the fish foods which are so important to the Japanese. 273 AMERICAN IMAGINATION The main source of error with regard to the wealth of the Philippines is a pernicious notion, probably derived from credence in that most misleading of fairy tales, the Swiss Family Robinson, that everything will grow in the tropics except weeds. In fact, most tropical crops are to be had only by great labor and watchfulness. Eice re- quires the exertions of centuries to build the irrigating canals and terrace the slopes; cocoanuts must have the right kind of soil and exposure, and the labor of preparing copra is considerable. Hemp, tobacco, sugar, have to be looked after with long and hard labor. The only product that seems to grow spontaneously in everybody's back yard is the banana, which great philosophers have thought to be the worst discourager of tropical industry, for why should a man work who has a perpetual free fruit shop on his premises ? Whatever wealth there is in the Philippines can be had only by working for it or by working still harder in the effort to get the yellow man to work for the white man. This leads directly to a second Philippine fallacy, namely, that the islands offer an opportunity for a tropical colony of Americans. There are otherwise sagacious people in the islands who feel sure that the only thing that pre- vents such a colony is the policy of the government in granting homesteads in 40-acre lots instead of 160-acre lots. One such enthusiast is sure that he could bring 200 farming families from Iowa- to the Philippines, if they could only be assured their accustomed quarter section of land. If the 200 families came out there would not be 20 of them left at the end of three years ; first, because homesteads of any size are not granted in the suburbs of Manila, but in places where, up to this time, the native Filipino has not cared to occupy the land. It may be 273 ' PEOBLEMS OP THE PHILIPPINES good land, well watered, open, reasonably flat, not far from market; but the prairie farmer would have to learn a new art, and his wife would pine for the sewing circle, his daughter for the high school hop, and his son for the daily bulletin from the National Baseball League. There are some American farm proprietors, but a very small number tilling land with their own hands. Why should not Southern or far Western farm managers accustomed to handle gangs of men and animals come out and introduce the plantation method into the Philip- pines ? Because they would not find the labor. The Fili- pinos are not accustomed to such highly-organized sys- tems and prefer to be tenants rather than wage hands. There are some large Spanish estates of the tenant type, the friars' lands were administered in that way, and steam plowing machinery has been introduced in some parts of the islands with good results; but as yet few fortunes are made out of directing Filipino labor. The Chinese make good farm hands, and nobody can doubt that the wealth in the islands and the profits of American investors there would be much increased if the Chinese were allowed freely to come in. The objection is, apparently, that a superior class of labor would permanently depress the Filipinos and would drive them out of small industries. Whatever the merits of that controversy, the experi- ence of 10 years has shown that it is hopeless to look for immigration into the Philippines by any considerable number of American farmers or mechanics. The Ameri- cans cannot compete for the lower tasks. The Filipinos, when properly trained, make fair skilled workmen; they run the locomotives and the engines of the launches and the little steamers; though at present poor carpenters and smiths, they can be taught to do better. American 274 OPPOETUNITIES FOE CAPITAL mechanics have not much better opportunities than Ameri- can farmers. We must expect that for many years to come few Americans will go out to settle in the Philip- pines, except government officials (including the army and navy), missionaries and people of the missionary spirit; foremen and superintendents, and business men who have something to invest. This condition causes some good people at home to indulge themselves in a third fallacy, that the Philippines have been exploited by Americans, and that they have sucked the resources of the country for their own benefit. The anti-imperialists on this question have stood up so straight that they have leaned over backward; beginning with the assumption (many times refuted) that the Ameri- can Government, through Admiral Dewey, promised to give the Filipinos their independence, they have gone on to the belief that the American occupation has been a heavy burden on the people and is now to their disad- vantage. You cannot stay in the Philippines a week without realizing that the Insular government is, in re- ality, a big benevolent mission, the bishop of which is the governor-general, which differs from the usual mission chiefly in its power to make everybody in the country put a little something into the contribution box. The Federal government has paid, and is paying, large sums out of the National treasury on account of its pos- session of the Philippines. The expenses of the army and navy out there, of the transport of mail to and from the harbor of Manila, and the like, are carried entirely outside of any insular taxes. The Filipinos do not contribute a dollar to the support of the National government, and their taxes for local purposes are very low, and they get more positive benefits than they ever dreamed of receiv- 275 PEOBLEMS OP THE PHILIPPINES ing from the Spanish regime. A paternal government furnishes them roads, public buildings, schools, protection from the wild tribes, protection from each other, and pro- tection against disease. It is true that the losses of life and property were very heavy from 1898 to 1900, but the Spanish War of 1898 brought a great change in the Phil- ippines; and the Americans have earned the right to feel that they have honestly labored to make that change turn to the advantage of the Filipinos. That the American government has protected the Phil- ippines is proven by some of the frequent criticisms made upon it. The late Mr. Harriman is understood to have held that the islands might have enjoyed his well-known success in conciliating shippers but for the iron-bound principles laid down by, the Philippine Commission on con- cessions to corporations. Many other American capitalists would have been willing to invest money in the Philip- pines if they could have made such conditions as would assure them a profit. The government seems to have adopted the very sensible policy of the present Chinese government, that it is better to wait a few years for improvements rather than to put the means of trans- portation out of the control of the people. Another prevalent belief is that the Americans are un- sympathetic with the Philippine people ; that they wish to do them good in an American way, to compel them to accept medicines, patent ploughs, and ventilated school- houses, for which they have no use. That is certainly not the temper of the Insular government or of the local officials. Prom the first commission of 1899 down to the present day there has been an honest, and, on the whole, a successful, attempt to work with, as well as for, the people. At this moment there are four Philippine 276 GOVEENMENTAL SYMPATHY members of the commission; the minor civil service is largely manned by Filipinos; the scouts and constabulary in rank and file are Filipinos. The Spanish law, civil and criminal, has been allowed, in great part, to stand. The very difficult questions of the friars' land has been settled in a way to satisfy the people without laying a perma- nent burden on the country. To be sure, in a kind of farewell speech, in 1909, Governor-General Smith said, that during the previous twelve months race feeling had grown on both sides in the Philippines. From Americans in business or in the military service may constantly be heard contemptuous and disparaging remarks about the Filipinos — from whom, after all, comes the daily bread of the resident Americans. How far is there a fallacy in the present attempt to raise the Filipinos by public education? Everywhere one hears criticisms both of details and of the spirit of the American schools. To form a fair judgment would be impossible, without months of special research on the ground, but the effort to teach English to the school chil- dren is bound to be disappointing. Most of these do not know Spanish, have no tradition of learning and come of ignorant stock. They attach no such importance to ac- quiring a speaking knowledge of English as do the Japan- ese middle schools. The frequent charges that the school system is defective because the graduates of the school seek to avoid manual labor is heard the world over, and rests upon the old notion that there is something wrong in a child trying to get into better employment than his father, when the country needs agricultural laborers. The same kind of charges are brought against the public high schools in America. The common schools are working at great disadvantage, in poor buildings, with discouraged 377 PEOBLEMS OF THE PHILIPPINES white teachers and many unambitious Filipinos; but they, nevertheless, are likely to offer the better chance to the really gifted, which is the great boon of all education. One of the specialties of the Philippines is the dis- banded soldier, who may be heard any day on a railway train turning on his tap of reminiscences of the good old days of the war. How when he gave the prisoner the water cure, that chap still would not confess, and so he staked him down on the beach at low tide, and then blindfolded him and tied him to a tree and pretended to shoot two other insurgents, and by these gentle means brought him to tell where he had buried the missing scout. How when the Filipinos moved upon San Fer- nando he commanded a gatling gun (or was it an army corps?), and when the critical moment came he iired his piece and afterwards picked up 470 Filipinos (or was it 4,700?). These old tales of savage wars suggest to the genial liar's mind the critical moment when, taking his siesta in the empty house, he hears a sound, and through his eyelashes sees the insurgent with a bolo creep- ing through the door, followed by another man with a rifle, and the pretty girl behind carrying a heavy club; again he stilly cocks his revolver inside his blue shirt, and when the assassin is but a few feet away, pinks him through the shoulder and shoots the other man out of the window, while on the other side of the street the sly, old presidente, who had got him into the scrape, jumps out of the window and makes off down the road; and just at that moment (turn over the leaf) the American guard, which has been ordered to patrol past the house every half hour, arrives, and he is Saved ! Such a diluted Stevenson with his imitation 278 EFFECT OF THE WAR "Fifteen men on the dead man's chest, Yo ho, ho, and a bottle of mm." is a poor creature alongside of a real old soldier like Cailles, recent governor of the proyince of Laguna and sometime insurgent, one of the first to begin the fray with the Spaniards in 1896 and the last man to surrender a command to the Americans. Cailles has no such accu- rate remembrances of bolos and water cures, but recalls agreeably some of the Americans whom he met with a little distance and some earthworks between them. Thus, in a stroke, he portrays an American whom he admired. Gen- eral Lawton was "a good man" when he captured some of Cailles' wounded, and asked if anybody wanted to go back to the insurgents, and some brave spirits said they did. "Very well," said Lawton, "vamos !" As in our own Civil War, the resentments between men who actually fought each other have long since died down; and the race hostility seems due to the inexorable fact that the few, and those few foreigners, are in power; and the many and the native must obey. It has been hoped that the Philippine assembly, by exercising part of the governmental authority through elected representatives, would heal this breach; that a sizable minority would be found in that body which would accept the American government as a fixture; but hardly a member stands for the things that are. By good temper and good manage- ment on both sides the assembly has gone on so far with- out much friction, but there is a fundamental difficulty here upon which time has little effect; the grant of some political power seems to the Filipinos — as it did- to our ancestors in 1776 — a reason for exercising all the powers of government. It is impossible not to compare the conditions in the 19 279 PROBLEMS OF THE PHILIPPINES Philippines with those in the Southern States, where also there is a dependent race which has to take its law and government from another race. In some ways the condi- tions are very different. The Filipino has his own lan- guage, or rather, languages, his law, his church, his civi- lization, while the negro takes all that he knows and aims at from the stock of the Anglo-Saxon. For that very reason the negro problem is, on the whole, an easier one than the Philippine; there is less opposition between the races, the negro has less sense of any destiny in which the white man is not a part; the last thing that he wants is independence. The Filipino, like all the Asiatic subjects of European Powers, is reading a leaf out of his master's book when he complains of a government imposed upon him without his consent. Here is the final fallacy of the whole situation. Ameri- cans are trying, with the best will in the world, to prove to the Filipinos that the political morals which fit America do not fit those parts of the outlying world which have be- come incorporated with America. There is no logic and no benefits to those governed which can make self-govern- ment the only conceivable thing on the continent of North America, and a dangerous thing in the islands of the Pacific. Hence wise men like President Taft hold to the doctrine that the present government of the Philip- pines is only a form of transition to something else; that the Filipinos are now in a political school, from which they may expect some time to graduate. This brings up the questions when graduation day is to come, and what degree is to be taken. It is clear enough to observers now, on the ground that the Filipinos have neither the numbers, nor the military spirit, nor the political skill at present to carry on these islands as a 380 THE OUTCOME separate nation, that if they were released by the United States next year they would still need to lean upon that country for protection, especially in the disturbed and uncertain conditions of eastern Asia. Some of them see that clearly, but so far as the Filipinos have a popular spirit and a national aspiration they would rather try in- dependence than keep on as a colony. If the time ever comes when the Filipinos can keep order, protect trade and industry, and educate them- selves, how are they to be free? Would they be satisfied with statehood? If so, would Massachusetts, Oklahoma and Oregon accept them as a sister and welcome their senators to Washington? That may be the best solution, but it is not what the Filipinos want. They have in their minds as a model a nation near by in a similar group of islands distantly allied by race. They would like to be a second Japan ; how far would that be agreeable to Japan and to the European Powers with colonies in this part of the world? Nobody sees the outcome of the Filipino question. It is a fallacy to suppose that there is an immediate or obvious outcome. A diplomat who was very near to President McEanley in 1898 said that the Philippines were annexed because nobody could suggest any other feasible way of dealing with them. In like manner it is hard to see any other outcome of the American occupation of the Philip- pines that will work, except that they remain on some terms part of the American Union. No colonizing country in modern times has tried the experiment of honestly ad- mitting island colonies into partnership with the home government. The French colonies have no real autonomy. But perhaps that will be the settlement finally of the un- easy and perplexing Philippine question. 281 V BRITISH COLONIES CHAPTER XXVII ORIENTAL PAX BRITANNIOA ENGLAND is the modern Rome; we know it be- cause brilliant essayists tell us so; because Great Britain is the power most widely spread upon the earth's surface; because England, like Rome, has con- quered great civilized countries and built up native in- stitutions on a foundation of English law; because where the British drum beats there is order, peace and justice. The ordinary round-the-world journey gives some oppor- tunity to test this assertion, for it passes through, or very near, Canada, Hong Kong, the Straits Settlement, Ceylon, India, Egypt, Aden, Malta, Gibraltar, and the island of Great Britain. Besides which, anybody who so wishes may ticket from Vancouver to London via Melbourne and Capetown. That takes in most of the British possessions, except the West Indies, which, when the Panama Canal is finished, will be readily strung on a voyage from New York to South Africa, and will leave unvisited only the Central African possessions. This is a formidable list, and the history of the ex- pansion of the British empire is a splendid story of ad- venture, grit, bulldog fighting, and a rare capacity to ad- minister outlying lands. Engand is now at the maximum of her greatness as a colonial Power, not only at the great- est height yet reached, but probably at the greatest ever to be reached. For, as you skirt and penetrate Asia, you 385 OEIENTAL PAX BEITANNICA see how completely that continent and its adjacent islands are now held by powers able to protect them from further annexations. The only small state which has extensive colonies in the Orient is Holland, and the last probability in the East is that Great Britain will ever absorb the Dutch islands; and neither Eussia, France, Germany or the United States means to cede any territory. The first thing that the observer notices is the wide longitude of the British holdings. Without counting the British island groups in the Pacific, the British colonies begin at two points on the east coast of China; Wei Hai Wei, opposite Port Arthur, and Hong Kong. The former is only a make-weight for the neighboring German and Japanese holdings; the latter is a strategic commercial place, a ganglion in the British colonial system, and a main defense in eastern Asia. Passing westward, England, by the sagacity and dash of Sir Thomas Stamford Eaffles, owns the whole of the Malay Peninsula, with its command- ing port of Singapore. By a recent treaty with Siam, three considerable provinces, claimed by that kingdom, have been added to the Malay Federated States, the latest, and, perhaps, the last British territorial gain in that part of the world. Next west is Burma, joining the Malay States on one side and India on the other, and thus mak- ing the bay of Bengal a British lake. Then comes Ceylon, which will be the subject of a separate chapter. India is a large term, covering an empire in itself, and reaching backward into mountains, the ownership of which is still hardly settled. On the south coast of Arabia, commanding the entrance to the Eed Sea, is the Eock of Aden, with a small hinterland. Then comes Egypt, which includes the west coast of the Eed Sea, the Suez Canal and the Medi- terranean, stretching southward toward central Africa; 286 STEBTCH OF COLONIES Cyprus, Malta and Gibraltar complete the chain of British posts and colonies extending half around the world. England has become possessed of these regions by vari- ous methods. The Malay States are almost the only part of Asia which England may claim by right of conquest, from unorganized, if not uncivilized people; for the most of her Oriental colonies England has had to fight and to hold by an army and navy. The fortified islands have been chosen with great skill and disregard of the previ- ous holders. The Spaniards have, for two centuries, re- sented Gibraltar, Napoleon went to war again in 1803 for Malta; Hong Kong was seized by the British in 1841 and its hinterland on the continent was added in 1895 when the Chinese could not resist. Ceylon and India were conquered partly by dispossessing the Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese and French, partly by war with the native states. In this respect England is not unlike Eome, but east of Europe there is not a British possession which has been Anglicized as Asia Minor and Egypt were Eomanized, by the conqueror imposing his gods and his jurispru- dence upon the conquered people. There is nothing in Ceylon which corresponds to the Eoman provincial ba- silicas, the theatres, the temples of Jupiter and the statues of the emperor. The Eoman colonies accepted not only the rule but the customs of Eome, while in Egypt, India and the Malay States, the British are still exotic; not one of those countries has accepted the religion or social sys- tem of Great Britain; in their own minds they are not British, but still Egyptians, East Indians and southern Asiatics. The English have been in Egypt only a quarter of a century, and in the Malay Peninsula three times as long, but they have been in India for 300 years, and its 287 OEIENTAL PAX BKITANNICA master for 150, and up to this day not 1 per cent, of the native population is Christian and probably less than 1 per cent, can use the English language. It has never been the policy to Anglicize the English colonies; with studious and wise discretion the British have as little as possible disturbed the religious and social life of the dependencies, except by permitting missionary work among those who chose to heed. No other policy was possible, because the English have never successfully colonized any tropical country. Australia and South Africa are no exceptions, for they are mostly south of the tropics, and central Africa has a temperate climate because of its elevation. The experience of centuries has shown that most Englishmen who spend their lives in the tropics bring back the seeds of disease, and that their white children do not grow up strong and vigorous. There is not, and never will be, an English population in any Oriental country, outside of officers, missionaries, planters, commercial men and their families, with a floating addi- tion of mechanics and former soldiers. Few Europeans expect to live long enough to die in the tropics. Even in Hong Kong the Chinese population outnumbers the Euro- pean by at least forty to one. The British can govern those countries only by tact and forbearance. It cannot be said that tact and forbearance are the natural landmarks of British character, any more than an inborn sympathy for inferior races. Everybody who travels in the East sees Englishmen kicking and cuffing their native servants, and a young American who chanced to room in an Indian bungalow with a lot of young Eng- lishmen saw their native bearers literally pulling on their undershirts and drawing off their stockings in the midst of blows and abuse. A recent administrator in India has 388 GOVEENMENT FEOM ABOVE » set forth in a formal book his conviction that the per- sonal bearing of Englishmen toward the natives is weak- ening the bonds of the empire. He gives as an instance the complaint of a native prince that when he undertook to travel first-class with a party of young Englishmen, they made him black their boots. it is a fine trait of English character that, notwithstand- ing their contempt for the dark-skinned man, they hold up throughout the East a Eoman standard of inflexible law; the English courts are models of justice, as even-handed as the traffic will bear, for it is a little difficult to carry out inflexible justice in a country where, for example, a man is sued for a fictitious debt, in proof of which ac- knowledgments in his own handwriting are produced. Does he set to work to expose this forged testimony ? Not in the least; he comes to court furnished with a corresponding set of receipts with forged signatures of his adversary, showing that the debt was paid. It is a wise judge who can hold the balance equal between such litigants. All the structure of British government and justice proceeds from above downward. There are three great federations within the British empire, Canada, Australia and South Africa, besides other democratic colonies, but not one of them is in Asia. ITot even the handful of British out here have representative government for them- selves except in some municipalities. The British in India have less self-government than the British in Newfound- land. Still, in India there is a beginning of native repre- sentation. The normal type of British Asiatic govern- ment is an administrator at the head of a staff of subordi- nate officials and a small body of judges, all responsible to the ministry in London and ultimately to Parliament. Such a government works well in such a community as 289 OEIEISTTAL PAX BEITANNICA • Hong Kong. The settled part of the island is practically all included in the city of Victoria, which, with its fine, tall buildings on the harbor front and its beautiful roada winding up the slope, is (in the unusual intervals of sun- shine) one of the most attractive places in the world. It is wonderful how the foreigners, who are but a handful, give tone and control to the city. Notwithstanding the large class of wealthy Chinese and many Eurasians, in spite of the Chinese shopkeepers and artisans and coolies and rickshamen who throng the streets, the place seems full of Europeans. They do not suffer, for their interests are watched over; but the educated natives are also ex- cluded from influence in their own government, except the few who are appointed to administrative and judicial posts. In Singapore, Penang and Colombo the English are fewer, and the natives in their brilliant and picturesque costumes take possession of the streets; you are under no illusions as to their being European cities. In Singapore and Penang the Chinese are numerous and are much in evi- dence; theirs are the most costly villas and fine carriages. One of them came on board the steamer at Penang with what seemed to be a bevy of sisters and cousins and aunts ; four or five handsome ladies flashing with precious stones and jewels of ear and nose, dressed in rich Malay robes, were moving about the decks and public rooms, pointing out the passengers and other curiosities to their gaily dressed children. Before leaving the ship, the Chinaman proudly explained that these ladies were his wives and mothers of his children — it was his harem, in fact. They were all Malays, and the children of such mixed mar- riages are handsome, intelligent and likely to make good business men. In India both economic and social conditions are less 290 THE NATIVES favorable to the British power than in the settlements farther east. India is an enormous country, inhabited by many race stocks, and sub-divided by sharp religious an- tipathies. There are as many languages as in Austro- Hungary. Except in the north, where the Sikhs, Ghoor- kas, Pathans and other hill people hold themselves aloof from central India, the races seem to feel little sense of hostility; but of the three great religious elements, the Buddhist, Hindu and Mohammedan, the last two are at variance with each other. It is a mistake to suppose that most of the Moslems are descendants of former conquerors from outside India; they are converts and the sons of converts. Though they live side by side with the Hindus and do business with them, they have a strong feeling of a separate and superior existence. This is strikingly shown in the recent discussion over an Indian assembly. The Mohammedans found themselves like the Democrats in Vermont, so scattered through the country that they were in a minority in nearly every electoral district, and could hardly expect to elect a single man to the new legislature, and they, therefore, demanded that a certain number of members be assigned to them, to be chosen entirely by their ballots. Perhaps the Moslems are, as they think themselves, the most intelligent part of the population, but the Hindus are confident that they could carry on the country with- out any British assistance. Here comes in the difficulty felt by the United States in the Philippines — that what appears to be the majority of the people do not wish to have a good and impartial government provided for them from outside. Outside of India, race and religious problems do not much disturb the harmony of the British colonies. The 291 OEIENTAL PAX BEITANNICA authorities take the common-sense view that in such colo- nies the industrious and shrewd Chinaman is a blessing, and he is in force everywhere, as far west as Penang, furnishing not only merchants and capitalists, but also a reliable plantation laborer; for the Malay likes to work for himself when he works at all. The Japanese have no footing west of Shanghai. A few Javanese laborers have been brought over to the Straits, but with little success. Indians — ^mostly Tamils — go eastward as* far as Singapore, and the Sikh -policeman is a figure in several cities. A few Germans are carrying on business in the cities, and a battalion of them came on board ship at Penang, to give a send-off to one of their number with beer, songs and marchings on the deck, enough to set up a small German university. For a good government the first essential is good order and the Pax Britannica has given to all the countries ruled by England freedom from the regime of raids, petty despotisms, civil wars and invasions which had prevailed since the dawn of history. Since the Indian mutiny, 50 years ago, British troops have not been used in India except for the enlargement of the empire. Ceylon since 1840 has been freed from civil war and local tyrannies, which had been her lot for 25 centuries. The Malay States are a standing miracle of government. "Eobinson Crusoe" is not more thrilling than the story of Sir Stam- ford EafBes taking possession of a site on the extreme southern end of the Malay Peninsula and, by his pluck, compelling the East India Company to back him up; and out of a set of local tribes who inherited undying hos- tilities with each other, building up the most prosperous colony in Asia. The two towns of Singapore and Penang, so rankly tropical, have lovely villas, renowned botanic 292 PROSPEEITY AND PROFIT gardens, and every evidence of prosperit}^ It is the only- part of the Asiatic coast, except India and Burma, in which a system of railroads is going forward. Singapore and Penang have just been connected, and before long there will be another line across to Siam. The profitable tin mines and rubber and other plantations give plenty of work and good dividends, but none of these sources of prosperity would avail but for the excellent British gov- ernment. One of the reasons for dissatisfaction is the belief of millions of people — perhaps because Mr. Bryan after his Oriental journey espoused the opinion — ^that the English are exploiting and depleting their subjects in Asia. If exact statistics could be gathered it might be shovm that so far from draining capital, more money has gone into those countries out of England than has ever flowed from them to England. It is not as in the days of Clive, when specie was taken out and little or nothing replaced it. Nowadays the irrigation works and large railway expendi- tures require immense sums which could not be raised on the ground. Wliatever the strategic and political rea- sons, India is the only Asiatic country which has devel- oped its railways on a large scale. Of course the owners and mortgage owners of the Indian debt, railroads and other enterprises have a right to interest on their invest- ments, but if India were to revolt and to refuse to make any further external payments on the public works in the country, it would confiscate more property than the British have ever taken from the peninsula. The army is a necessary part of the British regime, and Mr. Thomas Atkins is the main dependence. Notwith- standing the British coup of sending native Indian regi- ments to Europe in 1878, they depend on British regi- 293 OEIENTAL PAX BEITANNICA ments for the ultimate defenses of their colonies. The world accepts Eudyard Kipling as the bard and delineator of the British army in the East, but he does not do justice to the excellent tailoring in all branches of service. In time of peace the soldier still wears the red coat, though he, and still more, his officers, have swagger outfits of khaki. The troops are much in evidence both in their forts and barracks and, when off duty, on the streets. Out- side India they are only a few thousands, but in that em- pire since the Indian mutiny, no native soldier is allowed to serve in the artillery, and no regiments have native officers of high rank. The British army there is about 100,000 strong, which is one to 3,000 of the population, and that slender force bolsters up the British world power ; but it is a strain on that power, for to recruit, maintain and send out such a force 8,000 miles is a heavy draught on England's available supply of soldiers. The problem which the English government seeks to solve in the Orient is, with this slender support of mili- tary power, backed up by the British navy, to make mil- lions of Asiatic people contented and productive, without according them an effective share in their ovm govern- ment, all under an irritating assertion of superiority to a people which, in religion, literature, art, political his- tory, is a thousand years older than England. At the same time other Asiatic people are working out their own des- tiny; the victory of the Japanese over Eussia has re- sounded through Asia. If China gets out of her leading strings, India will be that much more discontented. The load grows heavier as the subject countries become more prosperous. If Great Britain had no other anxieties she might hold the East indefinitely, partly because the Pax Britan- 294 THE MILITARY PEOBLEM nica in the East is preferable to any Pax Germanica or Pax Borussia, partly because India is not a solid country, the future of which could be predicted in ease the English were compelled to leave; partly because of the hold-fast nature of Englishmen. 'No combination in India and still less elsewhere, is now in a position to rival those who are in possession of the troops, the ships, the fortifications, the military supplies and the machinery of communication. The really pressing question of English dominion in the East is whether she can hold on in case of European war, when the attempt will perhaps be made to break ofE some of the British territories. Except Aden, which is a first- class fortress, and Hong Kong, which has some batteries, not a single British Asiatic port can defend itself; it all depends on the navy, and (unless Australia builds a fleet) that means a navy built in England, sent from England, coaled as far as Aden from England and reenforced from England. Every captain of the North German Lloyd car- ries sealed orders to be opened if war breaks out; and somewhere — ^probably at Tsintau — are supplies of guns and ammunition for their ships. The line of defense is al- ready weakened by the passing of the Philippine Islands into the hands of a first-class Power. In the present condition of Asia a disaster to the English colonies would be a misfortune to civilization, for no rival Power, Eussia, Prance or Germany, is so good a master as Great Britain, or so much interested in keeping commerce open. The question is whether good European governments are going to remain permanently in Asia. As in Japan and China, so in the Malay States and India, the Asiatic character has not been much altered by contact with Euro- peans. Native governments, with native standards, are perfectly compatible with daily trains and morning news- 20 395 OEIENTAL PAX BEITANNICA papers. The plain tendency in Asia is to throw backward the tide of European conquest and occupation. In such a movement Great Britain, as the principal colonizing power, has most to apprehend. The Pax Britannica does not extend to world politics. CHAPTEE XXVIII THE PARADISE OF CEYLON MOST people know no more about Ceylon than Bishop Heber's assurance that it is an island over which blow soft the "spicy breezes." No part of the sea coast of Asia and Africa was so little familiar to the Yankee skipper of the previous generation, who went to Bombay and Mus- cat and Zanzibar because they could give him a cargo, and who avoided Ceylon because of its dangerous coast. But every schoolboy knows, or knew when he studied geography, that southeast of India is a pear-shaped pearl 370 miles long, which, though so near the continent, has a long and separate history of its own. Some people think the town of Galle, on the south end of Ceylon, was the Tarshish of Solomon's time, and that the Phoenicians knew Ceylon; and that first of newspaper reporters in Asia, Mr. Sindbad, clearly records his visit to the island and his ascent of Adam's Peak. Ceylon boasts 21 centuries of authentic history, from the first Indian invasion down through the occupation by the Portuguese, and the Dutch, and at last the English. Frederick the Great and Napoleon set in motion billows of war, which met and broke heavily on this far-ofE coast, in the contests of the English with the Dutch, whose country had been submerged by the French revolution, for the possession of Ceylon. 397 THE PARADISE OP CEYLON The situation of Ceylon fits it to be a pleasure city for other continents. It extends from about the fifth to the twelfth parallel of north latitude and is far enough away from India so that it vibrates to the northeast and south- west monsoons; while a mountain system in the interior, running up to about 8,000 feet, catches the rain both ways, clothes the mountains to their tops with luxuriant foli- age, and fills the rivers which give life to the plains. Though so near the equator, Ceylon possesses in its hill stations comfortable and beautiful places for the hot weather. Since the construction of the breakwater of Co- lombo, it has become a port of call on the great inter-con- tinental east and west seaway. Steamers coming out of the Suez Canal, and bound for Indian and Burmese ports in the Bay of Bengal, for China, Japan, the Dutch Islands and Australia, nearly all call at Colombo, which has one of the busiest little harbors of the world. Most through travelers, however, spend but one day in Ceylon, running up to Kandy by rail, and then take their steamer again or cross over to India; hence the island is intimately known only by the English residents. Those residents are of two classes — ^the officials and the planters. Of the civil service, so-called — ^that is, the ju- dicial and financial officials, there are only about 80 in all, but there is, in addition, a considerable foreign staff for forests, public works, and railroads, all which are government property; and several thousand Europeans, nearly all English, live in the two business centers, Co- lombo and Galle, or are scattered over the country. Ceylon is probably the most happy and prosperous colony in Asia. The native Sinhalese appreciate the fact that they have the greatest security and the least taxation in their history; and there is no legislative body to queer the governor. The 298 EACE ELEMENTS population rapidly increases, and the products of the island are favorably known all over the world. The population is divided into four elements. First in evidence are the English, who furnish capital and super- vision for most of the enterprises of the island. Next the Eurasians, commonly called Burghers in Ceylon, many of them having Portuguese blood, though Portuguese names are held by some native families who adopted names from their patrons, very much as did our Southern negroes. The Dutch have left some race evidences, and there is an English strain of half castes, who in many cases own property, attend the English church and feel themselves quite English. The third element is the native Sinhalese, an offshoot of the teeming tribes of India, but a separate nation for more than two millenniums. The people are light in color, soft and gentle in appearance, the men effeminately clad in petticoat and round headcomb. Many of the chiefs of the interior are wealthy and still enjoy the prestige of feudal times. The fourth and the most numerous element is the Tamils, who are south Indian emigrants, and, with few exceptions, all Hindus — a darker race, fiercer, and less tractable than the Sinhalese, as is shown by the fact that for a thousand years they were in the habit of raiding and holding parts of Ceylon. Most of the Tamils are laborers or merchants, supplying their own countrymen, but occa- sionally may be seen such a figure as burst upon the re- lator's view in a railway carriage near Anuradhapura. It was a lady, preceded by her effects, which by actual count at the time consisted of a package in a white bundle, a burlap bag, a can in a similar bag, three tin trunks, a bottle of something potable, an umbrella, a handbag, a basket, a can, a plant in a bag, a drinking cup, a small 299 THE PARADISE OF CEYLON brass jar, a stick, a dog, a child, and a magnificent serv- ant dressed in white. This much-accompanied la-dy had delicate and expressive features, quite European in type, a warm brown color, and a lovely smile. She was clad in garments resembling in cut those of the ancient Greeks, a skirt of orange and yellow, with fine black lines, in a sort of bandana pattern, and a mantle of similar material, but of a different color, wound carefully about her bust. For adornments, which her beauty did not need, she wore three bangles on each wrist, lower earrings of rubies and diamonds, upper earrings of gold, two nose jewels, a pair of silver bracelets, a pair of gold bracelets, three rings on her fingers, two very heavy anklets of silver, and two silver toe-rings. The child of 10, a graceful little girl, wore four necklaces, two earrings not matched, and silver anklets. They both had the bearing of people of refinement and distinction. Their position was assured without carrying so much wealth upon their persons. • These four kinds of people live together in harmony, partly because of the unquestionable supremacy of the English, partly because there is so much work to do that there is little jealousy between laborers, and partly be- cause of the mild disposition of the Sinhalese. The es- sential key to this content is, however, the remarkable prosperity of the island, due to the good government and business ability of the English. Down to the pacification of the island by the English about 1830, its only exports for ages had been precious stones and cinnamon; but since that time it has several times changed its staple products, and is now making much of its money out of plants which are not native to Ceylon. Precious stones have ceased to be a source of wealth in Ceylon, whatever the poverty they may bring to the visitor. The pearl industry, which for 300 PEECIOUS STONES thousands of years has been one of the most picturesque parts of the life of the people, is at present almost snufEed out. The last fishery was in 1906, but, according to the latest official reports, another cannot be expected before 1913. Whether this is due to disease amongst the oysters or to the too close cropping of the product by divers in armor, is a question. An effort has been made by an American named Solomon to plant and open oysters in a scientific manner, using the X-ray to find out whether there is a pearl inside, without opening the creature. This scheme makes little progress, as Solomon asserts, because the English lessees of the pearl industry will not work with him. For some reason, a pearl famine appears to be coming on. There are complaints not only in Ceylon but in Australia and America, and the time may come when our grandmothers' pearl necklaces may make us all rich. Other precious stones are found in moderation, though nobody but an insider knows the exact source of the rubies, sapphires, catseyes and other rare stones which are peddled on the steamer's decks and in hotel corridors and in a row of delightful shops in Kandy. Arabs with high caps and perfect English have taken over much of this part of the business. Diamonds are not a Ceylon- ese stone, and if they were Alfred Beit would see to it that the diamond fishery ceased. But sapphires and rubies of every color and value, including the interesting star stone, are both common and attractive. All the tropical spices grow in Ceylon, but in the prices current and reports of exports the only ones that appear are cinnamon and cardamon seed, which is now becoming valuable. The history of Ceylonese industry is very curi- ous. When the English came in they planted coffee on 301 THE PAEADISB OF CEYLON land which proved well adapted for the product; but a pest practically destroyed the trees and there is now al- most no coffee grown in the island. The discouraged planters put in cinchona, which, of course, was brought originally from South America, and for some time made money out of that drug, so useful in a malarial island. As the price went down they began on tea, which has now the same prestige that cotton has in the Southern States of America, as the great staple, though in the value of its product much below some other exports. Tea does well in the hill and mountain country and may be seen growing up to 5,000 feet above the sea. If left alone it will run up to a bush, 10 or 13 feet high, but it is kept cut down sometimes till it is hardly more than a stock, and then, puts out the delicate leaves, which are picked every few days. Along the line of mountain railway the tea covers many of the hills and mountain slopes with its glossy plants. Most of it is raised by estates carried on by stock companies, and the reports of their annual pieetings are an index of the prosperity of the times. The planters got for their output during the two years, 1908 and 1909, an average of about 13 cents (gold) per pound, with which they are well contented. Another imported plant is the cocoa, whose pretty pods may be seen suspended from the branches of the tree. A more important exotic is rubber. It was a happy thought that the wild tree, which in the moist and tropical at- mosphere of Brazil furnishes such a valuable product, might be planted in a similar moist and hot territory in Asia. There are now scores of rubber plantations in Cey- lon, in a few of which the trees have been as much as 10 years in bearing. Large capital goes cheerfully into the en- terprise, and with pure rubber quoted in London at near 302 AGEICULTUEAL PEODUCTS $3 a pound, the rubber orchards are extending every year. So far neither tea nor rubber is much troubled with insect pests. Many plantations raise both crops, sometimes on the same land, for tea does better if there are some shade trees planted amidst it. The most valuable product in Ceylon is that in which there is most competition — cocoa- nut products, chiefly copra (the meat broken up into pieces and dried) and cocoanut oil. All the cocoa products have a world-wide market; and if the Germans, who are now introducing cocoa-fat for cooking, and cocoa-butter, are successful, the hundred million cocoanuts which were harvested in Ceylon last year may soon be doubled. It is a crop which does not call for much care in cultivation. These new crops could not be introduced if English planters had to depend upon Sinhalese labor. The native coolies sometimes work a plantation, but prefer village life on their own little places ; and the planting, the care- ful weeding, trimming, picking and preparing requires a great deal of hand labor. Fortunately for Ceylon, south- em India lies but a few score miles away, with its great stretches of arid or thin soil and its immense population, and from it comes a steady inflow of Tamils, amounting sometimes to about 2,500 a week by the steamers from Tuticorin; and they all find ready employment at what has seemed to them good wages and conditions. They bring their families, are assigned quarters in the estate "lines" (rows of dwellings) and receive wages of about 30 cents Ceylonese; that is, about 10 cents gold a day. They make a very good force, and it is their work which enriches the planters. There are some labor troubles, due to a sort of padrone system. Ceylon was, of all Asiatic countries, one of the most inaccessible. In order to conquer it the English were 303 THE PAEADISE OF CEYLON obliged to build roads into the mountains, which have since been extended to a network of 4,000 miles, on most of which automobiles move with comfort. In the south there is a system of canals constructed by the Dutch; and the island has nearly 600 miles of railroad, of which a hundred miles is only two and a half feet gauge; and is about to build a branch to Manaar and thence over the reef of Adam's Bridge, so that India may be reached by rail over a ferry of only four or five miles. Almost all the lines pay, and before long the island will be encircled by a series of rails parallel with the coast. The railways are well built, though the mountain lines are phenomenally crooked. Scenically, few journeys give so much pleasure as the ride from Polgahawela to Band- wramela. It is not true that the railway line is stretched from mountain top to mountain top like a telegraph wire, but it is not such an exaggeration, for the road crosses a pass 4,000 feet high, not by crawling up to it and going down on the other side, but by descending from an eleva- tion a thousand feet higher. The stations are good, but even the first-class is less comfortable than the American railroad car. The fare is about two and a half cents a mile for first-class, descending to one-third of a cent per mile for coolies traveling in gangs. On the through trains to the mountains, restaurant cars are run. Ceylon possesses many interesting places. Colombo is a fine example of a European city set in a tropical back- ground and surrounded by a native city. In rounding the corner you pass from a gentleman's villa to a tiny native dwelling with a cluster of unclothed children in the door- way. Kandy is one of the most beautiful spots on earth. Its gem of a little lake is surrounded by the most luxuri- ant tropical foliage, with the waving palms of the cocoa- 304 TEAVEL nut tree and the many beautiful flowering shrubs and trees. The town contains hardly anything of what the Germans call "sehenswuerdigkeiten," except the much over- estimated Temple of the Tooth ; but the life, the color, the movement of the people is India on a small scale, with the addition of the picturesque Sinhalese people. Nuwara Eliya is the great Ceylon fetish. You are expected to admire and to go into raptures over a grassy valley sur- rounded with low and commonplace mountains. Considering the great age of Ceylon, it boasts painfully few memorials of its past wealth and grandeur. In the whole island there is no ancient sanctuary except a few small rock temples; no palaces, such as make Madura and Tanjore famous; no great bridges or monuments; no ancient cities, with the exception of four sites, which had been almost forgotten till carefully examined by the Archaeological Commission of the British Government. These are Sigiriya, a rock fortress and palace on an almost inaccessible knob, of which nothing, unfortunately, remains except foundations; Polonnaruwa, in the northeast, where there are dagobas and sortie vestiges of palaces, and the two neighboring sites of Mihintale, the exact spot where Bud- dhism was first introduced into Ceylon about 330 B.C., and Anuradhapura, the ancient capital of the Sinhalese kings. The latter place is now on the railroad and pro- vided with a good hotel, so that it is easy to reach, and in half a day all its interesting and important sights can be visited. Anuradhapura was deserted in the eighth or ninth cen- tury because of the ceaseless attacks of fanatic Tamil ma- rauders, who sacked, plundered and destroyed the temples of their enemies. A thousand years under the jungle has completed the work, and of the once magnificent city 305 THE PARADISE OP CEYLON there can be traced not a single civil building except the Brazen Palace, a labyrinth of some hundreds of stone pillars, the basement supports of what was once a magnifi- cent structure of nine stories, a hundred rooms in each story. Pour enormous dagobas still stand, originally from 300 to 350 feet in height, all built of brick, in bell form, once clothed with white cement; each surrounded by a square platform paved with blocks of stone, once adorned with temples, shrines and statues. One or two smaller dagobas have been restored and gleam white in the tropical foliage, to show the magnificence which has departed from the big structures. Even in decay, with large forest trees rooted into the domes of brickwork, the dagobas are impressive; and in plan, cubical contents and workman- ship they are comparable with the Pyramids of Egypt. Unfortunately most of the stone work has been smashed, so that the buildings have no such wealth of sculpture as similar structures in Burma, Cambodia and Java. The charm of Anuradhapura is, therefore, not the structures, but the setting. Imagine a great park three or four miles square, intersected with winding roads which lead around a wilderness of rough stone columns, roofed over with tropical trees. For all about the holy places clustered hundreds of shrines, small temples and monas- teries, each on its platform of hewn stone, from which rise the roughly squared monoliths which bounded the brick walls and supported a flat roof. The Tamils rent the buildings to pieces, shattered the carvings, tore stones apart; but their malevolence could not destroy every- thing, and here and there are still standing the ceremonial stairs and the semi-circular "moonstones," or bottom steps, each carved with a procession of sacred animals. In two places door frames of stone still stand ; and the square col- 306 SIGHTS umns bristle among the trees like a sacred forest of petri- factions. As a spectacle for the globe-encircler, Ceylon attracts not by buildings or crops, but by the endless panorama of the people. The island has its defects; cobras exhibit themselves on the highway without the aid of the juggler ; gnats sting and mosquitoes bore and ants pester and ague shakes ; it is torrid when it is hot and the air is saturated with moisture even when the temperature sinks to such a frigid point as 50° Fahrenheit. The American consul at Colombo resigns because his family cannot endure the dysentery. Enteric fevers are rife even in Colombo. The sheltered highlands are the salvation of the Europeans, but the greater area of the island is low, flat and malarial. To the tourist, however, Ceylon is a perpetual moving picture in which pass men, women and children of every color from white to burnt-cork black, in "sarongs" of every hue, carrying burdens on their heads, steering their little bullock carts or the bigger carts with cape hoods, picking tea, driving the cattle in a circle to tread out the rice, to cries which were already old when Alexander came to India. In Colombo or Kandy is no need even to step outside the veranda of the hotel, so far as seeing the people goes; they defile past all day and half the night; they bring Asia home to the Westerner; they are that Asia which is as a kaleidoscope for color, and a rock for unchangeableness, the Afghan in his draped trousers, the Tamil in his breech-clout, the Sinhalese with womanish sarong and back comb, the child clad in sun-tan, are all parts of a world in which bustling America has little part. CHAPTEK XXIX DELUSIONS OF EGYPT OF EGYPT, as of several other countries which are distant and strange, American children have a set of clear and indelible impressions. Moses in the bulrushes, and his intimate friend Pharaoh of the hardened heart, and Joseph playing his Sherlock Holmes trick with the silver cup upon his unsuspecting brethren; the mummies in their paper shells tobogganing down the slope of the Pyramids; and dusty Arabs towing a Da- habeah up the Nile. These are the stage settings of the conventional Egypt. It is not many years ago that a little fresh water college sent to the Northern Ohio Pair its three precious treasures of a stuffed gorilla, an Egyptian mummy and a tutor with side whiskers, who gave open-air lectures on the other two curiosities, including the civiliza- tion of Egypt and the merits of the University of X. Eiper years have disturbed some of those preconceptions, and have added notions of Egypt as the origin of civiliza- tion, as bridging the space between the deluge and Saladin, as the central point of world history. Cambyses, Cleopatra, and Napoleon defying the 40 centuries that looked down upon him from the Pyramids, are not clearly distin- guished in this picture, but the general effect is strik- ing. In art the traditional influence of Egypt is more distinct; all the world knows that scattered up and down the Nile are some of the most majestic structures ever 308 PLACE IN HISTOEY raised by the hand of man, and that in lower Egypt are to be found some of the most magnificent examples of Moorish architecture. Students of Greece are aware that the mother of Western arts was the daughter of Egypt, that the Doric column and the archaic statue go back to the Nile for their prototypes. The Western mind has also a vague impression that Egypt has a favored place upon the map of the world; it is central to Asia, Africa and Europe, lies on the great seaway of Oriental traffic, enjoys a climate more salubrious than can be found anywhere in Europe, and a geographical situation which makes it a land of prosperity and promise. When this wondrous land is approached, both the monu- ments and the interest of the country are found to be damaged. Just as no man could be so great as Daniel Webster looked, so no country could fulfill all the expecta- tions that have been held out by Egypt. In the first place, Egypt, notwithstanding the space which it takes up on the map, is really a very small country, the effective part of which is the Delta and the valley of the im- mensely long Nile, with a strip of Eed Sea coast, and indefinite possibilities in the Soudan. Egypt has always been a narrow and confined country. In the second place, Egypt is not central in the mod- ern sense; it is not an outpost of Europe; the Nile has never been a traveled highway into central Africa, and the Suez Canal is for Egypt only a passing-switch on the great road of commerce. The marvel of Egyptian geogra- phy is the high Nile, which brings life-giving silt yearly to the valley and the Delta ; but the Nile is in a kind of a pocket as regards the world's movement. Egypt has al- ways stood on one side of the axis of history and com- merce. 309 DELUSIONS OF EGYPT It is likewise a delusion to look upon Egypt as the earliest civilized country. It is no older, and possibly younger than the first cities on the Euphrates. With brief exceptions the sway of Egypt never reached be- yond Syria, the desert which shuts in the Delta, the Eed Sea, and the junction of the Blue and White Niles. On the other hand, Ethiopia from the south, Asia from the north, Europe from the west, and Arabia from the east have in succession overrun Egypt, which has been African, Persian, Eoman, Arabian and Turkish by turns. Nevertheless Egypt has been a land to reckon with for ages. Through the mouths of the Nile, from earliest times, has flowed a current of art and science into Europe, till Alexander came and gave his name to a Greek city which became a center of learning and commerce. When the Ptolomaic kingdom of Egypt, which was a fragment of the Alexandrian empire, fell to Eome, Egypt, while los- ing independence, gained wealth and prosperity and be- came what it is now, a place of pilgrimage from distant lands. Cities, towns, and temples, monuments and mum- mies, were never so abundant as during the Roman em- pire. Then came the shock of Arab conquest, and the Crusades of which Egypt was one of the objects. Close followed the final misfortune of the Turkish conquest, after which Egypt disappeared from notice, except as a district. It is one of the curiosities of his- tory that for centuries no living man could read the proud and boastful inscriptions on the monuments. The race, of which Cheops and Eameses were members, came down to the ignorant Copts, who spoke a strange tongue out of which ChampoUion later reconstructed the Egyp- tian language. In 1883 the English entered on a "tem- 310 MONUMENTS OP THE PAST porary occupation/' the end of which is farther away to- day than it was a quarter of a century ago. Prom the archaeological point of view Egypt is not so much delusive as fragmentary. The land abounds in splendid monuments; by all the modern standards of size and magnifioence Egypt still possesses some of the most grandiose structures known; its temples are stretched along the Nile Valley for hundreds of miles, the land is full of tombs, of which the pyramids are the most striking; its sculpture in colossal statues, wall reliefs, portrait statues and small figures is still unrivaled in its kind. No people ever made such striking and permanent wall paintings, and in the minor arts of the stone cutter and the jeweler ancient Egypt still furnishes models for the world. In no other country has the climate been so favor- able to preserving the memorials of the past. The mum- mies and the monuments have suffered little from the hand of time, and the Egyptians were adepts in concealing treasures in tombs. It is, however, a delusion to suppose that any considerable part of the antiquities of Egypt have escaped their chief enemy, man. Nearly the whole of the numerous Greek and Eoman buildings have utterly perished. Heliopolis is gone, except the obelisk ; Memphis, which in size and greatness must have equaled the present Constantinople, is reduced to a few acres of crumbling brick; Thebes, which was such another city for greatness, has come down to a few great temples. There is hardly a civil building, from Egyptian or Eoman times, left in the whole land except the recently excavated gate of the castle of Babylon. In fact, ancient Egypt is known to us chiefly by the tombs and tomb temples, many of which are covered by sand blown in from the desert. 21 311 DELUSIONS OP EGYPT The tomb-robber has been a personage in Egypt from, the most ancient times. Even kings of Egypt could not always resist the temptation of emptying out their prede- cessors, and of erasing the cartouches of earlier sovereigns and substituting their own names. Then all the conquer- ors and many of the natives have indulged in an amuse- ment which, in earlier times, was "a sacrilegious profana- tion of the abodes of the dead," and is now "scientific archaeological research." Imagine the excitement of the excavator who iinds a hollow in the sand revealing a door- way in the rock, leading down forgotten stairs to a tomb, where still may be seen on the dusty floor the footprint of the man who closed it 4,000 years ago, while within is a royal mummy, surrounded by treasures of gold and alabaster and stone. Almost every year such a discovery is made of unmolested tombs which are straightway looted for the museum. Of all the monuments, not even excej)ting the temples of Karnak and Luxor, the most striking are the pyramids. Out of the "Seven Wonders of the World," which school- boys used to commit to memory, this is the only one that has come down to our time. They are too stable to be overthrown by earthquakes; they are proof against light- ning; the winds cannot tear them, nor fire assail. A few small ones have been demolished for building ma- terial, and the largest has been robbed of its casing; but the three Great Pyramids are beyond destruction. The largest group stands within easy reach of Cairo and in- cludes more than a dozen pyramids, some of them built of soft material now much broken down, the others sharp, sturdy and uncompromising. Upon the pyramids there is a whole literature. Thirty years ago Piazza Smith, an English astronomer, dug, measured and adored the pyra- 313 THE PYEAMIDS mids till his head went wrong; and he wrote a book, of which the main idea is that the unit of measurement for the pyramids was the pyramid inch (although none of the dimensions are in multiples of the unit). The pyramid inch was nearly (though not exactly) the same as the British inch, hence the French metre is an impious attack upon a God-given institution. That the diagonal of the King's Chamber is just twice the length of the side seems trivial when one is handed like a sack of potatoes down and up the inner passages of the pyramids ; and the ques- tion as to what star the entrance pointed toward dies down when one is looking over the expanse of yellow desert and green valley floor which surrounds the pyramids. That an angular mass of stone can be beautiful in color, in outline, in clear silhouette against the sky, is one of the unexpected pleasures of Egypt. 'Not is the pleas- ure really lessened by the dirty Arabs clamoring for bak- shish; presumably the bakshish paid by the visitors since the time of Herodotus would make a pyramid as high as that of Cheops, while the demands of the camel drivers make one think of Mark Twain's visit to Niagara, when the hack fares were so much higher than the falls that he could not see the latter. All around the pyramids were once sanctuaries and tombs; the temples, with the one exception of the granite temple down by the Sphinx, have disappeared, but the tombs extend for miles ; the whole neighborhood is a dead man's land. The desert sand is full of fragments of masonry. If you pick up a fragment and throw it away, a rowdy boy will get it and try to sell it to you for five piastres. Most people do not realize that almost at the foot of the Pyramid of Sakkara, hardly two hours from Cairo, are some of the most beautiful painted tombs in 313 DELUSIONS OF EGYPT Egypt. Here you may see that fine old Egyptian Ti in his lightning protean changes; Ti on a boat; Ti eating; Ti drinking too much; Ti taking account of stock; Ti fighting; Ti dancing (by deputy in the person of his dancing-girls) ; Ti taking the air; Ti buying his mummy case; while in the background are provided the sinews for these various pleasure of Ti, by flogging the village elders to make them pay more rent. All the comforts of home are to be found in Ti's tomb, where Ti is the "big thing," literally as well as metaphorically, inasmuch as he is represented as several sizes larger than anybody else on the ranch. Ti would seem to belong to what in Philadelphia they call "the prevailing people." Through Ti and his numerous brethren, royal or lay, in the hun- dreds of tombs which have been opened in Egj^pt, we know a vast deal about the actual life of the ancient Egyptians, their pursuits and their pleasures. In addition, the arts and the lives of the Egyptian are set forth in the superb Boulak Museum at Cairo. In the spacious new building is a wonderful series of collec- tions of every kind. Statues, mummy cases, jewelry, furniture, carriages, everything that could have been found in a department store of the Fourth Dynasty. It is some- what discouraging for^the progress of the world and the development of a literary and artistic center in Chicago that the best art is almost the earliest. Witness that fa- mous wall painting of geese which recalls Oliver Her- ford's Goose Girl, "While she reads them hour by hour Prom the works of Scho-pen-hau-er." The statues in wood and stone of the early dynasties are amazing works for any age. The jewelry has been a 314 TOMBS AND MUSEUMS model and a copy for the French. None of the elaborate sculptures exceed in spirit the small wooden and plaster figures, such as the two companies of guards 10 or 12 inches high, and a certain baker who kneels before his trough and holds in his hand a roll, which he contemplates as Benvenuto Cellini would have looked at one of his salt-cellars, the artist carried away by pure art, in love with the shape of his dough. Among the recently acquired treasures of the museum are the royal mummies. Every visitor philosophizes over Eameses II with his long Burgundian chin, strong face and royal dignity; one of the great figures in the world's history looking out of his mummy case upon people whose ancestors were fighting for cave-dwellings when he was an emperor. Comparatively recent are the Grseco-Egyptian mummies and portrait masks. Here we have actual ex- amples of the Greek paintings renowned in ancient times. These are not ideal faces, but portraits frequently plain and unlovely. The museum, tombs and temples taken together are a splendid memorial to a vanished civilization, and yet not a hundredth part of the beautiful and stately things of the past has been preserved. The passing traveler seeks some examples of the early arts, and one of the delusions of Egypt is the belief that there are genuine antiquities outside of the museums. Not many years ago an Ameri- can lady, with great dif&culty, got together a set of "genuine scarabei" for a bracelet to be presented to a President's wife; on her way home she had the happy thought to stop in Berlin and show her treasures to a noted Egyptologist, with the request that he write out for her the meaning of the hieroglyphs on each piece. The poor man examined them, and regretfully explained 315 DELUSIONS OF EGYPT to the owner that he was "unable to read them," for (as he explained to his secretary) it would have been such a pity to let the lady know that the mystic characters were not Egyptian. Another favorite fixed idea is that Egypt is a great center of architecture and sculpture. To be sure, Cairo was, for centuries, the only considerable city in the land, while Alexandria was almost deserted and Memphis had perished. But from the first coming of the Mohamme- dans, not many decades after the prophet's death, Cairo has been built and rebuilt, in considerable part out of the remains of Memphis. With the exception of two or three city gates and a few early mosques, the work of this period has ceased to be. Upon the citadel stand some arches and towers which Saladin saw, but most of the Arab buildings earlier than 1500 A.D. have perished. Even the work of the last four centuries is in all stages of ruin, dilapidation, repair and again decay; most of the famous Tombs of the Caliphs are mere shells of their former glory. On the other hand, some of the most splendid mosques have been recently restored, and just below the citadel an enormous new one is building. The combination of dome and pinnacle and colonnaded court, of arcade and groves of columns, is splendid; and the cunning Arab workmanship in inlaid marbles and deli- cately carved alabaster lends a peculiar grace to the native city. Of all these buildings none gives such entertainment to the traveler as the university in the Mosque El-Azhar. It was closed for a time because the students had been having a fight, or a revolution, or something else corre- sponding to a football match. The reason was that their pay was in arrears; for in this eden of education many 316 AEAB MEMOEIALS students receive a regular salary for bestowing the honor of their patronage. On the day when I saw it discipline had been restored and class work was going on. A series of large halls contains the dormitories, each for a nation, the Sudanese in one room, the Moors in another, the Turks in another. The freshman's problem of furnishings is easily solved, for a roll of bedding with its own insect population, a locker and a valise, were all that the stu- dents seemed to possess. For lecture rooms, laboratories, seminary rooms, and study chambers, the university has one enormous porch, open on one side, the roof supported by many ranges of pillars. On the stone floor teachers, hearers and readers are picturesquely gathered in groups. Some students are committing their lessons to memory, rocking back and forth in Arab fashion; others listen to a grave professor squatting on a raised block before 25 or 30 note-takers. There are said to be 14,000 of the stu- dents, but three-fourths of them must have been out on the bleachers on the day of my visit. There is now an average of a steamer a day from Egypt to Europe. Since the improvement in communication Egypt has become a winter resort; to the mild and equable climate is added the interest of antiquities and the lively streets of modern Cairo. Hence the city abounds in hotels, and as far south as Luxor stand caravansaries of the Eiviera type. It is, however, a delusion to sup- pose that Egypt is a tropical country; the climate is not perfect; even in north Africa there are chill winds, and in April respectable families catch cooperative colds at the Pyramids. At the other extreme of temperature is the Khamsin, the hot breath of the desert, thick with dust as the atmosphere of Market Street, bringing discomfort and ill-temper to man and beast. 317 DELUSIONS OF EGYPT It is likewise a delusion to think that all Egypt has the pure air of the desert. Alexandria is a clean city, as clean as can be found in the Bast; Cairo is foul, the streets are dirty up to the very front of that sacred shrine of foreign travel, Shepheard's Hotel. The dirt that one sees is much less significant than the germ-laden dust, which forever floats out of the native city. The splendor of the mosques is smothered in the dirt, squalor and nasti- ness of their surroundings ; alongside the brilliant costume and green turban are the wretched children with oph- thalmia-laden flies crawling into their eyes. Conditions are better in the health resorts, particularly Helouan, about 15 miles south of Cairo, where numerous go6d hotels cater chiefly for the ailing; but the desert near Helouan looks like the dump heap of a blast furnace, backed by ragged hills. Egypt, as a whole, is a dirty and unhealthy land. The picturesqueness of Egypt is also much overvalued. The Fellahin, descendants of the Pharaohs, in their blue cotton gowns form quaint spots of color in the fields; and in the city you see the Moslem garb of loose trousers and cloak and turban, with now and then a wild Bedouin in his burnouse; but there is no such abounding color as in Hong Kong, or Colombo, or Madras. The veiled women in their almost invariable black gowns are dumpy ; the only ladies who are rigorous in hiding their faces behind veils are the negresses. The street life has been much sobered by European dress, which is everywhere seen. Por a glimpse of the Moslem world Cairo is inter- esting, but in itself not much more picturesque than Naples. Is Egypt taking a larger place in the world, is it to be the outlet of central Africa and the place of exchange for the East? Probably the country has never been so 318 MODEEN CONDITIONS prosperous since Eoman times as during the last 20 years of peace^ good order and extensive immigration from Eu- rope and from other countries. The Delta is covered with a network of railroads^ and a line has been pushed up the Nile, which will shortly be continuous to Khartoum. This means that the products of Egypt, an irrigated country protected by the new reservoir at Assouan, can be cheaply gathered up and sent to market. Egyptian grain, cotton and sugar are staples which always find purchasers. Just now Egypt is much depressed. Eecovery from the panic of 1907 was very slow; and it is difficult to see how the country can ever be anything more than a rich agri- cultural region. There are potentialities in the Sudan, for which lower Egypt is the neck of the bottle, and some- time or other Cecil Ehodes's dream of a "Cape to Cairo Bail way" will come true; but from most parts of central Africa traffic must always go to nearer seaports on the Eed Sea or the east coast. The Suez Canal brings little wealth to Egypt, which it barely skirts, and it is the Suez Canal which has brought the British into the country. Here is the bar to Egypt resuming an independent place in the world. To be sure, the British are giving the Egyptians the most upright government that the race has ever experienced; the peasant has been set free; Alex- andria and Cairo have both attracted thousands of for- eigners, principally Italians, French and Greeks, yet the Egyptians are not satisfied with good government by other people. The Turk, the Arab, and the Pellahin have many rivalries, but unite in disliking the British regime. There have been street disturbances in Cairo, and one as- sassination. The native press is malignant and the Eng- lish are obliged to face a hostility which they are unable to remove by their excellent government. That Egypt 319 DELUSIONS OP EGYPT accepts the British rule as a permanency is another delu- sion. Egypt has a treasure in its antiquities, an advantage in its alluring climate, wealth in the Nile mud; but it is an uncertain land, neither Turkish, Arab nor British, a land of many mingled delusions. CHAPTEE XXX ASIATIC GUESSES IE" the first chapter of this volume attention was called to the present condition of Asia, as a continent for ages the seat of powerful and independent empires, which has now, for the most part, succumbed to the control of Western nations. When Vasco da Gama reached Calicut in 1498 the last vestiges of European sovereignty in Asia Minor and the Holy Land had disappeared. Asia was Asiatic from end to end, except that the Sublime Porte (in origin an Asiatic power), from the conquered capital of Constantinople on European soil, ruled large areas in Asia. There were practically no Europeans within the confines of Asia except a few traders living by sufferance in the outports of the Levant. Even the scanty forward- ing business from Asia to Europe was carried on by Asiatic merchants in overland caravans and coasting trade. To- day the greater part of Asia is governed by Europeans, and its external trade is in the hands of Europeans. From the first coming of the Europeans the splendid and savage military successes of the Portuguese seemed to show that no Asiatic power was safe. Albuquerque ac- tually undertook to carry off the bones of Mohammed, and in 1511 captured the great trading city of Malacca. A Portuguese was the first European to reach Japan in 1540. Then came the Dutch, the British, and later the French on the southern coast, while the Eussians moved 321 ASIATIC GUESSES steadily into the north. Kingdoms and empires were crushed, or became satellites in the involved system of European Powers. In the end the only two Asiatic Powers to survive were Japan, which threw off European influences at a terrible cost; and China, which though shorn on the northwest, north, east and south, and over and over again compelled to drink the dregs of humiliation, has remained an independent empire to this day. The nominal point of view nowadays is that the world is in a state of equilibrium. Napoleon was the last of the would-be world conquerors. The boundaries of Europe, since the consolidation of Germany and Italy, are held sacred. The transfer of Alsace and Lorraine 40 years ago, still seems to the French people a causeless aggres- sion. The completion of the transfer of Bosnia and Herzegovina, though practically decreed in 1878, recently all but roused Europe to a general war against an alleged change of consecrated boundaries. Even such an inter- nal administrative arrangement as the crushing out of the special rights of Finland arouses universal attention. Out- side of Europe, Africa and the islands of the Pacific have now been parceled out among the European Powers; and South America and the Caribbean Archipelago are, by the Monroe Doctrine, practically removed from the theatre of world changes. Asia alone has become more and more the center of international interest. There only does the world still see great changes of boundary and States. The spheres of Eussian and of British influence are not yet completely marked; Persia exists by sufferance of Eussia, England and Germany, and it is not inconceivable that the name of that empire, attacked by the Ten Thousand Greeks and overrun by Alexander, will come to be (like Italy half a 323 DISTTJEBANCE OF BOUNDAEIES century ago) simply a geographical expression. Arabia, the focus of Mohammedanism, is in partial revolt against the Sultan; and if held at all, will be held because of the new railroad from Damascus to Mecca. In the farthest east Japan and Eussia have not ceased squabbling over Man- churia — which is the property of neither of them. It is but a few years ago that Burma was formally deprived of its independence, and became a British province, and the same fate may haply befall Siam. The French have made an Indo-China empire out of successive annexa- tions of Cambodia, Cochin China, and Tongking, while only jleven years have passed since the sovereignty of the Philippines was, without warning, transferred from Spain, which had held it for three and a half centuries. In Asia, furthermore, has sprung up a rivalry among nations which had long been accustomed to contend with one another at nearer range. "Within 30 years the French, English, Germans and Eussians have all seized portions of Chinese territory, and are in a state of angry rivalry both with regard to territorial possessions and com- merce. They are also in contention over the inevitable trans-Asiatic railway lines, with the result that as yet the Eussians possess the only line of railroad communication from Western Europe into Asia, the line projected by the Germans and authorized by the Turkish empire, through the valley of the Euphrates, remaining still on paper. European Powers are by no means so fixed in their Asiatic boundaries as in their home possessions. The Eussians look with envy on British India; the French are jealous of the progress cf England in the Malay Peninsula, and of the recent adjustment with Siam, which gives the British several disputed provinces; the Germans, 323 ASIATIC GUESSES late comers, have only the little dependencies of Tsintau and the Caroline Islands, and would gladly enlarge their Asiatic holdings and influence. So many Western Powers are interested in Asia that a European war would almost certainly be transplanted into Asia, and German ships might bombard Hong Kong, or British vessels blockade Vladivostok, because of issues arising entirely outside of Asia. Deeper than any question of international rivalry is the question of the Asiatic attitude toward Europe — and in the Asiatic sense, the United States is a part of Europe. Sir Henry Norman says that, in a visit to China years ago, he became aware that everybody that looked upon him did so with fear and aversion; that the poorest and dirtiest street boy thought himself superior to the "foreign devil," and that the Asiatic conception of the European was that of a wild beast who must be placated, humored, feared, and even obeyed, but who was not amenable to any ascertained canons of reason. Westerners forget the age and solemnity of Asiatic civilization, and the claims of that continent to the highest intellectual and moral posi- tion, as well as to the highest peaks. Europe has come upon Asia as Eome came upon the States of Asia Minor, a newer and fairer civilization overmastering the armies, but not the traditions of an ancient civilization. People forget that the four greatest proselyting and dominant religions in the world's history are all Asiatic. Buddhism, though much corrupted, is still a tremendous moral force — ^the great bronze contemplative figure at Kamakura in Japan, is an eastern outpost of a religious system which embraces millions of people, and which cor- responds to the Asiatic mysticisms. Confucianism has never spread beyond China and the 334 EELIGIONS Chinese settlers in other lands, but is an intensely practical religion, which, more than almost any other form of human faith, appeals to the sweet reasonableness of good conduct as an advantage in everyday life. Mohammedanism, which originated on the extreme west- ern frontier of Asia, once spread westward as far as the Pyrenees, and still holds parts of the Balkan Peninsula on the northwest, and considerable parts of the interior of Africa; it has worked eastward as far as China, where there are some millions of that faith, and to the Sulu Islands, to say nothing of the vast expanses of India and northern Asia. Buddhism has apparently spent its force, but it is still within the possibilities that Mohammedan- ism may spread beyond its present bounds. It has some of the attractions of Mormonism of the Joe Smith type, and to this day there are nowhere on earth more convinced and faithful worshippers than among the Mohammedans. One of the chief miracles of the Christian faith is that, founded in Asia by an Asiatic, it should have extended throughout the world, and been adapted for all mankind. The missionary in Asia quickly discovers that his converts understand the Scriptures better than he does; the Arab hears when "the sound of the grinding is low." The Scrip- tural figures of speech and many of the Christian forms of worship are Asiatic; and for that reason Christianity ought to make more advance in Asia than has ever yet been its result. To set Asiatics, as a race, down as inferior to Western nations in moral feeling, in religious fervor, in the power to organize vital religions, is to deny the experience of thousands of years. The prevailing Western impression that the Asiatics are all weak, effeminate and unmilitary as a people, is also contrary to the lessons of history. The Malays have never 325 ASIATIC GUESSES built up strong and permanent empires, and they consti- tute the population of the southern fringe of Asia and of many of the islands. For many centuries there has been no considerable Malay island or kingdom, and that is one reason why the lodgment of Western Powers was so easily made in the Spice Islands. But India has been the home of warlike races, and has abounded in powerful and strongly military kingdoms. The Mahrattas, of the western mountains, and the Sikhs and Ghoorkas and Pathans of the north are still among the best soldiers in Asia. The Turkomans also made a long and desperate resistance against the overpowering forces of Eussia. The Persians, from the dawn of history, have been re- nowned as soldiers, and the Turks annihilated the Eastern empire, and long defied the mailed hosts of central Europe. It is a mistake to suppose that there is no potential mili- tary power in Asia; and to expect a few hundred thou- sand European troops permanently to garrison a continent of seven hundred millions. Such volcanic eruptions of conquering hordes as have repeatedly poured out of Asia into Europe are no longer likely, both because the crater of those disturbances in northern Asia is now in Eussian hands, and because modern conditions of transportation and warfare would make it easier to resist such a move- ment; but it is by no means certain that the world will not, within a century, see the rise of a new internal Asiatic Power, which will successfully defend itself against all its European neighbors, and perhaps may become a conquer- ing force. Such a thing would be no more startling and unex- pected than the sudden rise of Japan, which has un- doubtedly given heart to all the Asiatic peoples. In the chapters on that country the effort has been made to show 326 MILITARY POSSIBILITIES the elements of military and governmental strength in Japan. The principal cheek on the further development of that empire is lack of territory. When Korea and Formosa are completely occupied there will still hardly be room for more than a hundred million of Japanese, and that is only a fraction of the population of Asia. A permanent cause of weakness in Japan is the sparseness of natural resources, and the consequent poverty of the peo- ple. Increase of population means less relative wealth for the individual, and, with an extraordinarily unified and almost heroic people, the Japanese can never make head- way in international crises without raising money, which, at present, must be had through Europe. All the world knows that in the war of 1905 it was the loans from the West which enabled Japan to keep the field, and that the likelihood that the current of loans would stop flowing, compelled a peace. The great uncertainty in Asia is China. Ten years ago Western nations were so infatuated as to suppose that they could divide up the Chinese empire, if not into de- pendent colonies, at least into spheres of commercial in- fluences. It was like putting down shallow wall-nets into the Yellow Sea and saying: "The fish in this square mile are British, in the next German," and so on. What would happen if the German fish swam into the English pre- cincts, or if they refused to swim at all? China is a concentrated country, in a sense unknown to the rest of Asia. India, for example, abounds in races and languages, while throughout China there is the same official language and dialects akin; the same written language; the same three native religions — Confucian, Buddhist and Tao- ist; the same literature and traditions; substantially the same race. The whole land owes somewhat unwilling 23 327 ASIATIC GUESSES homage to the same emperor; is divided into provinces of the same empire. China is by no means a timid or unenterprising country. Chinese armies have pushed far to the vrest and north; great areas have been conquered and annexed. The Chi- nese Wall may mark a series of advancing frontiers. It is not at all certain that this spirit of external conquest may not revive, and an improvement in army and navy (which is not at all impossible) would make China a re- doubtable military power. It is the hope of the most sa- gacious mandarins that by 1915 they may have, at their disposal, two or three hundred thousand good troops, drilled in the European system; and since the country is producing a large part of its own military material, such a force might be expected to make head against any expedition which combined Europe could despatch to the eastern coast of Asia. It, therefore, seems improbable that, within a century, Peking will see another invading force. The nation is imbued with the feeling that its first duty is to reassert its national dignity, and to take a position where it need no longer make concessions and treaties which it believes outrageous, because the demand is backed up by warships. China has territorial aspirations of her own. Thibet, Tongking, parts of Burma — were once Chinese, and ought to be again. Like Japan, China is, at present, poor because the re- sources of the country are still undeveloped. The mag- nificent river valleys support several hundred million peo- ple, but, unlike Japan, China has the most magnificent coal fields on earth and a wealth of other mineral. China is not only the most populous, but, potentially, perhaps the most powerful of modern nations. The first, and crying, need is for railroads. If China could build as 338 CHINA many miles a year as the IJnited States with perhaps a tenth the population built in the seventies, that difSculty would disappear in two or three decades. The world is bound to recognize that China might, with a compara- tively slight alteration of material and political forces, become a factor which must be reckoned with in every turn of Asiatic politics. Count Komura, perhaps the ablest man now in Japan- ese public life, has said that the regeneration of China must lag behind that of Japan because when the new period began in Japan, half a century ago, there was a constituency of half a million educated samurai who were the foundation for the new ediiice, and that there is no similar body of persons in China. It is true that the want of even a limited middle class makes it very hard to reorganize the empire, but the Chinese are en- deavoring to repair that lack by educating, partly in China, and partly in foreign countries, a body of chosen youth, out of whom are to come the mandarins of the next generation. Those 500 or more able young men, who now appear in the classrooms of American universities, will, 25 years hence, be provincial treasurers and viceroys and foreign ministers. This raises the serious question of Westernization. In a chapter above on that subject the view has been ex- pressed that the Japanese will take over that portion of Western civilization which seems to them adapted to their needs. Popular education they have accepted and have made a splendid instrument for drawing out the latent powers of their people; many elements of material civilization — railroads, telephones, electric lights, the post office, the factory system — ^have also been adopted. A group of national Christian churches has been founded. 329 ASIATIC GUESSES Still there is no present indication that either the cos- tume or customs of the West will be accepted, simply because they exist. Japanese law has been profoundly modified in order to provide for the modern commercial system; but the spirit of old Japan survives, and neither the astute heads of the nation nor the now large educated middle class, nor the peasants in the fields, feel the need of becoming completely Westernized. In southern and western Asia, Europeanization is only a veneer; only one country — India — is provided with a network of railroads, and in that country the native Chris- tians are about 1 per cent, of the population, and the Europeans about one-tenth of 1 per cent. Factory methods and the cultivation of estates on a large scale, have come into India and Ceylon, but Western literature, habits and points' of view are much less effective in India than in Japan. If left to themselves, as the Japanese have been, it is doubtful whether any of the Indian peoples would seek for Western civilization, except as it might contribute to their military de- fense. Only one European power has made any effort to oc- cupy Asia with its own people, and that is Eussia, which, as Kipling reminds us, is not the most Eastern of West- ern nations, but the most Western of Eastern nations. In truth, Eussia and the Eussian form of government are essentially Asiatic, so that the problem of national assem- blies and popular government in that country is not much less difficult than in India and China. However, hun- dreds of thousands of people born west of the Urals are now living in Siberia, and that region promises to become much like the Canadian Northwest, which it resembles in contour and climate. At any rate, Eussia is powerfully 330 JAPAN, INDIA AND EUSSIA influenced by European relations and politics, and a con- siderable part of Asia is Russian. Just now the principal disturbance caused by Russia is the effort to reach the Pacific at a convenient and ice-free port. No large country in the world is so cut off from a good sea front as Russia. The Baltic is a winding and in- convenient canal; the Turk still sits at the outer gate of the Black Sea, and Vladivostok is not a suitable approach to the commerce of the Pacific. The Russians are deter- mined to have a footing in the Gulf of Pe-Chi-Li and though they have lost Port Arthur and Dalny, they are now in accord with the Japanese, who are seated there; and the Russian nation will never rest till it secures a tongue of territory reaching from the upper Amur country to the China Sea. No diplomacy, no force, no promises, will ever hold the Russians back from that outlet, and to reach it they must take or keep possession of at least a part of Manchuria. Otherwise there is very little likelihood that any part of Asia or the islands will be held by colonies of resident Europeans. The Americans will not settle in the Philip- pines, nor the Dutch in Java and Sumatra, nor the Eng- lish in any of their immense possessions; all these colo- nies must be held by armed garrisons, if held at all, and in case of a European war, when, perhaps reinforcement is impossible, those garrisons may find themselves sud- denly in the midst of a hostile people. The most uncertain element in Asia is still China. That empire has recently been taught its own weakness by two terrible lessons. The first the annexations of Port Ar- thur, Wei Hai Wei, Tsintau and Kowloon, after the Japanese-Chinese War of 1895; the other the Boxer Re- bellion of 1900, in which Chinese authorities were neither 331 ASIATIC GUESSES able to keep order nor to stave off the invasion of their country by foreign contingents. Both these lessons have been taken to heart. Notwithstanding those occult palace intrigues by which the most talented and successful states- men are liable to be banished from public life, there is coming to the front a body of Chinese leaders who demand that precautions shall be taken as to both of these disas- ters. Against internal risings, the city and railroad police, which one iinds throughout eastern China, are a great security. The new army ought to keep out the foreigner, while the development of internal resources, and especially of transportation, is expected to restore the unity of the empire and to insure its future prosperity. Towards these ends Westernization will be invoked so far as it seems helpful, and no farther. The Chinese are determined to build their railroads without creating liens on the property in favor of foreign investors. While freely drawing on the advice of Europeans, they do not mean to reorganize the empire under foreign counsels. Education will probably be eventually organized on a national scale; but no education can eradicate the traditions and customs of the country. There is no good reason for supposing that China will ever accept the position for which Japan seems striving, a membership in the sisterhood of Western Powers. Does this mean the yellow peril? So far as that peril depends on a combination of Japan and China against Europe, it seems extremely unlikely; the Japanese hoped, after 1900, to become the instructors of China, but they have been rebuffed; their commercial policy exasperates, and many of the Chinese have a strong personal antipathy toward the Japanese. A vigorous, heartfelt and defensive alliance between these two Powers seems about as likely 333 IS THERE A YELLOW PEEIL? as one between Turkey and Eussia, or Austria and Italy. As for China alone, it must never be forgotten that when the country is once provided with railroads, it could send to its own frontier an army of 3,000,000 men, and could repair losses of a million a year by new recruiting, without much diminishing its productive power. For a long time this military potentiality will be on the defensive. Will the Mongolian ever turn his horses westward, as in past ages? Geography is unfavorable to a land movement from China toward Europe; western China is hedged in by terrible mountains; northwestern China is flanked by a desert ; the carrying of great armies by sea has never been successfully practiced by any nation — even the mighty United States saw its military or- ganization disordered by the problem of conveying 35,000 men a few hundred miles to Cuba. The people most ex- posed to the yellow peril are the Russians, who have a long Chinese frontier, and whose aspirations in Manchuria are aggravating to the Chinese. It is conceivable that in time to come Chinese armies may push westward to a point where all Europe must join to resist; but the present spirit of the empire is not one of conquest, but of consolidation. China has a vast work to do in perfecting her government, in reorganizing her financial system, in training an army, in making distant provinces parts of the whole system. With the growth of the railroads the central government is certain to make it- self felt in a new activity throughout the provinces, and the present vast governing powers of the viceroys will certainly be reduced. Civil wars are not impossible, and in the last one — ^the Tai Ping rebellion of the fifties and sixties, 20,000,000 people were wiped out. China has also a seri- ous dynastic question : The Manchurian empire is unstable, 333 ASIATIC GUESSES for many years the empress dowager has been the one able sovereign^ and she was a kind of usurper. If there were any great rival house to raise the standard of revolt the Manchurian dynasty would probably fall. To get China under way as a propulsive force means a prelimi- nary period of internal organization and improvement which must certainly last a great number of years. Nevertheless, nothing can be more certain than that henceforth both China and Japan must be heard, and in general must be reepected, in all distinctly Asiatic ques- tions. If the Eussians were only just now approaching the mouth of the Amur, would Japan look on quietly at such an appropriation of the coast opposite their empire? If Lord Clive were just beginning his military career in India, would not the Chinese government at least at- tempt to express an opinion on the desirability of foreign conquests in Asia. Neither of the two remaining Asiatic Powers can any longer be ignored by the West. The present European colonies and settlements in China are likely to be the source of serious disturbance in the future; the whole theory of extraterritoriality, of the treaty ports, and of the so-called "settlements" in Chinese cities is based on the principle that Chinese law, justice and administration are not only different from European but far inferior. What would be the effect on France if the English and Germans should seize the port of Mar- seilles, part of Brittany, and the island of St. Michel, and were using them as the only outlets of French external commerce. Yet that is what the Japanese, English and Germans have done on the Chinese coast. In what other nation do lines of foreign steamships appropriate the immense commerce of the great rivers, and establish entrepots of trade under their own flags ? 334 EUEOPEAN POSSESSIONS It is written in the books of the fates that whenever the Chinese acquire sufficient strength, and the for- eign Powers are occupied elsewhere, they will simply push the settlements at Wei Hai Wei, Tsintau and Hong Kong into the sea and readjust their own coast line. Sooner or later the same thing must happen to the concessions in the treaty ports. N"o visitor to Shanghai doubts for a moment that the European city is immeasurably better governed than the adjacent native city, but it is an afEront to the national dignity to keep up what are practically foreign islands of territory in which resident Chinese are free from the operation of their own national laws. Japan has insisted that extraterritoriality shall cease within that Empire. Some time China, whether or no the Western Powers think it timely, will equally insist that their laws shall run, and the flag of China shall fly everywhere within the boundaries of that country. The wisest statesmen often err in speculation. James Bryce has shown how curiously the mighty mind of Alex- ander Hamilton failed to see the real dangers to America, and predicted evils that have never come. Just what will happen in Asia no man can predict, but it is reasonably certain that both Japan and China will continue indefi- nitely as the leading Asiatic Powers, leading in intelli- gence, in military strength and in influence among na- tions. There is not in existence at the present moment, in either of those two countries, any force which is adequate to Westernize them. They are not like Australia or the Ar- gentine, which expect all their growth to accrue under European national standards; they will always have their own standards and traditions. The Asiatic Christian mis- sions are a great power in the East — in China more than elsewhere; and a considerable body of Asiatic Christians 335 ASIATIC GUESSES may be expected. It seems improbable, however, that within a century, or two centuries, either India, China or Japan will be converted, as the barbarians of northern Eu- rope were converted. These two great Powers are likely to be sufficiently strong to maintain themselves against external force; and as time goes on will more and more resent any treatment throughout the world which is based on the idea of their inferiority. A tariff system which aims to protect Ameri- can industry and at the same time to strike at similar protection of Chinese or Japanese industry, will surely rouse resentment. A refusal to receive Chinese or Japan- ese while Americans of a similar class insist on a right to enter China or Japan will leave the seeds of a perma- nent sense of injury. Insulting treatment of Chinese or Japanese gentlemen, in American ports by customs officers, infallibly reacts in the treatment of Americans in Asia. For the United States to raise unnecessary issues or provoke unnecessary animosities in the East is un- statesmanlike. The question of the admission of Chinese and Japanese laborers is one in which the position of the United States is a wise one, but its methods are often harmful. There is no difficulty in negotiating arrange- ments with the two Asiatic Powers upon the assumption that the treaty-making nations are equal in dignity, and their people equal in intelligence and civilization. Neither of these two governments cares to have its laborers go to America; both of them bitterly resent their exclusion on the ground that they are morally and intellectually defi- cient. In these, as in all other questions, the policy of the United States is to avoid barren controversies, and to secure what it desires by direct and frank negotiation. In this respect the United States holds a better position 336 POLICY OF GOOD WILL in eastern Asia than any other Power. It has no terri- torial aspirations in continental Asia, and doubts whether it has any in the islands of the Pacific. What is there between the American and Asiatic coasts which neither Japan nor the United States has and which they both want ? What rivalries has the United States with China ? The great policy of the "Open Door" sagaciously an- nounced by Secretary Hay in 1900, is not only sound and vital for the future trade of this country, but it satisfies the Oriental nations. Through our possession of a great stretch of the Pacific coast in America, and by our sover- eignty over the Philippine Islands, the United States becomes, in a sense, an Asiatic Power, and is on better terms with its Asiatic neighbors than any other nation. The advantages of peace, and a respectful treatment and recognition of the greatness of Japan and China, are national assets which should be carefully conserved by American statesmen. THE END INDEX INDEX Abacus, use of, in Japan, 125. Aberdeen, 54, 55. Aden, 286, 295. Africa, general attitude to- ward, 4. Alaska, 62-80; Americans in, 73; area of, 72; coast of, 65 ; discovery of gold in, 63 ; divisions of, 71, 72 ; early inhabitants of, 66, 67; Es- kimos in, 73 ; farming in, 77; fisheries of, 78; forests in, 77; French in, 73; gov- ernment of, 78, 79; Indians in, 66, 67, 72, 73 ; mines and mining in, 71-77; natural scenery of, 65, 69, 70; peo- ple of, 63; population of, 72, 73; sea voyage to, 63, 64, 68, 69; railroads in, 79; Russians in, 73 ; seal fish- eries of, 62 ; steamers to, 71 ; towns of, 67, 73, 74, 80 ; transportation problem in, 79, 80 ; white population of, 73, 74. Alaska Steamship Company, 63. Alaska- Yukon-Pacific Exposi- tion, 1908, 50. Alberta, 22, 23, 29. Aleutian Islands, 69, 71, 83. Alexandria, Egypt, 318. Ambassadors, in Peking, 227. American Colonies, 245-281. See also Philippines. American fleet, reception of, by Japanese, 106, 107. Americans, attitude of, to- ward the Philippines, 250, 251, 270-281;. in Alaska, 73; in Canadian Northwest, 31 ; in China, 222, 224; in Ja- pan, 94 ; in the Philippines, 249, 250, 251, 267, 269, 273- 275. Amoeba in the Philippines, 254. Amusements in the Philip- pines, 250. Anacosta, 54. Anarchism, case of, in Shang- hai, 204, 205. Anti-imperialists on American occupation of the Philip- pines, 275. Antiquities of Egypt, 311-315. Anuradhapura, Ceylon, 305- 307. Appalachian mountains, 62. Apple raising in Oregon, 34, 35. 341 INDEX Arab building in Egypt, 316. Arabia, political situation of, 323. Architecture in Egypt, 316, 317; Japanese, 115-118. Area of Alaska, 70; of Ore- gon, 33 ; of Philippines, 246 ; of Washington, 41. Aristocracy of Japan, 104, 105, 111, 112, 113. Army, Chinese, 236, 237, 333; in British colonies in Asia, 293, 294 ; in the Philippines, 265; Japanese, 101, 131. Art, Egyptian influence upon, 308, 309; Japanese, 114, 115, 139, 140 ; school, Japan, 129. Asano, Lord, 104. Asia, attitude in, toward Europe and United States, 324; center of international interest, 322-324; European conquest in, 321, 322 ; Euro- pean interests in, 322-324; European rivalry in, 323, 324 ; Europeans in, 330, 331 ; military potentiality of, 326 ; people of, characteristics of, 325, 326; political con- ditions in, 5-7, 321-337; re- lations of, with United States, 8; religions found- ed in, 324, 325; Russian influence in, 330, 331; the great wonderland of the world, 4, 5; westernization of, 8, 329-332. Asiatic hotels, 20; transpor- tation, 18-20. Assassination of KimokoK Kuro, 153; of Prince Ito, 150, 152, 156; of Richard- son, 151 ; of Stevens, 152 ; of Viscount Mori, 151. Assassinations in Japanese history, 150-152. Assembly, legislative, in the Philippines, 261, 262, 279. "Assessor" in Chinese mixed court, 198, 199. Assiniboia, 22. Astor, John Jacob, Astoria founded by, 32. Astoria, founding of, 36. Atami, 84. Attu, 69. Australasia, general attitude toward, 3. Austrian Lloyd steamship line, 14. B Banana in the Philippines, 273. Banks, Japanese, 148. Basket making, Indian, in Alaska, 67. Battle with the Filipino in- surgents, 1899, 265. Bazaars, Japanese, 166. Bedouins, 318. Beebe, Dr., head of Methodist Hospital, Nanking, 218. Belgians in China, 238. Bell Tower, Peking, 195. 342 INDEX Bellingham, 54. Bilibid prison, 254. Blaine, Oregon, 54. Blue Funnel Line, 12, 58. Boat trains in China, 175-177. Boats, Chinese, 173, 175-178. Bonnell, Miss, of the Door of Hope, Shanghai, 200, 202, 203. Boston Evening Transcript, 7. Boston Steamship Co., 57. Boulak Museum, Cairo, 314, 315. Boxer troubles in China, 218, 234, 236, 331. Brazen Palace, Anuradha- pura, 306. Breakwater at Manila, 246. Bribery in Chinese govern- ment, 212. Bridges in China, 174, 183; near Manila, 247. Brigandage in the Philippines, 264, 265. British Colonies, 285-337 ; British law in, 289; extent of, 285, 286; policy of Eng- lish toward, 288, 289. British colonies in Africa, 286, 287. British colonies in Asia, 286; acquirement of, 287 ; British army in, 293, 294; defenses of, 295; foreigners in, 292; governmental problems in, 294; race and religious problems in, 290-292; social and economic conditions in, 290-292; system of govern- 23 ment in, 289, 292, 293; westernization of, 295, 296; British colonies in China, 225, 226, 227, 286. British Columbia, 22, 30, 34. Bryan, W. J., 7. Bubonic plague in the Philip- pines, 254. Buckle, Mr., theory of natural development applied to na- tions by, 159. Buddhism, 324 ; in Japan, 163. Buddhist temples in China, 188. Buddhists in India, 291. Budget, Japanese, 135, 136. Buildings in Egypt, 316; In Peking, 194, 195; in the Philippines, 248, 249. Burghers in Ceylon, 299. Burlingame, Anson, 228. Burma, 286, 323. Butterfleld and Swire, 178. C Cailles, Governor of La La- guna, 266, 279. Cairo, 316, 318; Boulak Mu- seum at, 314, 315. Calgary, Canada, 25. California, coast of, 62. Camel, use of, for transporta- tion in China, 174. Canada, northwestern, sei Canadian Northwest ; popu- lation of, 30; possibilities for growth of, 30. Canadian boundaries, adjust- ment of internal, 28. 343 INDEX Canadian Northern Railway, 26. Canadian Northwest, 21-31 ; Americans in, 31 ; climate of, 21, 23, 29; development of, 21-23, 29-31; emigration to, 21, 22, 23, 24; farming in, 22-24 ; grazing in, 29 ; growth of cities in, 29; im- migration into, 28 ; miner- als in, 28; police system in, 24; railroads in, 21, 22, 25- 27, 29; Russian Doukho- bors in, 31 ; Scots in, 31 ; timber in, 29 ; transporta- tion problem in, 27 ; wheat lands of, 25. Canadian Pacific Railway, 25, 27, 52, 54, 56. Canadian Pacific steamship line, 12, 63. Canadian Parliament, 30. Canal, Suez, 309, 319. Canals, Chinese, 175 ; in Cey- lon, 304. Canton, China, 192, 193; for- eign settlement in, 223; mob in, 240 ; population of, 189; shops In, 188. Cape Nome, Alaska, 71. "Cape to Cairo Railway," 319. Capitalists and the Philip- pines, 276. Carnival, the Philippine, 250. Carpet industry in Tien-Tsin and Peking, 188. Caste system in Japan, 103, 104. Castles, Japanese, 116, 117. Cebu, coal mines at, 272. Central Pacific steamship line from Puget Sound, 57. Ceremonial in Chinese govern- ment, 208. Ceylon, 286, 287, 297-307; ad- vantages of English govern- ment to, 292 ; agricultural products of, 301-303; cities of, ancient and modern, 304-306; cofCee culture at- tempted in, 302 ; commercial position of, 298 ; costumes in, 299, 300; diseases in, 307; English residents of, 298, 299 ; exports from, 300- 303; government of, 298; history of, 297; labor in, 303 ; natural scenery of, 298; people of, 307; pests in, 307 ; precious stones in, 300, 301 ; prosperity of, 300 ; races in, 299 ; roads in, 304 ; situation of, 298; spices in, 301 ; temperature of, 307. Chamberlain, Governor, of Oregon, 39. Chargeurs Rgunis, 58. Chefoo, a typical one of the smaller Chinese cities, 189; population of, 189. Chentung Lian Chen, Sir, 219. Chicago, Milwaukee and Pu- get Sound Railway, 12. Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway, 53. Child slavery in China, 201- 203. 344 INDEX Children, Japanese, 103, 124- 127. China, 173-242 ; a concentrated country, 327 ; administra- tion of, 208; army in, 236, 237, 333 ; attempts to estab- lish spheres of influence in, 327; attitude of, toward Ja- pan, 217; attitude of, to- ward United States, 217; attitude of, toward Western civilization, 240, 241 ; atti- tude of United States to- ward, 227, 236; British pos- sessions in, 225, 226, 227, 286; canals in, 177; carpet industry in, 188; Chris- tianity in, 241 ; cities of, 185-196 ; "concessions" to foreigners in, 204, 221 ; cos- tumes in, 180, 181, 183, 231 ; council of advisors to Em- peror of, 208, 214, 215; courts of, 197-207; courts for foreigners in, 224 ; crime in, 199-206 ; defeated by for- eign powers, 235, 236; edict concerning foreigners in, 214; education in, 209-211, 233-235, 241, 332; examina- tion system in, 209-211, 234 ; extraterritoriality in, 334, 335; farms in, 182; foreign colonies in, 225-227; for- eigners in, 221-230, 238, 239 ; French colony in, 225, 323; general appearance of coun- try in, 182, 183, 185; Ger- msin colony in, 225, 226; 345 government of, 208-220 ; gov- ernment buildings in, 188; graft in, 212; graves in, 182, 183; Great Wall of, 178-180 ; Imperial Palace of, 195 ; independence of, 322 ; Japanese colony in, 225 ; Japanese relations with, 145 ; Japanese steamship lines in, 178; lack of edu- cated class in, 329; land transportation in, 174, 175, 180-184, see also China, railroads in; local govern- ment in, 223-225; Loess country in, 183; Manchus in, 214, 218; military pow- er of, 328; missionaries in, 229; missions in, 232-234 modern improvements in, 232; Mongols and, 178, 179 national dignity of, 328 natural resources of, 328 need of railroads in, 328. 329; official class in, 209 219; outlook for, 241, 242 pagodas in, 187, 188; peopli of, 182 ; pirates in, 192 ; po- lice of, 198, 228, 236, 332 population of, 229, 230 Portuguese colony in, 225 railroads in, 180-184, 218, 219, 226, 237-242, 332; rela- tion of Japan to, 332, 333 relations of, with Korea, 152, 153; roads in, 174 schools in, 218 ; shops in, 188;. slavery in, 201-203 steamers in, 177, 178 INDEX steamship lines to, from San Francisco, 57; Tai Pings in, 190; task of in- ternal organization of, 333, 334; taxation in, 212, 213; temples in, 188, 195; terri- torial aspirations of, 328; torture in, 197; travel in, 173-184 ; treaty of 1842 with England, 222; treaty of 1844 with United States, 222; treaty of 1859 with United States, 222; treaty of 1868 with United States, 222; treaty ports in 222, 334, 335; villages in, 182, 186; voice of, in Asiatic questions, 334; water trans- portation in, 175-178; west- ernization of, 231-242, 332. China Merchants' Steam Navi- gation C!o., 178. Chincona in Ceylon, 302. Chinese, attitude of, toward foreigners, 228, 229; char- acteristics of, 231 ; foreign education of, 220, 232, 233; in British colonies, 292; in Japan, 84, 94, 95, 103; in salmon canneries, 45 ; in Penang, 290 ; in Singapore, 290; in the Philippines, 249; in Victoria, Hong Kong, 290; In Washington, 42 ; intermarriage of, with Malays, 290. Chinese boats, 173, 175-178; labor in the Philippines, 274; language in Japanese schools, 127; pirates, 176, 177. Chinese Eastern Railway, 238. Cholera in the Philippines, 254, 255. Chosans, the, 104. Christianity, Asiatic origin of, 325; in China, 241; in In- dia, 330; in Japan, 163-165, 329 ; in the Philippines, 247, 248. Church question in the Philip- pines, 253. Churches in the Philippines, 248, 249. Cities of Canadian Northwest, growth of, 29. Cities of China, 185-196; filth of, 186 ; gates of, 187 ; popu- lation of, 189; streets of, 186 ; walls of, 185, 186. Cities of Japaji, population of, 87, 88. City of Spokane vs. Northern Pacific Railway Co., 59. Clergy in the Philippines, 253 ; political power of, 247. Climate of Canadian North- west, 21, 23, 28; of Ceylon, 307; of Egypt, 309, 311, 317; of Japan, 111; of Oregon, 35, 36; of the Philippines, 247. Clubs in Japan, 97. Coal deposits in Alaska, 76; in Canadian Northwest, 28; in China, 328; in Oregon, 34; in the Philippines, 272; in Washington, 43. 346 INDEX Coast of Alaska, G5; of Ja- pan, 84. Coastwise traffic on Pacific coast, 56. Cock figliting in the Philip- pines, 250. Cocoa in Ceylon, 302. Cocoanut culture in Ceylon, 303 ; in the Philippines, 271. CofEee growing attempted in Ceylon, 302. Colombo, 290, 298, 304. Colonial policy of England, 288. Colonies, American, 245-281, see also Philippines; Brit- ish, 285-337, see also Brit- ish Colonies; foreign, in Chma, 225-227; French, in China, 225; German, in China, 225, 226; Japanese, in China, 225; Portuguese, in China, 225. Columbia River, 41, 60; and commerce, 56 ; commercial rivalry of, with Puget Sound, 54, 55; discovery of, 32; narrowing channel of, 55. Columbia Elver and North Bank Railroad, 53, 54. Commerce, Ceylon in, 298 ; De- partment of, Philippines, 260; Egyptian, 319; Hong- Kong a center of, 227; Jap- anese, 147, 148, 167; Philip- pine, 247, 251, 252, 268; ri- valry for, in Coast States, 54, 55. Commercial schools in Japan, 127, 128. Commission, Philippine, 257- 260. Commissions, provincial, in the Philippines, 262. "Concessions," to foreigners in China, 204, 221. Confucian temples in China, 188. Confucianism, 324, 325. Connecticut, flagship, recep- tion on, 107. Constabulary. 8ee Police sys- tem. Constantinople, 311. Consuls at Shanghai, power of, 223. "Continuation schools," in Ja- pan, 128. Coolies of Japan, life of, 86. Coos Bay, 54. Copper deposits in Alaska, 74; in the Philippines, 272. Copra in Ceylon, 303; in the Philippines, 247, 271. Costumes in Ceylon, 299, 300; In China, 180, 184, 194, 231 ; in Egypt, 318; in Japan, 159-161; in the Philippines, 245; Mongol, 181. Council of advisors to Chinese Emperor, 208, 214, 215. Court, Alaskan, 78; Chinese, 197-207. Courtroom in Shanghai, 198. Courts for foreigners in Shanghai, 224; in English 347 INDEX dependencies, 289; in the Philippines, 260. Crime in China, 199-206. Crown ordinances in Japan, 136. Cyin Kuh Chu, 216. Cyprus, 287. D Dagobas in Anuradhapura, 306. Daimios, the, 104, 113-115, 118. Dawson, Alaska, 72. Defenses of British colonies in Asia, 295. Democracy in China, 209; in Japan, 113. Denby, Consul-General, 198. Department of Commerce, Philippines, 260. Derfflinger, 16. Dialects, Philippine, 252. Diamonds in Canadian North- west, 28. Diet, Japanese, Imperial, 133- 138. Diplomatic life in Japan, 99, 100. Disease in Ceylon, 307 ; in the Philippines, 254, 255. Dixon Entrance, Canada, 27, 62. Doane, Thomas, and Northern Pacific, 53. "Door of Hope," Shanghai, 200. Doshisha, the, 129. Drew, Mr. Edward B., 212. Dutch, in Asia, 321 ; in Cey- lon, 299. Duties, import and export, Chinese, 212 ; import, in the Philippines, 263. E Economic conditions in Egypt, 318, 319 ; problem of Japan, 147-149. Edicts, imperial, in China, 213, 214. Edmonton, 23, 26, 27, 29. Education in China, 233-235, 241, 332; in China, English language in, 234; in China, examination system in, 200- 211; in Japan, 112, 11.3, 120-130, 329; in Japan, de- partment of, 120, 121; in Japan, foreign influence on. 99, 129 ; in Japan, of wom- en, 168 ; in Japan, statis- tics of, 121-123; in Oregon, 36, 37, 39; in the Philip- pines, 277, 278; in Wash- ington, 49, 50; of Chinese, foreign, 220, 232, 233, 329; of Indians in Alaska, 72. Egypt, 286, 287, 308-320; archaeological treasures of, 311-315 ; architecture and sculpture in, 316, 317; as a winter resort, 317 ; British government in, 319, 320; climate of, 309, 311, 317; costumes in, 318; economic conditions in, 318, 319; ex- 348 INDEX tent of, 309; filth in, 318; foreigners in, 319 ; history of, 310, 311 ; picturesque- ness of, 318 ; position of in art, 308, 309 ; position of, in civilization, 309 ; railroads in, 319; situation of, 309. Embassies at Peking, siege of, 195, 196; to Japan, 100. Emperor of China, council of advisors to, 208, 214, 215. Emperor of Japan, 117 ; devo- tion to, 113 ; powers of, 133, 134, 135, 136; review of troops by, 108, 109. Emperor of Russia, attempted assassination of, 152. Empress dowager of China, 214. England, China defeated by, 235 ; colonial policy of, 288 ; colonial possessions of, 285, 287 ; comparison of Japan with, 159; comparison of, with Rome, 285, 287 ; treaty of 1842 with China, 222. English, the, attitude of, to- ward natives of English colonies, 288, 289; in Asia, 321 ; ui Ceylon, 298, 299 ; in China, 238; in Colombo, 290; in Penang, 290; in Singapore, 290; in the Phil- ippines, 249 ; occupation of Egypt by, 310, 311. English language in Chinese schools, 234; in Japan, 96, 126, 127, 161, 162; in the Philippines, 249, 277. English railroad in China, 238. Equal Suffrage Association, Oregon, 38. Eskimos in Alaska, 73. Eugene, Oregon, population of, 33. Eurasians in Ceylon, 299. Europe, attitude toward, in Asia, 324; general attitude toward, in United States, 4. European conquest in Asia, 321, 322; interests in Asia, 322-324; rivalry in Asia, 323, 324. Europeans in Japan, 04; in the Philippines, 249. Examination system in China, 209-211, 234. Excavations in Egypt, 312. Export duties, Chinese, 212. Exports, Egyptian, 319; from Ceylon, 300-303. Extraterritoriality, 221-225, 334, 335. P Famine in China, 237. Fares, boat, in China, 175, 177; on trans-Pacific steam- ers, 13, 14. Farm lands in the United States and Canada, 22-24. Farming in Alaska, 77; in Washington, 46-48. Farms in China, 182. Fayerweather range of moun- tains, 65. Fellahin, 318. 349 INDEX "Fengshuey," 180, 187. Filipino problem as compared with the negro problem, 279, 280. Filipinos, as laborers, 274 ; at- titude of, toward the gov- ernment, 268, 269; battle with, 1899, 265 ; characteris- tics of, 249, 250; in public service, 260, 267, 265, 276, 277 ; physical characteristics of, 253, 254; racial charac- teristics of, 253. Finances, Indian, 293 ; in Ja- pan, 142, 143 ; in the Philip- pines, 263, 264. Finns in Canada, 24. Fire, danger, of, in Japanese buildings, 116. Fish in Japan, 84. Fish wheels prohibited in Oregon, 34. Fisheries in Alaska, 78 ; in the Philippines, 272; in Wash- ington, 43-45 ; pearl, in Cey- lon, 801 ; salmon, in Oregon, 34; seal, of Alaska, 62. Five-storied Pagoda, Canton, 192. Fleet, United States, 143, 145 ; reception of, by Japanese, 106, 107. Forbes, W. Cameron, govern- or-general of the Philip- pines, 259. "Forbidden City," 195. Foreign colonies in China, 225- 227; influence on Japanese education, 129, 130; office. Tokio, 118; settlement at Canton, 223; settlements in China, 221, 222, 223, 225, 226; settlements in Shang- hai, 221, 223-225. Foreign-built railroads in China, 238. Foreigners in British colonies in Asia, 292. Foreigners in China, 221-230; and westernization, 232, 233, 235 ; "concessions" to, 204, 221 ; edict concerning, 214 ; general attitude to- ward, 228, 229; in Peking, 194; in Shanghai, 221, 223, 224, 225 ; in Victoria, Hong- Kong, 290; number of, 229, 230. Foreigners in Egypt, 319. Foreigners in Japan, attitude of Japanese toward, 93, 99, 101 ; attitude of, toward Japanese, 98, 99; classes of 93, 94; distribution of, 94; influence of, in diplomatic life, 99, 100 ; influence of, on education, 99; number of, 94, 95; quarters of, 95, 96; relations of, with Japanese, 97, 98 ; service of, to Japan, 101; social life of, 97. Forest reservations, 34. Forests in Alaska, 77 ; in Ore- gon, 33, 34; in Washington, 46. Formosa, 141, 145. Fort Churchill, Canada, 29. Fort William, Canada, 25, 26. 350 INDEX Fortification of Ctiinese wall, 179. Fortifications, British, 295. Foster, John W., 228. Freight rates, importance of, in the Pacific Coast States, 51. French, China defeated by, 235 ; in Alaska, 73 ; in Asia, 321; in China, 238; in Egypt, 319. French Cochin China, 225. French colony in China, 225, 323 ; concession in Shang- hai, 223 ; railroad in China, 288. Friar lands in the Philippines, 253, 263, 277. Fruit in the Philippines, 247. Fujiyama, 84, 85, 139. Funeral procession in Peking, 194. Furniture factories in the Philippines, 271, 272. G Galle Face, the, at Colombo, 20. Gambling in Macao, 225. Gas, natural, in Canadian Northwest, 28. Gates, city, Chinese, 187. Gateways, Japanese, 116. Genro, Japanese, 134, 135, 136, 138, 157, 158; Prince Ito, a a member of, 152. German colony at Tsintan, 178; colony in China, 225, 226 ; railroad in China, 238. Germans in British colonies, 292; in China, 238; in the Philippines, 249. Ghoorkas, 326. Gibraltar, 287. Gibson, Mr. John, 272. Glacier, Mulr, 69. Glaciers of Alaska, 65, 79; on Pacific coast, 64. Globe-trotters in Japan, 95. "Glory Hole," 75. Goeien, 15. Gold deposit in Alaska, 63, 74- 76 ; in Oregon, 34 ; in the Philippines, 271; in Wash- ington, 43. Government, British, in Egypt, 319, 320; in British dependencies, 289, 294 ; in Oregon, 37; of Alaska, 78, 79; of British colonies in Asia, 292, 293; of Ceylon, 298; of China, 208-220; of Japan, 131-138; of Japan, local, 132; of Shanghai, 223-225; of the Philippines, 246, 256-269 ; republican, in China, 241. Government construction of railways in Canada, 26; control of Japanese rail- roads, 87; control of public utilities in Japan, 131, 142, 143, 147; forestry in Japan, 85 ; ownership of railroads in China, 239, 240; reform in Japan, 165; supervision of Philippine railroads, 264 ; 351 INDEX transports to Philippines, 12. Governor-general of the Phil- ippines, 258-260. "Graft" in Chinese govern- ment, 212. Grand Canal, China, 175. Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, 12, 26, 27. Granville Channel, 64. Graves in China, 182, 183. Gray, Captain, discoverer, of Columbia River, 32. Grazing in Canadian North- west, 29. Great Northern Railway, 53, 56. Great Northern Steamship liine, 57, 58. Great Pyramids, 312, 313. Great Slave Lalse, 23. Great Wall of China, 178-180. Greeks in Egypt, 319. Greenville Channel, 69. Guggenheim interests in Alaska, 79. H Hakama, the, 160. Hakushi, the, 121. Hamburg-American Steamship Co., 14, 178. Hankow, 191, 192 ; population of, 189. Han Tang, China, 191. Harbors on Pacific Coast, 55. Harriman railroads, 52. Hart, Sir Robert, 212, 228. Head hunting in the Philip- pines, 265. Heliopolis, 311. Helouan, Egypt, 318. Hemp in the Philippines, 247. High schools in Japan, 126- 128. Hill, James, 58. Hill system of railroads, 52, 53 ; and Oriental trade, 57. Hindus in India, 291 ; in Washington, 42. Hoang Ho River, 177, 183; bridge over, 183 ; plain of, 181-183. Hokkaido, 85 ; foreigners in, 94. Homesteads in the Philip- pines, 273. Hong-Kong, 226, 227, 286-288, 290, 335 ; defenses of, 295. Hop industry in Oregon, 34. Hoso-o Pass, Japan, 89. Hotels, Asiatic, 20 ; Japanese, 90, 91, 97. House of Peers, Japan, 105, 133, 134. House of Representatives, Japanese, 133. Houseboats, Chinese, 175, 176. Houses in Japan, 86, 88, 90, 115, 116. Houses of Parliament, Japan, 118. Hudson, Mr., of Presbyterian mission, China, 215. Hudson Bay, 28, 30. 353 INDEX Ide, Governor-General, of the Philippines, 259. leyasu, 118. Iloeaans, 253. Immigration in Canadian Northwest, 24, 28; in the Philippines, obstacles to, 273-275. Imperial Diet of Japan, 183- 138. Imperial edicts in China, 213- 214. Imperial Museum of Art, Ky- oto, 140. Imperial Palace, Japan, 118 ; Peking, 195. Imperial University of- Tokio, 99, 129. Import duties, Chinese, 212 ; in the Pliilippines, 263 ; India, 286, 287; British army in, 293, 294; Chris- tianity in, 330 ; finances in, 293 ; race feeling in, 291; raihvays in, 293, 330 ; religion in, 291 ; rep- resentative government in, 289; social conditions in, 290, 291; warlike tribes of, 326; westernization of, 330. Indians in Alaska, 66, 67, 72, 73 ; in British colonies, 292. Industrial changes in Japan, 166. Industries in Japan, 142, 147. Industry, carpet, in Peking and Tien-Tsin, 188; furni- ture, in Philippines, 271, 272 ; silk, in Canton, 193. "Inland Empire," 42, 48, 54. Inouye, Japanese statesman, 134, 158. "Insular government," 256- 269 ; advantages of, 264-267 ; advantages of, to the Philip- pines, 275, 276, 277 ; attitude of Filipinos to, 268, 269 ; at- titude of, toward the Fili- pinos, 276, 277; defects of, 267, 268; executive depart- ment of, 257-260; finances and, 263, 264; judiciary of, 260 ; legislative department of, 261, 262. Intermarriage of Chinese and Malays, 290. Internal steamer tralHc on Pacific Coast, 56. International controversy over salmon, 44. International Institute of China, 2.35. International rivalry in Asia, 323, 324. "International Settlement" in Shanghai, 223. Interstate Commerce Commis- sion, 58, 59. Interviews with Chinese of- ficials, 216-219. Intoxication in Japan, 103. Irrigation in "Washington, 48. Irwin, Wallace, 102, 103. Italians in Egypt, 319. Ito, Prince, appointed "resi- 353 INDEX dent general" in Korea, 154 ; assassination of, 150, 152, 156 ; political career of, 156- 158. Japan, 83-170 ; homogeneity of, 112 ; administrative or- ganization of, 132; arable land in, 85 ; architecture of, 115-118; art of, 84, 114, 115, 139, 140; attitude of Chinese to, 217 ; attitude of, toward Russia, 145, 146; at- titude of, toward United States,, 144, 145 ; attitude of, toward Western civilization, 167 ; banks of, 148 ; centrali- zation in, 113, 114 ; charac- teristics of life in, 90, 91, 92, 93; check to develop- ment of, 327 ; children in, 103, 124-127; China defeat- ed by, 235 ; Christianity in, 163-165, 329; cities of, 87, 88; claims of, in Man- churia, 238; class distinc- tion in, 113 ; climate of. 111 ; commerce of, 93, 118, 119, 147, 148, 167; comparison of China with, 240, 241; com- parison of, with England, 159; contrast of, with rest of Asia, 111 ; coolies in, life of, 86; costume in, 159-161; country life of, 89-91 ; crime in, 103, 106; democracy in 113; diplomatic life in, 99, 100; economic problem of, 147-149; education in, 112, 113, 120-130, 329; education in, foreign influence on, 99 : Emperor of, 113; English newspapers in, 96, 97; fifty years ago, 3 ; finances of, 142, 143 ; fish of, 84 ; foreign influences on, 140; foreign policy of, 101, 140; foreign- ers in, 93-101 ; future of, 169, 170 ; government of, 181-138; government control of public utilities in, 181, 142, 143, 147; government reforms in, 165 ; higher class in, 104, 105; hotels In, 90, 91; houses in, 86, 90, 115, 116; independence of, 322 ; industrial conditions in, 166 ; industries in, 142, 147 ; language of, 112 ; law in, 163, 380; lower classes in, 102 ; medicine In, 162, 163 ; merchants in, 148 ; middle classes in, 108 ; mili- tary service in, 108, 109, 143, 167; mills in, 89; mis- sions in, 163-165 ; modern conveniences in, 165, 166; natural scenery of, 88-86; navy of, 148, 144, 146 ; news- papers in, 137 ; occupancy of Korea by, as compared with United States and the Phil- ippines, 155, 156 ; opening of first treaty ports in, 93; people In, 102-110; Philip- pines compared to, 246 ; picturesqueness of, 139; po- 354 INDEX lice service in, 103; policy of, toward foreigners, 93, 99, 101 ; political conditions in, 137, 138 ; political parties in, 133; population of, 94, 141 ; possessions of, 141 ; poverty of, 327 ; Prince Ito's political services in, 156 ; professional class in, 105; public buildings in, 118, 131 ; public improvements in, 329 ; public opinion in, 136, 137; railroads in, 142, 143, 147, 132; relations of, with China, 145, 332, 333; rela- tions of, with Korea,150, 152- 158; religion in, 163-165; rice culture in, 86 ; science in, 162, 163 ; sea voyage to, 83 ; silk industry in, 90 ; so- cial classes in. 111 ; social life in, 106-110; status of women in, 167, 168 ; steam- ship lines to, from San Francisco, 57 ; temples of, 116, 117; timber in, 85; tourists in, 95 ; travel in, 86 ; trolley lines in, 166; urban population of, 87, 88; use of English language in, 96, 161, 162; voice of, in Asiatic ques- tions, 334; war of, with Russia, 144; wealth of, 141, 142 ; Western knowledge of, 98 ; Western trained Japan- ese in, 100, 101 ; westerniza- tion of, 130, 159-170, 329, 330; women of, 106, 107, Japanese, ambitions of, 140- 149; attitude of business foreigners toward, 98, 99; characteristics of, 102, 103, 104, 105, 109, 110, 113, 139, 147, 148; compared with Americans, 119; differences among, in race. 111, 112; foreign trained, 100, 101; homogeneity of, 112; in British colonies, 292; in China, 223; in Washington, 42. Japanese-Chinese war of 1895, 331. Japanese colony in China, 225. Japanese Inland Sea, 84. Japanese language, 112, 161, 162 ; steamship lines in China, 178. Jardine, Matheson & Co., 178. Javanese in British colonies, 292. Jewelry, Egyptian, 311, 314. Jinrickshaw, 87. Judiciary in the Philippines, 260. Juneau, 78, 80; gold placers at, 74. Junks, Chinese, 173. Justice, administration of, in China, 197-207. K Kamakura, 324. Kandy, 301, 305. Karuizawa, 84. Kashing, China, 186, 189, 190 ; 355 INDEX pagoda In, 187; walls of, 185. Kasligar, 328. Katsura, member of Genro, 134. Keiogijiku University, 99, 129. Kiaochao, China, 226. Kidnapping in China, 201- 203, 205. Kimokok Kuro, assassination of, 153. Kindergartens, Japanese, 124. Kipling, Rudyard, 294. Klondyke Creek, 72. Kobe, 88, 95 ; English newspa- pers in, 96 ; foreigners in, 96, 97. Korea, 12, 141, 150-158; atti- tude of, toward Japan, 156 ; Chinese relations with, 152, 153; history of, 152-154; Japanese relations with, 152-155 ; occupancy of, by Japan, 153-156; Russian re- lations with, 153. Koreans, characteristics of, 152; in Japan, 94, 95. Kuge families in Japan, 113. Kuro Sivra Japan current, 63. "Kuruma," 87. Kwang Su, Emperor of China, 215. Kyoto, 95 ; foreigners in, 94 ; Imperial Art Museum at, 140 ; Mikado's palace at, 115 ; missionary college at, 129 ; population of, 88 ; uni- versity at, 129. Kyushin, foreigners in, 94. Labor in Ceylon, 303; in the Philippines, 274. Ladd, Prof., on Japanese occu- pation of Korea, 155. Lama temple, Peking, 188. Land tax in China, 213 ; in the Philippines, 263. Languages spoken in the Phil- ippines, 252. Lava beds of Oregon and Washington, 33. Law in English dependencies, 289; Japanese, 101, 163, 330; Spanish, 260. Lawton, General, 279. Legations at Peking, siege of, 195, 196. Legislature in the Philippines, 261. 262. Leprosy in the Philippines, 254. "Letters of a Japanese School Boy," 103. Lewis and Clark expedition, 32. Lewis and Clark Exposition, Portland, 1906, 33, 50. Li Hung Chang, 178, 215; at- tempted assassination of, 151, 152. Likin, the, 212, 213. Literature in Japan, 112. Local government in China, 223-225; in Japan, 132; in the Philippines, 262, 2(y-',. Loess country, China, 183. Luetsow, 15. 356 INDEX Lumbering in ttie Philippines, 271, 272 ; in Wastiington, 45, 46. Luzon, 246, 247. Lynn Canal, 65, 69, 72. M MeKinley, President, 251. MeKinley, P. I., 246. Macao, Portuguese colony in China, 225. Mackenzie River, 23. Magistrates, Chinese, 198. See also OflBcial class in China. Mahometans in the Philip- pines, 248. Mahrattas, 326. Maklno, Baron, Japanese min- ister of education, 120. Malaria in the Philippines, 254. Malay Federated States, 286, 287; good government in, 292 ; plantations in, 293 ; tin mines in, 293. Malays, characteristics of, 325, 326; intermarriage of, with Chinese, 290. Malta, 287. Manchuria, 12, 153, 323; Jap- anese claims in, 238 ; Rus- sians in, 238. Manchus in China, 214, 218. Mandarins, 211, 213, 216, 219. Manila, 245, 246; Chinese in, 249 ; modern improvements in, 246. Manitoba, 22, 28. Manual training in Japanese schools, 125, 128. Manufactures in Washington, 43; Japanese, 147, 148. Matsukata, Marquis, 108, 157; member of Genro, 134; sons of, 105. Medical school at Manila, 246 ; in Japan, 129. Medicine in Japan, 162, 163. Megata, Baron, 154. Memphis, 311. Merchants, foreign, in Japan, 93, 99; Japanese, 148. Messageries Maratimes, 14. Mestizos in the Philippines, 248. Mihintale, Ceylon, 305. Mikado, 112, 114, see also Emperor of Japan; palace of, 115. Military authority in the Philippines, 257 ; element in Japanese society, 105 ; pow- er of China, 328 ; service in Japan, 108, 109, 143, 167. Mills in Japan, 89 ; lumber, in Washington, 46. Milwaukee and St. Paul Rail- way, 56 ; trade connection of, with O. K. K. steamship line, 58. Mineral wealth of Alaska, 74- 77 ; of Canadian Northwest, 28 ; of Oregon, 34. Mines in Alaska, 71, 72 ; in the Philippines, 272 ; tin, in Ma- lay Peninsula, 293. Ming dynasty, 190, 195. 357 INDEX Mining in Alaska, 73-77, 78 ; in Wasliington, 43. Minnesota, 12, 13. Missionaries, first, in Oregon, 32; in Cliina, 221, 222, 226, 229; in Japan, 94, 97, 164; in the Philippines, 253; summer headquarters of, in Japan, 84. Missionary college at Kyoto, 129. Missions in China, 232-234 ; in Japan, 163-165 ; in the Phil- ippines, 247. Mitsui, family of, in Japan, 105. Mixed Court of Shanghai, 198- 207, 224. Mobs, Canton, 192, 193, 240. Mohammedanism, extent of, 325. Mohammedans in Egypt, 316, 318; In India, 291. Moji, 95. Mongolia, 12. Mongols, Chinese wall a pro- tection against, 178, 179; costume of, 181. Mori, Viscount, assassination of, 151. Moros in the Philippines, 248. Moslems. See Mohammedans. Mosque El-Azhar, university in, 316, 317. Mosques in Egypt, 316, 317. "Most-favored-nation" clause in treaty of 1868, 222. Mount Baker, 64. Mount Ranier, 64, 85. Mountains, American, 62 ; Ap- palachian, 62 ; of Alaska, 65, 69; of Ceylon, 298; of Japan, 83-85; of Pacific coast, 64, 65. Muir Glacier, 65, 69. Mummies, Egyptian, 311, 312, 315. Municipal Gagette, The, of Shanghai, 224. Music, Academy of, Japan, 129. Myanoshlta, 84. N Nagasaki, 88, 95 ; foreigners in, 96. Nagoya, castle at, 116 ; for- eigners in, 94 ; population of, 88. Nanking, 186, 190, 191; de- struction of pagoda at, 187 examination corral at, 209 temple of Confucius in, 188 viceroy of, 218, 219; wall of, 185. Narra, 272. Naval element in Japanese so- ciety, 105. Navigazione Generale Itali- ana, 14. Navy, Japanese, 101, 131, 143, 144, 146. Neesima, Joseph, founder of the Dashisha, 129. Negritos in the Philippines, 248. Negroes in Washington, 42. 358 INDEX Newspapers, English, in Ja- pan, 96, 97; Japanese, 137. Nikko, 84, 95. Nile, 309. Nome, gold placers at, 74. Normal schools, 129. North Bank Railroad, 53, 54, 55, 56. North Coast Railroad. See North Bank Railroad. North German Lloyd line, 14, 15, 16. North Pacific steamers from Portland, 57. Northern Pacific Railway, 52, 53, 56, 57. Northern Securities Corpora- tion, disallowed by Supreme Court, 53. Norton, Charles Eliot, 10. Nuwara Eluja, 305. N. Y. K. steamship line, 12, 14, 57. Official class in China, 209- 219; in Japanese society, 105. Officials, British, in Ceylon, 298 ; Chinese, interviews with, 217-219; in the Insu- lar government of the Phil- ippines, 267. Oishi Kuranosuki, 104. O. K. K. steamship line, 12, 58. Okuma, Count, 133, 137; mem- ber of Genro, 134. Ontario, 28. "Open Door" policy, 337. Oregon, 32-40; apple raising in, 34, 35; area of, 33; cli- mate of, 35 ; conservatism in, 36; development of, 48; early explorations in, 32; education in, 36, 37 ; forests of, 33, 34; governmental methods in, 37-39; hop growing in, 34; mineral wealth of, 34; possibilities of, 39, 40; salmon fisheries of, 34 ; wheat raising in, 34. Oregon Equal Suffrage Asso- ciation, 38. Oregon River & Navigation R. R., 52, 53. Oregonian, 39. Oriental and Occidental steamship line, 57. Oriental trade, effect of American tariff on, 59 ; with United States, 57-61. Osaka, foreigners in, 94; population of, 88. Over-sea traffic from Pacific Coast, 57-61. Oyama, member of the Genro, 134. Pacific Coast, coastwise traf- fic along, 56; internal steamer traffic on, 56; mountains along, 64, 65 ; over-sea traffic from, 57-61 ; transportation problems on, 51-61. Pacific commerce and travel, 34 359 INDEX of yesterday and to-day, 9- 13. Pacific Mail Steamship line, 12, 57. t^acific steamers, life on board, 16, 17. Pacific Steamship Company, 63. Pagodas, 187, 188, 192. Painting, Egyptian, 311, 313, 314. Palace, Imperial, Japan, 118; Peking, 195. Palaces, Japanese, 115, 116. Panama canal, and Pacific ports, 61. Parliament, Canadian, 30 ; Japanese, 131, 133, see also Diet. Parties, political, in Japan, 133. Pathans, 326. Pawnshops in China, 188, 189. Pax Britannica, 285-296. Peace River Valley, 23. Pearl industry in Ceylon, 300, 301. Peasants, Japanese, 105. See also Coolies. Peers, House of, Japanese, 133, 134. Peking, 193, 196; a center of foreign influence in China, 227 ; carpet industry in, 188 ; diplomatic quarter in, 222 ; governor of, interview with, 217; population of, 189; in, 188; siege of em- bassies at, 196; walls of, 185, 186. Pelouse district, Washington, 47, 48. Penalties for crime in China, 109-206. Penang, 290, 292, 293. Peninsula and Oriental Line, 14, 15, 16. Peril Straits, 64. Perry, Commodore, 93, 119, 140. Persia, political situation of, 322, 323. Persians as soldiers, 326. Petroleum in Canadian Northwest, 28. Philippine Commission, 257- 260. Philippines, 245-281 ; advan- tages of Insular Government to, 275, 276, 277; American fallacies regarding, 270-281 ; Americans in, 249-250, 251, 267, 269 ; amusements in, 250 ; area of, 246 ; army in, 265; assembly in, 279; atti- tude of Americans toward, 250, 251 ; brigandage in, 264, 265; British defenses and, 295; buildings in, 248, 249; Chinese in, 249; church problem in, 253; churches in, 248, 249; cli- mate of, 247; commerce of, 251, 252, 268; comparison of, with Japan, 246; cos- tumes In, 245; courts in, 260; Department of Com- 360 INDEX merce in, 260; disbanded soldiers in, 278, 279; dis- ease in, 254, 255 ; education in, 277, 278; finances in, 263, 264; foreigners in, 249; friarlands in, 253, 263, 277; future of, 280, 281 ; government of, 256- 269, see also Insular Gov- ernment; government trans- ports to, 12 ; head-hunting in, 265 ; homesteads in, 273; judiciary in, 260; la- bor in, 274; languages used in, 249, 252 ; legislature in, 261, 262; local government in, 262, 263; Mestizos in, 248 ; missionaries in, 253 ; natural wealth of, 270-273; obstacles to immigration in, 273-275 ; police system in, 250, 265, 266 ; population of, 246 ; products of, 247 ; race feeling in, 279 ; railroads in, 264; religion in, 247, 248, 253; roads in, 247; self-gov- ernment in, 280 ; Spaniards in, 247, 248, 249; tarifE in, 263; taxation in, 263, 264; towns in, 248 ; trade of, 247; transfer of sovereignty of, 323 ; transportation in, 245; United States in, com- pared with Japan in Korea, 155, 156; war in, 264, 265; wild tribes of, 248, 264, 265. Pickpockets in Japan, 106. Pilgrim, 52. Pirates, Chinese, 176, 177, 192. Placer mining in Alaska, 71- 77, 78. Plantations in Malay Penin- sula, 293. Planters, British, in Ceylon, 298. Police, Canadian, 24 ; impe- rial, Japanese, 131 ; in China, 198, 228, 236, 332 ; in Japan, 103; in the Philip- pines, 260, 265, 266; Sihk, 198, 204, 292. Political conditions in Japan, 137, 138 ; parties in Japan, 133. Poll tax in the Philippines, 263. Polonnaruwa, Ceylon, 305. Popular election of Senators in Oregon, 37, 38. Population, of Alaska, 72, 73; of Canada, 30; of Canton, 189; of Chefoo, 189; of China, 229, 230; of Han- kow, 189 ; of Japan, 94, 141 ; of Japanese cities, 88 ; of Manila, 246; of Peking. 189; of Philippines, 246; of Shanghai, 189; of Washing- ton, 42. Porcupine Creek, gold at, 74. Port Angeles, 54. Port Arthur, 225, 226. Port Arthur, Canada, 25. Portland, Oregon, 32, 33, 43, 55, 60 ; North Pacific steam- ers from, 57; population of, 33. Portuguese in Ceylon, 297, 361 INDEX 299; in China, 225; in Ja- pan, 116; military successes of, in Asia, 321. Pott, Dr. Hawlis, 233. Precious stones in Ceylon, 300, 301. Press, foreign, in Japan, 96, 97. PribylofC Islands, 71. Prince Rupert, 12, 27, 30. Princess Alice, 16. Professional element in Japan, 105. Provincial governments in the Philippines, 262, 263. Public buildings in China, 188 ; buildings in Japan, 118, 131, 132; improvements in Japan, 329; opinion in Japan, 136, 137. Puget Sound, 55, 56, 60; and the Central Pacific, 57 ; com- mercial rivalry of, with Co- lumbia River, 54, 55. Pyramids, 312, 313. Quebec, 28. E Race, differences of, in Japan- ese, 111, 112; feeling in In- dia, 291; feeling in the Philippines, 277, 279. Races in Ceylon, 299; in the Philippines, 253. Raffles, Sir Thomas Stamford, 286, 292. Railroad, Canadian Northern, 26; Canadian Pacific, 25, 26, 27, 52, 54, 56 ; "Cape to Cairo," 319; Chicago, Mil- waukee and Puget Sound, 12 ; Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul, 53 ; from Singapore to Penang, 293; from Skag- way to the Yukon river, 72 ; Grand Trunk Pacific, 12, 26, 27; Great Northern, 53, 56; Milwaukee & St. Paul, 56; North Bank, 53, 54, 56; North Coast, See North Bank; Northern Pacific, 52, 53, 56, 57; Oregon River & Navigation, 52, 53; South- ern Pacific, 52, 53, 56, 60, 219 ; to Hudson Bay author- ized by Canadian Govern- ment, 28 ; Trans-Siberian, 18, 19; Union Pacific, 52. Railroads, Asiatic, 18-20 ; Har- riman system of, 52; Hill system of, 52, 53; Japanese imperial system of, 133; in Alaska, 79 ; in the Canadian Northwest, 21, 22, 25-27, 29 ; in Ceylon, 304; in China, 180-184, 218, 219, 226, 237- 242, 332; in China, foreign built, 238 ; in China, govern- ment ownership of, 239, 240 ; in China, influence of, 184; in Egypt, 319 ; in India, 293, 830; in Japan, 86, 87; in Japan, government control of, 87, 132, 142, 143, 147; in the Philippines, 264; In- 362 INDEX fluence of, on Pacific Coast cities, 54 ; need of in China, 328, 329; on tlie Pacific Coast, 51-61 ; President Roosevelt and, 58; rates of, on shipments from Pacific Coast, 58, 59; rival systems of, in Coast States, 52, 53; trans-Asiatic, 323. Railway concessions in China, 238; fares, in Japan, 87; stations in China, 182; sta- tions in Japan, 87. Rameses II, mnmmy of, 315. Rates, railroad, on shipments from Pacific Coast, 58, 59. Referendmn in Oregon, 36, 37. Reforms, government, in Ja- pan, 165. Reid, Dr. Gilbert, 235. Religion, Christian, in China, 241; in India, 291; in Ja- pan, 163-165; in the Philip- pines, 247, 248, 253. Religions, dominant, 324, 325. Representatives, House of, Japanese, 133. Republican government in China, 241. Revolution in Japan, 113, 114. Rice in the Philippines, 247. Rice fields of Japan, 86. Richardson, assassination of, 151. Rivers of Japan, 85. Roads in Ceylon, 304; in Lu- zon, 247. Rock of Aden, 286, 295. Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines, 247 ; mission- aries, in China, 229. Roman Catholics in the Phil- ippines, 253. Rome, England compared with, 285, 287. Ronins, Forty-seven Faithful, 104. Roosevelt, President, 46, 251; and railroads, 58. Rubber plantations in Ceylon, 302, 303. Rubies, in Ceylon, 301. Russia, effort of, to acquire an ice-free Pacific port, 331 ; Emperor of, attempted as- sassination of, 152; influ- ence of, in Asia, 330, 331; Japanese attitude toward, 145, 146; relations of, with Korea, 153. Russian Doulihobors in Cana- dian Northwest, 31. Russians in Alaska, 67, 73 ; in Asia, 327; in Manchuria, 238. Russo-Japanese War, 144 ; ef- fects of, in Asia, 294. S St. John's College, Shanghai, 233. St. Michaels, Alaska, 71. Sake, 103. Salaries of Chinese officials, 212, 213. Salmon fisheries of Oregon, 34. Salmon industry in Alaska, 363 INDEX 78; in Washington, 43-45. Sampans, 173. Samurai, the, 103 104, 112, 167, 168. San Francisco, 12, 55, 60; steamship lines from, to China and Japan, 57; the great Pacific port, 57. Sapphires in Ceylon, 301. Saskatchewan, 29. Satsumas, the, 104. Scandinavians in Canada, 24 ; in Washington, 42. Scenery of Alaska, 65, 69, 70 ; of Ceylon, 298; of Japan, 83-86. School, art, in Japan, 129 ; buildings in Japan, 123, 125, 126, 127; for Indians in Alaska, 72 ; medical, at Ma- nila, 246; of foreign lan- guages, Japan, 129. Schools, in China, 218; mis- sion, 233. Schools in Japan, 120-130; commercial, 127, 128 ; "con- tinuation," 128 ; foreign teachers in, 99; grades in, 124, 125; high, 126-128; medical, 129; normal, 129; primary, 124, 125 ; technical, 128, 129 ; westernizing, in- fluence of, 130. Schools in the Philippines. 277, 278. Schurman, President, 257. Science in Japan, 162, 163. Scots in Canadian Northwest, 31. Sculpture, Egyptian, 311, 314, 315. Sea, importance of, in Japan, 84; voyage by, to Alaska, 63, C4, 68, GO; voyage by, to Japaji, 83. Seal fisheries of Alaska, 62. Seals, Alaskan, 71. Seattle, 12, 42, 43, 46, 49, 60; as a railroad terminal, 56; population of, 33 ; steam- ship lines from, 57. Secondary schools in Japan, 99. Secretary of War, position of, regards Philippine Commis- sion, 258. Self-government in the Phil- ippines, 261, 262, 280. "Settlements" in Chinese cities, 334. Seymour Narrows, 64. Shan Hai Kwan, 180; a type of Chinese city, 189. Shan Tung Peninsula, 178. Shanghai, 186, 335 ; courts for foreigners in, 224; foreign- ers in, 221, 223, 224, 225; government of, 223-225 ; mixed court of, 198-207, 224; population of, 189; waterfront of, 173. Shipping, Pacific Coast, 55-61. Shoguns, 106, 112, 114. See also Tokugawas. Shops, Chinese, 188; in Can- ton, 193. Siam, 323. Siberia, 12, 330. 364 INDEX Siege of the embassies at Pe- king, 195, 196. Sigiriya, Ceylon, 305. Signs, English, in Japan, 161, 162. Sikh police, 198, 204, 228, 292. Sikhs, 326. Silk Industry in Canton, 193; In Japan, 90. Silver in Alaska, 74 ; in Wash- ington, 43. Singapore, 290, 292, 293. Sinhalese people, 305 ; in Ceylon, 299, 300. Sitka, 69. 78, 80 ; founding of, by Russians, 67. Slavery in China, 201-203. Slavs in Canada, 24 ; in Washington, 42. Smallpox in the Philippines, 254. Smith, governor-general of the Philippines, 259. Smith, Piazza, and the Pyra- mids, 312, 313. Snowfields of Alaska, 65, 69. Social classes in Japan, 111 ; life in Japan, 106-110; life of foreigners in Japan, 97. Socialism in Japan, 92, 147. Soil in the Philippines, 270, 271. Soldiers, disbanded, in the Philippines, 278, 279. Solomon, Mr., 301. "Sourdoughs," 63, 73. South America, general atti- tude toward, 3. South Bend, Oregon, 55. Southern Pacific Railroad, 52, 53, 56, 60, 219. Spaniards, in the Philippines, 247, 248, 249. Spanish language in the Phil- ippines, 249, 252 ; law in the Philippines, 277. "Spheres of Influence" in China, 238. Spices in Ceylon, 301. Spokane, Washington, 48. State socialism in Japan, 147. Statues, Egyptian, 314, 315. Steamers, Asiatic, 14, 15 ; in China, 177, 178; Japanese, 84; Pacific, 13, 16, 17; to Alaska, 63, 71; trans-Pa- cific, 12, 13. Steamship lines for an Asiatic voyage, 14-16; from Seattle, 57; to Japan and China from San Francisco, 57. Steamships, Japanese, in China, 178. Steel works at Han Yang, China, 191. Stevens, assassination of, 152. Stores, Chinese, 188. Streets of Chinese cities, 186; of Japanese cities, 88 ; of Manila, 246. Students, Egyptian, 316, 317. Subsidies, railroad, in Cana- dian Northwest, 28, 29. Sudan, 319. Suez Canal, 309, 319. Sugar in the Philippines, 247. Sulus in the Philippines, 248. 365 INDEX Sulzer, Congressman, 73. Syrians in Canada, 24. Tacoma, 12, 42, 43, 49, 55, 60 ; as a railroad terminal, 56; population of, 83. Taft, William H., 154, 251; and the Philippines, 259, 261, 280. Tagalog dialect, 249. Tagalogs, 253. Tai Ping rebellion, 185. Tai Pings, 190. Taku, 69. Tamils, 292; in Ceylon, 299, 300, 303. Taoist temples in China, 188. Tariff, American, effect of, on Oriental trade, 59; Philip- pine, 263, 268. Tartar city of Nanking, 190; of Peking, 185. Tartar general in China, 214. Tax collection in China, 213, 219. Taxation in China, 212, 213; in Japan, 142; in the Phil- ippines, 263, 264. Tea culture in Ceylon, 302, 303. Teachers, foreign, in Japair, 93; Japanese, 121, 124, 125, 126, 127. Technical schools, 128, 129. Telephones in Japan, 142. Temple of Heaven, 195. Temple of the Tooth, 305. Temples, ancient, in Ceylon, 305, 306; Egyptian, 311, 313; in China, 188; In China, Buddhist, 188; in China, Confucian, 188; in China, Taoist, 188; in Pe- king, 195 ; Japanese, 116, 117. Tenyo Maro, 83. Territorial aspirations of China, 328. Thebes, 311. Tl, 314. Tibet, 328. Tibetans, 194. Tien-Tsin, carpet industry in, 188. Timber in Canadian North- west, 29; in Oregon, 33, 34; in the Philippines, 271, 272. Tin mines in Malay Penin- sula, , 293. Tingwans in the Philippines, 248. T. K. K. Steamship line, 12, 57. Tobacco crop in the Philip- pines, 247. Tokio, 84, 88, 95; and the Japanese point of view, 100 ; art museum in, 140 ; build- ing in, 117, 118; center of Japanese government, 132, 133; civil officials in, 105; commercial school in, 127 ; Daimios in, 105 ; diplomatic life in, 99, 100; English newspapers in, 96; foreign interest in, 100; foreigners 366 INDEX in, 94, 95, 96, 101; high school in, 126; impe- rial review of troops at, 108, 109; Imperial University of, 99, 129; mob in, 103; population of, 88; railway terminal in, 87 ; schools in, 123, 127, 128, 129 ; social life in, 109, 110 ; temples in, 116, 117. Tokugawa, Prince, 157. Tokugawas, the, 104, 114, 118, 119; downfall of, 119. Tomb of Ming sovereigns in Nanking, 190. Tombs, Egyptian, 311-314; of the Caliphs, 316. Tonking, 328. Torture in China, 197. Totem poles, Indian, in Alas- ka, 66. Tourists at Canton, China, 192; in Alaska, 63; in Ja- pan, 95. Towns in the Philippines, 248; of Alaska, 67, 73, 74, 80. Trade, see also Commerce; Japanese, 93, 118, 119, Phil- ippine, 247, 251, 252, 268. Trails, Alaskan, 80. Transportation, Asiatic, 18-20; in Canadian Northwest, 25- 27; in Ceylon, 304; in China, 332; in China, land, 174, 175, 180-184; in China, water, 175-178; in Japan, 86, 87; in the Philippines, 245, 264; Pacific, 9-18; on the Pacific coast, water, 51, 52 ; to Alaska, 63, 68, 71 ; to Japan, 83. Transportation problem in Alaska, 79, 80 ; in the Cana- dian Northwest, 27, 28; on the Pacific Coast, 51-61. Trans-Siberian Railway, 18, 19. Travel in China, 173-184; in Japan, 86, 87. Treadwell mines, Alaska, 75, 76. Treaty of 1842 between Eng- land and China, 222; of 1844 between China and the United States, 222 ; of 1854, Japanese, 140; of 1859, be- tween China and the United States, 222; of 1868, be- tween China and the United States, 222; of 1885, be- tween Japan and China, 157; of 1895, for cession of Port Arthur, 157; of Ports- mouth, 1905, 158. Treaty ports in China, 222, 334, 335; Japanese, 132. Trolley lines in Japan, 166 ; system in Manila, 246. Troops, British, in India, 293, 294. Tsintan, 225, 335 ; German col- ony at, 178. Tsukiji, the, 95. Tuan Fang, viceroy at Nan- king, 218, 237. Tuberculosis among Indians in Alaska, 73. 367 INDEX Tunnel under the Cascades, 53. Turkomans, 326. Turks, military strength of, 326. Tyee Island, 68. U Ueno Art Museum, Tokio, 140. Union Pacific Railway, 52. United States, attitude of Chinese toward, 217; atti- tude of Japan towards, 144, 145; attitude of, toward China, 227, 236 ; attitude to- ward, in Asia, 324; in China, 239; in the Philip- pines, Japan in Korea com- pared with, 155, 156 ; policy of, toward Philippine trade, 252 ; relations of, with Asia, 8; treaty of 1844, with China, 222; treaty of 1859, with China, 222; treaty of 1868 with China, 222. United States fleet, 106, 107, 143, 145. Universities in Japan, 99, 101, 129. University, at Kyoto, 129; in the Mosque El-Azhar, 316, 317; Keiogyiku, 129; of Oregon, 36, 37, 38 ; of Wash- ington, 49, 50; Waseda, 129. Vancouver Island, 62 ; and the Canadian Pacific, 54. Van Horn, Mr., 117. Viceroys, Chinese. See Of- ficial class in China. Victoria, Hong-Kong, 290. Villages, Chinese, 182, 186. Visayans, 253. Volcanoes on voyage to Alas- ka, 69. W Wages in Japan, 86. Walled cities of China, 185, 186. War in the Philippines, 264, 265 ; Japanese-Chinese, of 1895, 331. Waseda University, 99, 129. Washington (State), 30; area of, 33, 41; climate of, 35, 36 ; compared with Oregon, 32-40; development of, 48; education in, 49, 50 ; farm- ing in, 46-48 ; fisheries in, 43-45 ; foreign population of, 42 ; growth of cities in, 42 ; irrigation in, 48; manufac- turing facilities of, 43 ; min- ing in, 43 ; salmon canneries in, 43-45 ; population of, 42 ; wheat raising in, 47, 48. Waterfalls of Alaska, 65. Wealth, aristocracy of, in Ja- pan, 105 ; of Japan, 141, 142. Weather in the Orient, 17, 18. Wei Hai Wei, China, 225, 286, 335. Welland Canal, 25. West River, China, 177. 368 INDEX Western Federation of Min- ers, 76. Westernization, of Asia, 8; of British colonies in Asia, 295, 29G; of China, 231-242, 332 ; of China, compared with Japan, 240, 241; of China, education and, 233- 235 ; of China, foreigners and, 232, 233, 235; of China,, influence of foreign iron- clads and rifles on, 235, 236 ; of India, 330; of Japan, 100, 101, 159-170, 329, 330; of Japan, Christian mis- sions and, 164, 165; of Ja- pan, schools and, 130 ; of Japan, trolley lines and, 166. Whales in Alaskan waters, 68, 69. Wheat crop, Canadian, trans- portation of, 27, 28; crop of the "Inland Empire," and transportation, 54 ; lands in Canada, 25; raising in Northwestern Canada, 23, 24; raising in Oregon, 34; raising in Washington, 47, 48. White population of Alaska, 73, 74. Whitman, Marcus, in Oregon, 32. Wild tribes in the Philippines, 248, 264, 265. Wilfley, Judge, 224. Willamette Valley, early rail- road in, 52; fertility of, 32. Williams, Attorney-General, 40. Winnipeg, 21, 23, 24, 26, 28, 31. Winthrop, Theodore, quoted, 51, 52. Women of Japan, 106, 107; status of, in Japan, 167, 168. Worcester, Commissioner, 248, 257, 258. Wrangell, founded by Rus- sians, 67. Wrangell Narrows, 64. Wright, Luke, governor-gen- eral of the Philippines, 259. Wu Chang, China, 186, 191. Wu Wi Hu, 217. Wyeth, Benjamin F., in Ore- gon, 32. Tamagata, member of Genre, 134. Yamen, 215-217. Yang Se Hsi, prefect, 216. Yangtse River, 173, 177, 183. Yellow peril, 332, 333. Yokohama, 83, 88, 95; Chi- nese colony in, 94; English newspapers in, 96; foreign settlement at, 94, 95; for- eigners in, 97. Yuan Shi Kai, 237. Yukon River, 71, 72. Yukon Valley, 72, 79, 80; farming in, 77. 369 (1) "An important contribution to the study of American social con- ditions," — Boston Herald. The Southern South By Albert Bushnell Hart, LL.D., Ph.D., Litt.D., Professor of History at Harvard University j President American Historical Association. With colored map. i2mo. Cloth, $i-So net. " Mr. Hart chooses as his field the far South, purer in Southern strain than the modified borderland between North and South. Out of its foundation of climate, soil and topog- raphy are rapidly drawn occupation, habit, disposition, out- look and temperament of the Southern people. This is the present common highway of investigation, yet not all set out so briskly, or make so straight a course, or attract so close attention in the passage. The people are themselves classified sharply as whites and negroes. An examination and discussion of the Southern temperament, psychologically and historically based, makes a chapter of deep interest, that of the character of the negro another. The remainder of the study is given up to the supreme problem of the relation of the races in the economic and moral development of the South. The negro at home and in industry ; race association and separation ; ■white and negro education ; crime, and peonage, are among the pertinent and pressing subjects brought out here in a fair- minded, unevasive spirit, buttressed by official evidence and personal research." — Washington Star. " One of the most important books on this issue that has been published in recent years. . . . It is a broad-minded, thoughtful inquiry that covers the whole field pretty thoroughly, which considers the Southern view very fully, and incidentally brings out the Northern viewpoint so far as it finds present expression. His inquiry includes some features of the problem not often considered." — Brooklyn Eagle. D. APPLETON & COMPANY, NEW YORK 472 LITERATURES OF THE WORLD. Edited by EDMUND GOSSE, Hon. M.A. of Trinity College, Cambridge. Chinese Literature. By Herbert A. Giles, M.A., LL.D. (Aberd.), Professor of Chinese in the University of Cambridge. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. " Few recent histories of literature are more pregnant with new and interesting material than this. There is nothing like it in any library, and one may say with assur- ance that there is not a dull page in it." — Boston Transcript. " Information and instruction share its pages with enliv- ening wit and wisdom, and it can be confidently relied upon for many hours of pure delight." — Chicago Evening Post. "Any private, public, or school library that fails to place it on its shelves would be guilty of almost culpable indifference to the most opportune, the most instructive, the most fascinating of Asiatic masterpieces that has ever been garnered into a single volume." — Brooklyn Daily Eagle. "The work is done with sympathy, with insight, and with that openness of mind which is so essential in dealing with the life and thought of the East. The quality of the poetry will surprise those who have thought of the Chinese as dealing in prudential maxims and in philosophy of the moral life rather than in the stuff of the imagination." — The Outlook. D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. AN AMERICAN ADMIRAL. Forty-five Years Under the Flag. By WiNFiELB Scott Schley, Rear- Admiral, U. S. N. Illustrated. 8vo. Cloth, uncut edges, and gilt top, $3.00 net. About one-third of Admiral Schley's volume is devoted to the Spanish War, in which he became so great a figure. He tells his own story in simple and effective words. His recollections are constantly reinforced by references to dispatches and other documents. Readers will be surprised at the extent of Admiral Schley's experi- ences. He left the Naval Academy just before the outbreak of the Civil War and saw service with Farragut in the Gulf. Three chapters are devoted to Civil War events. His next important service was rendered during the opening of Corea to the commerce of the world, and the chapter in which he describes the storming of the forts is one of thrilling interest. Another important expedition in his life was the rescue of Greely, to which three chapters are devoted. Two other chapters per- tain to the Revolution in Chili, and the troubles growing out of the attack upon some of Admiral Schley's men in the streets of Valparaiso. Altogether the book contains thirty-eight chapters. It has been illus- trated from material furnished by Admiral Schley and through his sug- gestions, and makes an octavo volume of large size. It will appeal to every true-hearted American. The author says in his preface : "In times of danger and duty the writer endeavored to do the work set before him without fear of consequences. With this thought in mind, he has felt moved, as a duty to his wife, his children, and his name, to leave a record of his long; professional life, which has not been without some prestige, at least for the flag he has loved and under which he has served the best years of his life." "Rear-Admiral W. S. Schley's 'Forty-five Years Under the Flag' is the most valuable contribution to the history of the American Navy that has been written in many a year." — New York Times. " The author's career is well worthy of a book, and he has every reason for pride in telling of his forty-five active years in all parts of the world." —Edwin L. Shuman in the Chicago Record-Herald. " It is a stirring story, told with the simple directness of a sailor. Its read- ing carries the conviction of its truthfulness. The Admiral could not have hoped to accomplish more." — Chicago Evening Post. " He has told his own story, in his own way, from his own viewpoint, and goes after his detractors, open and above board, with his big guns." — Washington Post. " It is a work that will interest everyone, from the sixteen-year-old school- boy who is studying history and loves tales of stirring adventure to the grand- sire whose blood still pulses hotly with patriotic pride at the recounting of valiant deeds of arms under our starry flag." — Boston American. "The Admiral teUs the story well. His is a manly and straightforward style. He leaves nothing to doubt, nothing open to controversy." —Baltimore Sun. D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. A PICTURESQUE BOOK OF THE SEA. A Sailor's Log. Recollections of Forty Tears of Naval Life. By Rear- Admlral Robley D. Evans, U. S. N. Illustrated. Large lamo. Cloth, ^2.00. "It is essentially a book for men, young and old ; and the man who does not enjoy it is lacking in healthy red blood." — Chicago Bookseller. " A profoundly interesting book. There is not a line of bra- vado in its chapters, nor a carping criticism. It is a book which will increase the esteem and high honor which the American feels and willingly awards our naval heroes." -^Chicago Inter-Ocean. "It would be difficult to find an autobiography possessing more interest than this narrative of forty years of active naval serv- ice. It equals the most fascinating novel for interest ; it contains a great deal of material that has a distinct historical value. . . . Altogether it is a most delightful book." — Brooklyn Eagle. " His is a picturesque personality, and he stands the supreme test by being as popular with his officers and men as he is with the public generally. His life has been one of action and adven- ture since he was a boy, and the record of it which he has pre- pared in his book 'A Sailor's Log' has not a dull line in it from cover to cover. It is all action, action, and again action from the first page to the last, and makes one want to go and ' do things ' himself. Any boy between riiteen and nineteen who reads this book and does not want to go to sea must be a sluggish youth. . . . The book is really an interesting record of an interesting man." — New York Press. D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.