CHARLES WILLIAM WASON COLLECTION CHINA AND THE CHINESE THE GIFT OF CHARLES WILLIAM WASON CLASS OF 1376 1918 DS 849.G7C72 """"""' '■"■"^^ , The allies / 3 1924 023 497 831 Cornell University Library The original of tiiis 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/cu31924023497831 THE ALLIES Seep. 192. THE ALLIES BY MAJOR-GENERAL SIR HENRY COLVILE K.C.M.G., C.B. AUTHOR OF "THE LAND OF THE NILE SPRINGS," "THE WORK OF THE 9TH DIVISION," ETC., ETC. WITH A FRONTISPIECE 9r London: HUTCHINSON & CO. Paternoster Row ^ # 1907 PREFACE " Look at those two island kingdoms ! Are they not hke the two eyes in a face ? If they could only see together." These words, Lord Redesdale tells us in his Garter Mission, were uttered some forty years ago by a Japanese gentleman who was looking at a map of the world with him, and he goes on to say that this wish has now been realised. As far as the two governments are concerned this is the case, but the eyes of the two peoples are still far from seeing things from the same point of view. If this book helps in any way to give them what photographers call " depth of focus," it will have done the best that I can wish it. Believing as I do that Japan has a useful lesson to teach us, if we will learn it, I make no apology for adding to the bulk of literature on this subject, for there are some things that cannot be said too often. Although I tell little which cannot be found elsewhere, the particular facts which I wish to emphasise are scattered over many volumes, and I have tried to collect them into a manageable space, quoting freely from the works of such authorities as Hearn, Chamberlain, Knapp, and others vi PREFACE whenever I have thought their words would carry more weight than my own. In conclusion, I may say that I did not write this book because I went to Japan, but went to Japan because I wanted to inform myself on certain points on which the authorities were either silent or at variance, H. S. COLVILE. January Ith, 1907. CONTENTS PAGE AUTHORITIES .... .... IX CHAPTER I THE ALLIES 1 CHAPTER II MISCONCEPTIONS 42 CHAPTER HI MISKEPRESENTATIONS 65 CHAPTER IV EELI6I0N 99 CHAPTER V LOVE AND "WAR 135 CHAPTER VI LOVE AND WAE (continued) 162 CHAPTER Vn WHAT THE ALLIES MAT TEACH BACH OTHER . . .183 vii viii CONTENTS CHAPTER VIII PAGK WHAT THE ALLIES MAY TEACH EACH OTHBB (continued) . 207 CHAPTER IX THE YELLOW PEKIL AND THE TEUTON TBKEOE . . 233 APPENDIX COEEESPONDENCE EESPECTING THE STOPPAGE OF TEADE BY THE JAPANESE AUTHORITIES .... 265 INDEX 283 AUTHORITIES In the course of this work the author has consulted and quoted from the following books, for the use of which he gratefully acknowledges his indebtedness to the several authors and their present pubhshers. Adams, S. O. History of Jwpan. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd. (originally by Henry S. King & Co.), London, 1875. Alcock, Sie Rtjthbrford. The Ca/pitcA of the Tycoon. Longmans, Green & Co., London, 1863. Ambby, L. S. The Times' History of the War in South Africa. Sampson Low & Co., London, 1905. Aenold, Sib Edwin. Japonica. Harper & Brothers (originally by James R. Osgood, Mollvaine & Co.), London, 1892. Asiatic Society of Japan, Transactions of the. Vol. viii., part 2 ; vol. xis., part 1. Rikkyo Gakiun Press, Tokio. Bacon, Miss. Japanese Girls and Women. Gay & Bird, London, 1902, Batchelob, Rev. John. An Ainu-English-Japanese Dictionary. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., London, 1906. [Becker, J. E. de]. The Nightless City. Tokio, 1899 ; now pubhshed by Probsthain & Co., London. BouTMY, M. The English People. T. Fisher Unwin, London. Beinkley, Captain. Japan, its History, Arts, and Literature. T. C. & E. C. Jack, Edinburgh, 1903. Beitgsch, Db. Religion und Mythologie. J. C. Hinrichs, Leipzig, 1891, Budge, E. A. W. The Egyptian Religion. Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co., Ltd., London, 1899. Cabpenteb, Edwabd. Civilisation, its Cause and Cure. Swan, Sonnen- schein & '^o., Ltd., London, 1897. Chambeblain, Basil Hall. Handbook of Colloquial Japanese. Crosby Lockwood & Co. (originally by Sampson Low, Marston & Co.), London, 1898. See also Murray's Guide for Japan. Things Japanese. John Murray, London, 1905. Etudes sur le Papyrus Prisse. Paris, 1887. X AUTHORITIES Fielding-Hall, H. The Hearts of Men. Hurst & Blackett, Ltd., Lon- don, 190L FiNCK, Henby T. Lotus Time in Japan. A. H. Bullen (originally by Laurence & Bullen, Ltd.), London, 1895. Fbasek, Mrs. Httgh. A Diplomatist's Wife in Japan.^ Hutchinson & Co., London. Gbufis, Rev. W. E. The Century's Change in Japan and China. The Mikado's Empire. Harper & Brothers, London, 1906. Hakluyt Society's Publications (Will Adams). Heabn, Latcadio. Olimpses of Unfamiliar Japan. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., London, 1905. Japan, an Attempt at Interpretation.^ MacmiUan & Co., Ltd., London, 1905. Kohoro. Gay & Bird, London (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston), 1896. HiLDRETH. Japan as it was and is. Boston, 1855. HoHENLOHE, Pbince. Memoir s. William Heinemann, London, 1906. Huxley, Thomas. Collected Essays, vol. ix., pp. 218-9 (The Struggle for Existence in Hum/in Society). MacmiUan & Co., Ltd., London. In the Event of War with one or more of the Naval Powers, how should the Regular Forces be assisted by the Auxiliary Forces and the People of the Kingdom ? Royal United Service Institution Prize Essay, 1906. Published by Gilbert Wood. Kaempfeb's History of Japan, 1727. Reprinted by J. Maolehose & Sons, Glasgow. Keane, De. a. H. Asia. Edward Stanford, London, 1886. Kjstapp, Arthub May. Feudal and Modern Japan. Duckworth & Co., London, 1906. Lowell, Peeoival. The Soul of the Far East. Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co., Ltd., London. Mason, W. B. See Murray's Handbook for Japan. Maspeeo. Datun of Civilisation in Egypt and Chaldea. Society for Pro- moting Christian Knowledge, London, 1897. Metchnikoff. The Nature of Man. William Heinemann, London, 1904. Mueeay's Handbook for travellers in Japan. By Basil Hall Chamberlain and W. B: Mason. John Murray, London, 1903. NiTOBB, Inazo. Bushido. The Student Company, Tokio, 1905. Norman, Sib Henry. The Far East. T. Fisher Unwin, London, 1901. The Real Japan. T. Fisher Urwin, London, 1892. 1 The above is the original title, but the references to this book in the present work have been made to an American edition published by the MacmiUan Co., New York, 1899, under the title of Letters from Japan. ^ Quoted by permission. AUTHORITIES xi Okakura-Yoshisaburo. The Japanese Spirit. Arcliibald Constable & Co., Ltd., London, 1905. Oxford, Rev. A. W. " Ancient Judaism," ia The Religious Systems of the World. Swan, Sonnensohein & Co., Ltd., London, 1902. Pfottndes, C. " The Religion in Japan," in The Religious Systems of the World. Swan, Sonnensohein & Co., Ltd., London, 1902. Polo, Ser Marco, The Book of. Translated by Colonel Yule. John Murray, London, 1871. Qttelch, H. Social Democracy and the Armed Nation. Twentieth Century Press, 1900. Rbdesdalb, Lord (A. B. Freeman-Mitford). The Garter Mission to Japan.^ Macmillan & Co., Ltd., London, 1906. Tales of Old Japan.^ Ninth Edition. Macmillan & Co., Ltd., London, 1903. RocHOLZ. Deutscher Olaube und Branch. Schbreb, J. A. B. Japan of To-day. Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co., Ltd., London, 1905. Seaman, Surgeon-Majob. The Real Trium/ph of Japan. Sidney Apple- ton, London, 1906. Spencer, Herbert. Principles of Sociology. Williams & Norgate, London, 1876. Sttsematsu, Babon. The Risen Sun. Archibald Constable & Co., Ltd., London, 1905. TiULEY. Japan, the Amur, and the Pacific. Smith, Elder & Co., London, 1861. ERRATA p. 5, for Advertiser Publishing Co. Yokohama, read Duckworth & Co., London, 1906. P. 23, Messrs. Gay & Bird are the Enghsh pubhshers of Lafcadio Hearn's Kokoro. Pp. 25, 80, 82, 87, for Mr. Henry Norman read Sir Henry Norman. Pp. 51, 111, 115, read Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co. P. 76, for Probsthan & Co. read by J. E. de Becker, Probsthain & Co. P. 98, read J. R. Osgood, Mcllvaine & Co. Pp. 120, 128, for The Heart of Man, read The Hearts of Men. P. 128, read The Religious Systems of the World. 1 Quoted by permission. THE ALLIES CHAPTER I The Allies " There are two alternatives open to the British nation," said Mr. Haldane, in his speech at Newcastle on September 16th, 1906 : " either a general disarmament, which would solve many problems, if one could hope for it, or to put our national defences into such a condition that, as a nation and Empire, we could feel secure, whatever evil time might come to us. Unless the nations simultaneously disarmed, there would be no security against war unless we were prepared in time of peace to safeguard our own interests." Other Secretaries of State for War have acknowledged the fact that immunity from war can only be obtained by adequate preparation in peace-time. Royal Commissions have deliberated on the best means of making such pre- parations effective. Parliament and the Press have discussed the question times without number, and money has been poured out hke water on experiments, predestined to failure, because, knowing the spirit of the nation, none have dared to suggest the only method by which the object could be achieved. As Mr. Haldane said, " a nation in arms was the only safeguard for the public interests that had been neglected in our military contemplation." But 1 2 THE ALLIES he had to admit that we could only obtain this safeguard " if we had great national enthusiasm," and that to get the necessary number of men would require " great national spirit." He, however, thought that the thing was " within compass." While many patriotic EngMshmen must hope that the War Secretary is justified in his belief, it is difficult to see any signs of the growth of such a spirit. In 1804, out of a population of 14,000,000, we produced 400,000 volunteers, besides a large regular army. In 1907, with a population of over 40,000,000, would a proportionate number of volun- teers come forward ? Judging by the figures given by Mr. Amery in The Times' History of the War in South Africa" ^ it is to be feared that they would not. He says : " Of the militia and yeomanry one man in five, of the volunteers one man in fifteen, of the untrained and unorganised bulk of the male population of fighting age one man in a thousand came forward." Nor is it easy to see why such a spirit should grow, while on the contrary on all sides are causes tending to kill it. From every stage in commercial prosperity, and in educational and political advancement that we reach, we feel less and less incUned to sacrifice om: individual comfort and independence ; every time that we sing " Rtde, Bri- tannia " and loudly assert that we " never, never, never will be slaves," we come one step nearer the refutation of our own prophecy. Every decade that passes without serious threat of invasion, every little war that we " muddle through," adds to the conviction that our past immunity is our perpetual heritage. In a recent book on Imperial Strategy, quoted by a writer in The Times of October 7th, 1906, is a fair example of this line of reasoning. The author says, " Buttonhole one of ^ Vol. iii. page 22. Sampson Low, 1905. THE ALLIES 3 those old gentlemen in Pall MaU ; stop them and ask them why they ask us to pay for 640,000 men, mostly organised to do nothing at home ; ask them when last England was invaded, and why ; ask them who is going to invade us, and how ; ask them when last a British battery on the coast-line fired a shot in anger ; ask them when a fort in the interior of England or Scotland was ever of service to man or beast. Ask them, and they will not teU you, because they do not know ; and neither does any one else." In other words, not having suffered from invasion for nearly a thousand years, we may consider ourselves immune. Never having had the horrors of war brought home to us, and lacking the imagination to conceive them, we will not suffer the smallest present inconvenience to avoid them. " I'd Uke to see the bullet as'd hit me," I once heard a soldier say, stroUing along under a heavy fire ; but when a bullet passed through his helmet and grazed his scalp, he seemed to realise that, though walking upright was a less irksome method of progression than crawling, the latter might be more suitable, for he promptly went down on his hands and knees. We may put our views into less forcible language, but they are practically the same as his. We shall stroll along and whistle " Rule, Britannia " tiU we get a sharp reminder that there must be limits, even to fooUiardiness. Let us hope that it will be nothing more serious than a skin graze. " No Nation," says the writer of one of the essays ^ awarded a prize last spring, by the Royal United Service Institution, " is more constantly at war than the British Nation ; it is, however, no exaggeration to say that no 1 Since issued in book form under the title, In the Event of War with one or more Naval Powers, how should the Eegular Forces be assisted by the Auxiliary Forces and the People of the Kingdom ? Published by Gilbert Wood. 4 THE ALLIES Nation less realises what war in its fulness and its intensity really means. After many years of the Napoleonic Wars, we find Wellington writing in such terms as these : ' Then, indeed, would commence an expensive contest ; then would His Majesty's subjects discover what are the miseries of war, of which, by the blessing of God, they have hitherto had no knowledge ; and the cultivation, the beauty, and pros- perity of the country, and the virtue and happiness of its inhabitants, would be destroyed, whatever might be the result of the military operation.' " Other European nations, having had personal experience of war, and having paid for their knowledge with their blood, their treasure, their lands, and their homes, know that no price is too great to pay for its prevention, and take all human precautions to avoid its repetition. We, not having learnt the lesson, amuse ourselves in the fool's paradise which we have created. There is one nation, however, a non-European one, situated as we are — like us, cut ofE from its continental neighbours by a belt of sea, and one on whose shores no invader has ever obtained a footing since the dawn of history— which, nevertheless, had the wisdom to learn from the misfortunes of others, without waiting till the miseries of war were brought more clearly home to it. The Japanese, an intensely proud race, dwelling in " the Land of the Gods," under whose special protection they deemed themselves to be, and by whose intervention the invincible armada of Kublai Khan ^ was dashed to pieces * In A.D. 1281. It consisted of 3,500 junks, and was destroyed by a typhoon. This was Kublai Khan's second attempt at invasion, the first fleet of 300 vessels, prototype of Rojesvensky's, having been defeated by the Japanese off Tsushima in 1274. In Marco Polo's account it is stated that 30,000 survivors of the second and greater fleet escaped from the Japanese by a ruse, and succeeded in capturing the capital {The Book of Ser Marco Polo, vol. ii. pages 203-4. Translated by Colonel Yule. THE ALLIES 5 on their coasts ; with their two million Samurai, hereditary warrior-gentlemen, men trained from childhood to the hardships of a soldier's life and to unmoved contemplation of a soldier's death : such a people, even more than we, might have been expected to look upon themselves as invincible, and upon their country as undefilable. Yet, at the first note of warning, they nerved themselves to the task of making themselves the equals or superiors of all possible foes. Realising that, grand though the spirit of their Samurai might be, " a nation in arms was the only safeguard for the public interests," the Daimyo did not hesitate to surrender their estates and privileges, and by a deed which Mr. Knapp ^ weU calls the knightliest one " that ever called for human strength of soul," the feudal system with its warrior class was swept away, as too inelastic to meet modern necessities. From the people was created the national army, with the fame of whose deeds the world still rings, and by which alone was Japan able to nullify Kuropatkin's threat to " dictate the terms of peace at Tokio." In the memorial to the newly restored Emperor, unique as an example of self-sacrifice, the lords of the four great clans of Satsuma,^ Choshiu, Toza, and Hizen (shortly after- wards followed by the others), said : " Now the great Government has been restored, and the Emperor himself undertakes the direction of affairs. This is indeed a rare Murray, 1871). Colonel Yule, however, in a footnote, says the story cannot be accepted, and it is not mentioned in the Chinese account, which admits that they lost 100,000 men. ^ Feudal and Modern Japan, by Arthur May Knapp, page 56. The Advertiser Publishing Co., Yokohama, 1906. ^ The importance of these chiefs may be gauged by the fact, mentioned by Lord Redesdale in his Oarter Mission to ./apaTO (published byMacmillan & Co., London, 1906), page 131, that in the Paris Exhibition of 1867 the Satsuma exhibits were accorded a separate space, as those of an independent kingdom. 6 THE ALLIES and mighty event. We have the name of an Imperial Government ; we must also have the fact. Our first duty is to illustrate our faithfulness and to prove our loyalty. . . . The place where we live is the Emperor's land, and the food we eat is grown by the Emperor's men. How can we make it our own ? We now reverently offer up the lists of our possessions and men. Let the Imperial orders be issued for altering and remodelling the territories of the various clans. . . . Let the civil and penal codes and military laws all proceed from the Emperor. Let all the affairs of the Empire, great and small, be referred to him ; and then wUl the Empire be able to take its place side by side with the other nations of the world." ^ That the confidence of the Daimyo in placing the fate of the Empire in the hands of the newly restored Mikado was not misplaced is shown by the fruit which their magnificent self-sacrifice has borne. Bearing in mind the extraordinary wave of loyalty which this restoration caused in Japan, the Emperor's resignation of aU his newly acquired powers showed a spirit of self-sacrifice fully as remarkable as that of his subjects. The feeling of the country being what it was, backed by the ingrained spirit of discipline of his people, he might at that moment have established a des- potism of the most absolute kind ; but he, like his great subjects, had studied European history, and knew that, if his Empire was to " take its place side by side with the other nations of the world," it must avail itself of the ex- perience that had been so dearly bought elsewhere, and be moulded on the lines which alone are suitable to the present age. Acting on this knowledge, his first act was to reUn- quish his great powers and form a constitution based on European models. ^ Adams's History of Japan, vol. ii. page 181. Henry S. King, London, 1875. THE ALLIES 7 Yet neither in this nor in other matters have the Emperor or his advisers been mere servile imitators. They only, as Professor Chamberlain says/ " absorbed all the mani- festly useful elements of our culture." They never fell into the error, which has so often led astray our army reformers, both amateur and expert, of taking some tem- porarily successful nation as a model and assuming that the methods suitable to some particular time and place were for universal appHcation. Having studied their subject thoroughly, and always with an ey^ to their country's needs, and having brought marvellous intuition and wisdom to bear on it, they noted the strong points and failings of aU the European systems, choosing only those which they knew to be best fitted to their requirements, modifying them where necessary, and moulding them into a homo- geneous whole. " With what discriminating wisdom," writes Knapp,^ " they have looked over the field and made their choice, as weU as also with what care they stiU apply themselves to the avoidance of the difficulties and dangers into which the Western world has stumbled, and out of which it won its way only with sore travail, is evident from the study of almost any department of political or social life of the Empire." The gods have indeed singularly favoured their land in the choice of men to guide its destinies for the last thirty years. Yet, if it is these men who have made New Japan, it was Old Japan which alike made the men and the gods. The true religion of a race is the expression of its inmost spirit, and no country, so well as Japan, has been able to keep this expression uncontaminated by alien influences. Shinto and its gods are Japanese to the core, and, re-acting on the descendants of their creators, have moulded the men 1 Things Japanese, by Basil Hall Chamberlain, page 9. Murray, 1905. 2 Feudal and Modern Japan, page 18. 8 THE ALLIES of to-day on the ideal after which the nation has striven throughout the generations. When the " alarm " sounds in camp the behaviour of the troops wiU depend on their discipline and the dispositions of their commander over-night. An undisciplined force, badly guarded by outposts, wiU soon be a disorganised mob, running hither and thither at the mercy of the foe who have stolen on them in the night. With a disciplined and well-protected one every man will silently fall into his place and the enemy will have had his night march in vain. All who have experienced a night alarm know the strange thrill that runs through a camp even of the best-disciplined troops : so, when in 1853 the " black ships " of Commodore Perry sounded the alarm, a like quiver must have moved Japan. But the hard training of centuries, in discipline and self-sacrifice, had not been wasted, any more than had the less severe, but no less effective, moral teaching of the sages, that " wisdom is better than wealth." Rudely awakened from her dream of peace, Japan was yet fully prepared for war in all respects but one. Likening her again for a moment to a disciplined force in bivouac, the ammunition column was late. " The Dook says he wants ammunition," said Corporal Brewster, in The Story of Waterloo, " and, by God, he shall have it " ; and so, in other words, said every man in Japan. To get the ammunition, the material wisdom of the West, without which they saw that aU their brains, discipline, culture, and courage would be of no avail, was the problem which immediately presented itself to the Japanese. To get it, the only salvation for their beloved land, aU, from the Emperor to the humblest peasant girl, felt that no sacrifice was too great. If, as is generally admitted, the ideal marriage is one between complementary natures, in which each supplies THE ALLIES 9 that which is lacking in the other, the union of England and Japan is indeed one made in heaven. In many matters, which will be dealt with later, we are suited to meet each other's wants. But, to return to the simile, England has no lack of ammunition ; in material wisdom she has, as yet, no lesson to learn from her ally, but in the qualities which alone can make it effective for defence she is as much lacking now as Japan was in the mechanics of destruc- tion thirty years ago. As has been said already, the Japanese statesmen have adapted European methods to their needs, after a careful study, not only of their intrinsic merits and their suitability to the conditions of Japan, but of the historical causes which had produced them. If England would learn of Japan she must study the institutions and characteristics of her ally in the same critical spirit, neither accepting any one wholesale because it has worked well in Japanese hands, nor rejecting one because it is contrary to our preconceived ideas. Above all, she must try to understand the spirit which has been the mainspring of all Japanese success. Yet, because it is a spirit and not a written code, it must be more difficult for us to grasp than were the results of our material civilisation, to be found, in the hundreds of textbooks available, for the Japanese students of the last century. Difficult though it may be, however, it is probably less so to us than to any other European race. Like our own constitution, it is the true expression of the nation's ten- dencies, and separated though they may be by nearly half the earth's circumference, there is a strange affinity between the islanders of East and West. This may be partly due to the fact that they are islanders, and that insularity of itself (given nearly similar climatic conditions) predisposes a race to develop on certain fixed Hnes, whatever its 10 THE ALLIES origin may have been. The Maoris of New Zealand are an instance in favour of this supposition. Cut off from the rest of the world on islands approximately equal in area to the British or Japanese archipelagoes, they are, of all the races which we have conquered, the one with which we are most in sympathy, and the only one with which we can intermarry without deterioration of breed. Be that as it may, no one who has travelled about the world and seen Enghshmen and the inhabitants of African and Asiatic countries thrown together, can have failed to note the impassable barrier which keeps them apart — a barrier which, if he has extended his travels to Japan, he wiU have seen for the first time removed. It is no question of civiUsation : ours is a mere mushroom growth, beside those of India and China, yet the gulf between us and them is one that no good-wiU can bridge. Neither is it one of colour : of all nations the English are most free from race prejudice. It is merely due to our absolute inability to understand each other. Whenever, owing to some interest or characteristic in common, a mutual understanding is established, a gap is made in the fence of which the two races eagerly avail themselves, but except at rare points it remains for ever between them. In Japan the casual observer wUl see no such barrier. Naturally, any one wishing to go deeply into motives and the roots of institutions wiU find himself constantly brought up by some train of thought or perspective of hfe totally at variance with those to which he is accustomed ; but it is on the general aspect of Enghsh and Japanese together, as compared with English and any other non-European races, that I would, dwell, and no one who has observed it can have failed to note the difference. It is to be observed best, not byf^professors trying to get at the bottom of some THE ALLIES 11 Kttle-understood custom, but by men in the street watching the behaviour of a mixed crowd of the two races. All Englishmen remember the crowd which greeted the crews of the Japanese war-vessels Katori and Kashima in London Icist spring, and they need not be reminded of the enthusiasm and good fellowship of that occasion. I was lucky enough to be in Tokio when Admiral Sir Arthur Moore's squadron was welcomed by the Japanese, and can answer that its reception was no whit less cordial than that which the Japanese sailors received in England. There one saw together people of the same class, under no restraints of etiquette, and labouring under no prejudices, behaving naturally, as their feelings prompted them, and I do not think any one who saw them together could have doubted the real sympathy — a sympathy that needed no language for its expression, which bound them. Nor could any one who had seen English sailors in other foreign ports fail to note the difference between their behaviour in Japan and elsewhere. In Japan they felt at home and showed it, and the Japanese felt equally at home with them. In shops, in railway stations, in bars, they were to be seen everywhere, always good-natured, never domineering, and always received in the spirit in which they came. They behaved as if they were at Plymouth or Portsmouth, and their behaviour was accepted as right and proper. " 'UUoh, Father, makin' rather 'eavy weather of it, ain't you ? Let me give you a tow," one would say to an old gentleman struggUng with a perambulator up the steps of Shimbashi station ; and " Father," beaming with delight, would express his thanks in courteous Japanese. " 'Ulloh, Dick ! Busy, are you ? Got a stiffish book, eh ? Come and 'ave a drink ; it wUl cheer you up," another would remark to a pale, spectacled student poring over some deep treatise on a bench. " Dick," too, all smiles, would be willingly 12 THE ALLIES led away by the arm to the refreshment bar. " What, Mary, is that you ? Well, I am pleased to see you, and 'ow's mother ? " some pretty girl would be hailed with ; and " Mary," though unable to appreciate the inquiries after her parent, was quite woman enough to understand that the English bluejacket was friendly, and from the expression of her face was anything but dissatisfied at the fact. This sort of thing was going on all over the town, all perfectly orderly, wholly good-natured, and thoroughly appreciated by both sides. It was a scene that could hardly have been enacted in any town of Europe, and certainly in none of Asia or Africa, and was only possible because of the innate sympathy between the actors. There was a song in vogue in the music-halls some years ago, of which the refrain was (I quote from memory) : We went to Yokohama, in the island of Japan ; The Japanese we tried to please, as only a sailor can. Probably the talented author never dreamt that he, too, would be among the prophets. Though tourists flock to Japan by the thousand every year, our inner knowledge of it is still necessarily very limited. Owing to the absence of " society," as we know it, the tourist rarely meets those of his own class, and has to form his impressions from one which, refined though it be, is below his own ; while the other persons from whom we get our information are many of them, from the very nature of their business, to a certain extent cut off from the people. There are, it is true, brilliant exceptions, and it is only through the writings of these that we know the little we do. Among these, Lafcadio Hearn, Professor Chamberlain, Miss Bacon, and A. B. Mitford (Lord Redeadale) stand pre-eminent. Of the writings of Hearn Professor Chamber- THE ALLIES 13 lain says ^ : " Not a single thing Japanese, in short, except perhaps the humorous side of native life, but these wonderful books shed on it the blended light of poetry and truth " ; but for the English to understand the Japanese the humorous side is very important. Of Miss Bacon's books he says, they " give in a short compass the best account that has yet been published of Japanese family life." They are indeed invaluable in this respect ; but famUy life, interesting though it is, is not all. Professor Chamberlain, if he wotdd, could, I believe, tell us aU we want to know, but he has not done so yet. It is true his Things Japanese is a mine of information, but after reading it we feel that he could tell us so much more that we are perhaps not as grateful as we should be for that which we have received. The Tales of Old Japan^ delightfully and sympathetically written, are a mine of wealth to those who would know the customs of the past, but, written as they were in the early Meiji era, cannot bring us in touch with the present ; while Lord Redesdale's last book, The Oarter Mission, teeming with intensely interesting touches on modern Japan, is necessarily chiefly devoted to the subject of its title. Professor Petrie, in an address to the British Association, once pointed out that, from the mixture of races which had taken place in the world, the word " race " itself requires a new definition. Although this remark does not apply to Japan in the sense intended by the professor, it is, in another one, as true there as elsewhere. Race has to a great extent been replaced by class. One may notice nowadays in any international assemblage, such as that in an hotel or steamer, that it is not those of the same nationality who draw together, but those of the same class. It is the English ^ TMngs Ja/panese, page 65. ^ Tales of Old Japan. Macmillan, London, 1903. 9th edition. 14 THE ALLIES and German gentleman, the German and French " bagman," the English and American financier, who may be seen smoking together their after-dinner cigars or patrolling the decks side by side. It is only when the same classes have a chance of meeting that nations can begin to understand each other, and it is for this reason that the visits of fleets and squadrons are of such value. It is for this reason, too, that I mention a garden-party given by Admiral Tog5, which was attended by the officers of our squadron, and by a number of Japanese officials with their wives and families, and which was one of the rare occasions in which the upper classes of Japan are to be met by visitors. As an invited guest I feel great diffidence in publishing any remarks on this entertainment ; but this much I must say, in illustration of my point, that if the attitude of the bluejackets in the streets and the lower classes of the population was one of perfect cordiality, that of the Japanese and English guests in the Hima Palace garden was no less sympathetic. As the bluejackets and the people, in their homely way, showed by every word and movement that the former were at home, so did their superiors, after their manner, convey the same impression. As I said of the behaviour of the bluejackets, I must say of that of Admiral Togo's guests, I do not believe that anywhere else out of England could a sense of such perfect ease and absence of strangeness have been felt. The exact nature of the bond between the two nations is not easy to define, perhaps for the same reason that the Japanese spirit and the British constitution are difficult to explain. It is one, as far as individuals are concerned, based rather on feeling than any definite reason ; but we have, nevertheless, many points curiously in common, considering the racial and geographical distances that part us. As far as I am able to judge, this mutual feeling is strongest THE ALLIES 15 between the upper and lower classes of English and Japanese. Whether the EngKsh trading classes appeal to the Japanese I cannot say, but it may be generally asserted that they form an exception to the general rule, and are not attracted by the Japanese to the extent that our upper and lower classes are. Laws and burial notwithstanding, the feudal feeMng is dead neither in England nor Japan. The Daimyo and his clansmen, the English country gentleman and the farmers and labourers on his estate, and the officers and rank and file of both nations, have still a feeling of mutual affection and respect which makes them one, to an extent that can never exist between either of them and the tradesman. " Poor beggar, I'm glad I ain't in his shoes," I once heard a private say, discussing a notoriously unpopular officer with a comrade. " Nor I neither," answered his companion ; " but, after all, any one can see as he ain't no gentleman." The lower classes of England are as quick to discern, and perhaps more ready to appreciate, birth, than some of those who are well born ; and in Japan, no matter how the people one meets may be bred, marks of ill breeding may be searched for in vain from one end of the land to the other. Nor is this refinement a modern growth, the result of the much-vaunted elevating infiuences of Christian civilisation. Even as early as the twelfth century this characteristic was so well marked as to make the Chinese call Japan " Kuntsukuo " (the country of gentlemen) ^ ; while Kaemp- fer (1692) says,^ " The behaviour of the Japanese, from the meanest countryman up to the greatest Prince or Lord, is such that the whole Empire might be caU'd a School of GviUty and good manners." ^ The Risen Sun, by Baron Suyematsu, page 288. Archibald Constable, London, 1905. " History of Japan, vol. ii. page 357. J. MacLehose, Glasgow. 16 THE ALLIES Speaking of decoration Lord Redesdale says ^ : " Though I have travelled now — at intervals — ^from north to south, from east to west, all through these islands, never did I see aught to which the term ' vulgar ' or even ' commonplace' could apply, save where some misguided potter or enameller has had the unhappy thought to imitate the horrors of the vulgarest European work, which, in their innocence, they take to be what we like." My journeys in Japan were few and short, but I had the good luck to meet men and women in nearly every grade of society, and I may say of them what Lord Redesdale says of their work, that never once did I meet one who was vulgar or commonplace, and never one whose manners were not of the courtliest, except in the open ports and hotels where Europeans ^ congregate, and where some of them had learnt the manners which, judging by those of their instructors, they believed to be those of Europe. Refinement, indeed, if not the keynote of Japanese character (it is but the outward and visible sign of some- thing far deeper), is, at all events, one of the most marked characteristics of the people, and the extent to which they are appreciated must depend in a great measure on the capability of those with whom they are brought in contact of sympathising with it. Amorous Pierre Lotis may go into ecstasies at the delicate grace of their women, or brilliant Bostonians revel in metaphysical dissections ; artists and antiquarians may rejoice in the skill that created shrines and castles : but I doubt if any instinc- tively appreciate the people so well as that natural gentleman (drunk or sober), the British Tar. Oddly enough, it was one of these men. Will Adams, ^ The Garter Mission, page 97. 2 As Americans were so recently of European origin I shall not, as a rule, distinguish between them and the present inhabitants of Europe. THE ALLIES 17 the shrewd and straightforward British seaman to whose letters ^ we owe our first real knowledge of the Japanese,^ whom he describes as " good of nature, courteous above measure, and valiant in warr." To him also we owe our first semi-diplomatic relations with the Japanese Government. Arriving at Kyiishu in the year 1600, in a Dutch ship, he and his companions were made prisoners, apparently at the instigation of the Jesuits, who had suborned two of the crew to give evidence against the rest. Their eager- ness, however, to compass the death of the heretic Europeans seems to have aroused the suspicions of lyeyasu, the Shogun, who ordered the mariners to be brought to his court ; and although " the Jesuites and the Portingalls (as Adams wrote to his wife) gaue many evidences against me and the rest to the Emperour that we were thieues and robbers of all nations, and were we suffered to liue it should be against the profit of his Highnes, and the land," lyeyasu not only released him, but took him into such high favour that, as Captain Cock of the EngMsh factory at Nagasaki ^ wrote home about him in 1614, " the truth is the Emperour esteemeth hym much, and he may goe in and speake with hym at all times, when kynges and princes are kept ovt," while Adams's own letters to his wife tell her that even the Jesuits " must now seek to me . . . for the Spaynard as well as the Portingall must haue all their negosshes go 1 Written between 1600 and 1620. Published by the Haklujrt Society. ^ Our previous knowledge is derived from the travels of Marco Polo, who in the thirteenth century described the island of " Cipango " as " inhabited by a people of agreeable manners " ; and from the letters of the Jesuit missionaries, who only preceded Adams by fifty years. From them we learn St. Francis Xavier's impression, " This nation is the dehght of my soul." ^ Quoted by Heam, Japan, an Attempt at Interpretation, page 346. Macmillan, 1905. 2 18 THE ALLIES through my hand." ^ He was also " retained at the Japan- ese court ... as a kind of diplomatic agent when other English and Dutch traders began to arrive. In fact, it was by his good offices that the foundations were laid both of EngUsh trade in Japan and also of the more permanent Dutch settlement." ^ Adams lived long enough to see the edicts which expelled his enemies the Portuguese and Spanish Jesuits from Japan, and stamped out their religion ; but " it should be borne in mind," says Lafcadio Hearn in a footnote,' " that none of these edicts were directed against Protestant Christianity : the Dutch were not considered Christians in the sense of the ordinances, nor were the English." Nevertheless, the lesson taught the Japanese rulers by the Spanish and Portuguese priests was one not easily to be forgotten. Not only were the arrogance, intolerance, and open defiance of authority of the missionaries a constant source of annoy- ance to the Japanese Government,* but the " enmities and jealousies " brought about by " th& further propagation of a religion so inconsistent with all others then existing in the country," * opened lyeyasu's eyes to the fact that it might even endanger the throne. Matters were, however, brought to a head by the capture of a Portuguese ship by the Dutch " near the Cape of Good Hope, on board which they found some traiterous Letters to the King of Portugal, 1 Letter of XII. 1. 1613. ' Things Japanese, page 16. Tilley {Japan, the Amur, and the Pacific, page 73 ; Smith Elder, 1861), in his account of Adams, says : " Through his exertions, trade was opened with the English East India Company, but was carried on with much lukewarmness, and intrigued against both by Dutch and Portuguese. It ended quite in 1673, during the inglorious reign of Charles II. He being married to a Portuguese wife, and at war with the Dutch, both these circumstances gave full scope to Dutch intrigue." ^ Interpretation, page 353. Macmillan, London, 1905. * See Kaempfer, chapter on " The Portuguese in Japan " (vol. ii.). ^ Ibid. vol. ii. page 160. THE ALLIES 19 written by one Captain Moro, who was chief of the Portu- guese in Japan, himself a Japanese by birth and a great zealot for the Christian Religion, they took special care forthwith to deliver the said letters to their Protector, the Prince of Firando, who communicated them without loss of time to the Governor of Nagasaki. . . . " This letter laid open the whole Plot, which the Japanese Christians, in conjunction with the Portuguese, had laid against the Emperor's life and throne, the want they stood in of ships and soldiers, which were promis'd them from Portugal, the names of the Japanese Princes concerned in the conspiracy, and lastly, to crown all, the expectation of the papal blessing. This discovery, by the Dutch, was afterwards confirm 'd by another letter, wrote by the said Captain Moro to his Portuguese Government at Macao, which was intercepted and brought to Japan by a Japanese Ship. Considering this, and the suspicions which the court had then already conceiv'd against the Portuguese, it was no difficult matter thoroughly to ruin the little credit and favour they had as yet been able to preserve, the rather since, the strict Imperial orders notwithstanding, they did not leave of privately to bring over more Ecclesiasticks. Accordingly, in the year 1637 an Imperial Proclamation, sign'd by the chief Councillors of state, was sent to the Governors of Nangasaki, with orders to see it put in execu- tion. It was then the Empire of Japan was shut for ever, both to foreigners and natives." ^ Although by the expulsion of the Portuguese the Dutch got the field to themselves, the conduct of the former caused the Japanese Government to place restrictions on foreign trade and on the freedom of foreigners, so irksome that the English company retired, leaving the monopoly of trade with Japan in the hands of the Dutch, of whom ^ The History of Japan, vol. ii. pages 163^. 20 THE ALLIES Kaempfer says ^ : "So great was the covetousness of the Dutch, and so great the alluring power of the Japanese gold, that rather than to quit the prospect of a trade indeed most advantageous, they willingly underwent an almost perpetual imprisonment, for such in fact is our stay at Desima,^ and chose to suffer many hardships in a foreign and heathen country, to be remiss in performing divine service on Sundays and solemn festivals, to leave off praying and singing of psalms in publick, entirely to avoid the sign of the cross, the calling upon Christ in presence of natives, and all the outward marks of Christianity, and lastly, patiently and submissively to bear the abusive and injurious behaviour of these proud Infidels towards us, than which nothing can be offer'd more shocking to a generous and noble mind." Yet, in spite of all these unpleasantnesses, the profits which accrued from their trade made the Dutch put up with their position at Desima for nearly two hundred and fifty years, and Kaempfer tells us that sometimes these profits amounted to six million florins yearly. He also gives an extremely interesting account of the life on the island and the restriction placed on the traders.^ Adams continued to enjoy the favour of lyeyasu, who made over to him and his heirs the lordship of Hemi, near Yokosuka. He stayed on his estate, of one hundred farms, honoured and respected until his death in 1620. Nor was he forgotten even then. His grave and that of his Japanese wife have been well cared for,* and Lord Redesdale gives ^ The History of Japan, vol. ii. page 174. ^ The island in Nagasaki harbour in which they were confined was 600 ft. long by 240 ft. broad, and surrounded by a palisade. — H. B. C. ^ The History of Japan, chapter on " Dutch Trade in Japan " (voL ii. pages 170-247). * In striking contrast to this touching care of the long-dead English seaman's grave by the Japanese is the account given by a correspondent THE ALLIES 21 us the interesting information that ^ "in face of the English Alliance, a movement has been set on foot among the Japanese to get up a fund to endow these tombs, so that a curatorship may be established for their care for all time." He also teUs us that a Japanese play, of which Adams is the hero, was performed before the Imperial Princes and Princesses, Prince Arthur, and the members of the Garter Mission. Judging from his despatches and his book, The Capital of the Tycoon, the lot of our first official representative in Japan, Sir Rutherford Alcock, does not seem to have been as happy as that of his humbler predecessor. This, however, is hardly to be wondered at. Still, after two hundred and fifty years, shuddering at the " Jesuit Peril " (as Hearn calls it) which they had so narrowly escaped, the Japanese statesmen could hardly have been reassured by study of recent history, nor by the attitude of the Powers towards their country; while the very title of Sir Rutherford's book ^ shows how slight was our knowledge of Japanese institutions. Still, successful or not, the two first diploma- tists in Japan were Anglo-Saxons, Sir Rutherford (then Mr.) Alcock. and Mr. Harris, the American. signing himself R.N. in The Times of September 17th, 1906 : " Three years ago," he says, " one of His Majesty's ships at Yokohama sent a working party ashore every day for six weeks to put the sailors', marines', and soldiers' graves . . . there in order. . . . The amount of paint used mounted up, and application to the Commander-in-chief for refunds was refused on the ground of the imdesirabihty of estabhshing a precedent, and involving, if allowed, the possible expenditure of con- siderable sums in other parts of the world." 1 The Oarter Mission, page 44. 2 The Capital of the Tycoon. Longmans, 1863. Tycoon, Professor Chamberlain tells us {Things Japanese, page 497), meaning " great prince," was a title adopted by some of the Shoguns in their intercourse with foreign states with the object of magnifying their position, in which they were successful, " for the European diplomats assumed that the Shgbun was a sort of Emperor, and dubbed him ' His Majesty.' " 22 THE ALLIES With the advent of Sir Harry Parkes, in 1865, our rela- tions began to be placed on a firmer basis. " His career in Japan," says Professor Chamberlain,^ " coincided with the most stirring years of modern Japanese history. He even helped to mould that history. When, at the beginning of the civil war of 1868, all his diplomatic colleagues were inclined to support the ShSgun, Sir Harry, better informed than they as to the historical rights of the Mikado and the growing national feeling in favour of supporting those rights, threw the whole weight of British influence into the loyal side against the rebels." As the champion of the rightful and winning side England thus acquired a prestige which she never lost, and greatly strengthened by the treaty of 1894 ; while Japan obtained that for which her statesmen had in vain been striving for nearly thirty years — treaty revision on a footing of equality, " the abolition of exterri- toriaUty, fuU jurisdiction over British subjects, and the right to fix her own import dues." ^ England's lead was soon followed by the other Powers, and, thanks to our initiative, Japan was admitted into the comity of great nations. Professor Chamberlain ^ severely criticises this treaty as a one-sided one in which the Japanese gain everything and we nothing, and complains that foreign residents in Japan have been " sacrificed on the altar of la haute politique." Whether this is so it is not for me to judge, nor, if it is, am I competent to assess the poUtical value of the victims ; but, having drawn attention to Professor Chamberlain's views, it is only fair to give those of another old resident, Mr. Ejiapp, who holds the exactly opposite opinion and marvels at Japan's patience under the " tyranny of the Western world," a rapacity and tyranny amply justifying the fear instilled during the '^ Things Japanese, page 361. ^ Ibid, page 493. See next page. ^ Ibid, page 495. THE ALLIES 23 period of seclusion. After speaking of the unfairness of the import duties allowed by treaty, he says ^ : " By the new treaties, which took effect in 1899, a greater latitude is graciously conceded, but only after another period of years will Japan gain complete autonomy." During Japan's war with China, we, together with the rest of the world, watched her success with breathless interest, and, although we maintained a strict neutrality, at all events held aloof from the unholy alliance which robbed her of the fruits of victory, and, according to Hearn,^ by the expression of our sympathy, mitigated her despolia- tion. It was, however, during the relief of the legations at Pekin that England and Japan were thrown most closely together, and from this event may be said to date the official friendship which is now so firmly cemented by the sympathy of the nations. The seed of the latter had been sown, but had hardly had time to sprout. Pekin is a long way ofE, the Japanese contingent was small, and some exhibition of her prowess on a larger scale was wanted before the British public could fuUy grasp what Japanese pluck reaUy was. This was afforded in 1904, when " Uttle Japan," as she was then called, dared to pit herself against the giant Russia. " Go it, little un," is the cry which one invariably hears from an English crowd watching a fight between two men of unequal size ; and if, as in this case, the " little un " is already a favourite with the spectators, the best that the giant can expect is neutrality. Be that as it may, the fortunes of Japan were followed with the keenest interest by the whole British nation, and her unbroken series of successes was a source of satisfaction to nearly every section of the 1 Feuded and Modern Japan, page 225. ' Kokoro, page 97. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, 1896. 24 THE ALLIES community, and never was an act of Government more in accordance with public taste than that which gave concrete form to the natural sympathy between the two nations by concluding the alhance of 1905. During the war this sentiment, among the masses at aU events, was probably more instinctive and semi-sentimental than based on any soUd reasons, and by this time they may have forgotten the war and any lessons they learnt from it. Yet now is the time when it behoves, not only iiiem, but their more thoughtful fellow countrymen, to turn their attention to Japanese methods. Now we should study the causes which enabled an island power, with a population about equal to that of Great Britain and Ireland, and which, like us, had been long asleep, to step into the front rank of military powers. Let it be borne in mind, too, that it is not only in war that Japan has proved her efficiency. While we, content with the remembrance of our past pros- perity, are placidly watching the growth of German mer- cantile and warlike fleets, and letting German manufac- turers and merchants supplant us throughout the world, Japan has awakened from her slumbers refreshed in every nerve, and not only in war,[but in science, manufacture, and commerce, is bidding fair to supplant even our great rival. With a civilisation as old, or older, than our own, and in some respects far superior to oijrs, Japain had remained in seclusion for nearly three centuries ; till, in 1853, Commodore Perry, in command of an American squadron, forced her portals. Grasping at once the truth that to maintain her independence she must fight the West with its own weapons, she applied herself to the study of our methods with the re- markable success which is well known. A fact, however, which, if equally weU known, is not as universally taken into account, is that she is no barbarous nation suddenly become civilised, which, having learnt everything from the West, has THE ALLIES 25 nothing to give in return ; but a long-civilised one, governed for centuries by wise rulers and just laws, and, to quote Mr. Henry Norman,-^ " by one of the strictest, loftiest, and most punctilious codes of honour that man has ever devised," and, above all, imbued with a rehgion whose tenets make the worship of England's curse, the god of self-seeking and self-indulgence, an impossibility to her people. Nor were European institutions and modes of thought new to her. As she welcomed Chinese teaching in the eighth century, so she hailed that of the Jesuits in the seventeenth. We learn from Adams's letters how eagerly and shrewdly he was cross-examined by lyeyasu on the reUgion, institutions, and warlike methods of Europe. Nor was the great Shogun alone in his desire for Western knowledge. In spite of the expulsion of the Jesuits, and his prohibition (which was continued by his successors) against intercourse with foreigners, " Japan," says Griffis,^ " never was, in spite of aU attempts to make her so, a hermit nation. During all the time of her isolation, the loophole of communication with Europe through HoUand was kept open. For two centuries and a half there flowed in steadily a constant stream of information, ideas, and books, until at last, even before the nineteenth century, the study of the Dutch lan- guage was begun. This brought to students the scientific, and especially the medical, knowledge of Europe. Nagasaki became the goal of hundreds of inquiring spirits, and these, returning to their isolated homes, made centres of light and inspiration. The nation at large was slowly leavened and made ready for transformation." In his book. The Mikado's Empire,^ the same writer says : " It would be hard to find a single native pioneer of progress 1 The Far East, page 375. Published by Fisher Unwin, 1901. 2 The Century's Change in Japan and China, by the Rev. W. E. Griffis. ' VoL ii. page 621. Harper Brothers, London, 1906. 26 THE ALLIES in the early years of Meiji — statesman, diplomatist, military leader, physician, man of science, interpreter, author, preacher — who was not directly indebted to the Dutch." Yet, as he adds,^ " The alien pioneers have nothing to do with creating Japanese sagacity, character, or civilisation ; but they did develop slumbering energies, and they showed the way." Nor was learning all that the Japanese received from the Dutch. Kaempfer tells us that even in the early part of the seventeenth century both small arms and artillery were obtained from them. He also points out the eagerness of the people to communicate with Europeans, and says^: "They have so much sense and innate curiosity, that if they were not absolutely denied a free and open conversation and cor- respondence with foreigners, they would receive them with the utmost kindness and pleasure." Judging, however, from his description * of the " Dutch prison," as he caUs it, on Desima island, nothing but an almost fanatical deter- mination on the part of the people to learn could have en- abled them to circumvent the extraordinary precautions taken by the authorities to prevent their doing so. Correcting the prevalent idea that the change in Japan has been sudden. Professor Chamberlain says * : " It is not merely that the revolution itself was an extremely slow growth, a gradual movement taking a century and a half to mature. It is that the national character persists intact, manifesting no change in essentials. Circumstances have deflected it into new channels, that is all. The arduous intellectual training of the Japanese gentry of former days — the committing to memory of the Confucian classics — ^ The Mikado's Empire, vol. ii. page 679. ^ History of Japan, vol. ii. page 357. ' Ibid. vol. ii. page lliet seq. ' Things Japanese, pages 7-8. THE ALLIES 27 fostered a mental habit at once docile, retentive, apt for detail. With these very same qualities their sons sit to-day at the feet of the science of the West. The devotion of the Samurai to the Daimyo and his clan was unsurpassed ; for them, at any time, he would offer up his life, his all. This same loyal flame glows still at white heat ; only, the horizon having been widened by the removal of provincial barriers and the fall of petty feudal thrones, the one Emperor, the united nation, have focused all its rays into a single burning point." Again, speaking of the Japanese tendency only to select that which suited them, he says : " Twelve centuries ago ... it flung itself on Chinese civilisation as it has now flung itself on ours ; and in both cases ahke certain reserva- tions have been made. The old national religion, for in- stance, was not aboKshed then, neither has it been abolished now, though in both cases full latitude has been accorded by this nation of thorough-going latitudinarians to alien religions and philosophical ideas." WTiether Japan or the West will be the ultimate gainer by our intrusion into her privacy remains to be seen ; but in the meanwhile, she, forced by the ever-changing condi- tions of the world to adopt the only methods by which she can hold her rank among the nations, has learnt lessons from us — and Europe, and especially England, may learn many lessons from her, which, if properly digested, may stand us in good stead when our day of trial comes. Japan, careless of the changes which steam navigation and improved firearms had made in the map of the world, until they were actually brought home to her by Perry's ships, had relied for protection on her insular position and the courage of her people ; but, like a good sailor, ever with his eye on the glass and sky, was wise enough to note the first hint of " dirty weather," and to make " all snug " before the storm broke. 28 THE ALLIES England, though she has not shut herself out from the world, has failed to keep pace with it. Huge and scien- tifically organised armaments have sprung up around her, and neighbouring fleets are increasing in size and strength. While it is the openly avowed policy of Ger&any to have a fleet superior to ours,^ her rapidly increasing mercantile marine is already strong enough to carry any army she might wish to land on our coasts. " The North German Lloyd and the Hamburg American Lines," says the writer of one of the prize essays already quoted, " have a fleet of 250 fast steam vessels with a carrying capacity of nearly 1,200,000 tons. These, unassisted, can transport an army. They would be mostly in home ports at the outbreak of a war with Britain, if the German General Staff were not asleep." Our fleet, on which we rely, can no more be in two places at once than Sir Boyle Roche's famous bird, and, even as- suming that it would be in the right place when it was wanted, and is strong enough in ships, is too weak in men,^ and more especially in stokers, to stand the strain of many weeks' war. Our army is adniittedly that of a third-class power. Regardless, as Japan once was, of the changes which have taken place in other countries, and, like her, relying on our insularity and native courage as a protection from all in- vaders, the mass of our population remains placidly con- tent in the remembrance of its past immunity ; but, unlike the Japanese, they continue to shut their eyes to the signs ^ The preamble to the German Navy Bill of 1900 stated : " Germany must have a fleet of such strength that a war, even against the mightiest naval Power, would threaten the supremacy of that Power." ' I am aware of tie naval argument that a reserve of men is unnecessary, as the loss of ships in war will be fuUy proportionate to the wastage in men. But until we get accurate statistics on this subject from Japan, the question cannot be looked upon as definitely settled. THE ALLIES 29 of the times and remain supinely optimistic as to the future. It is true that our army is re-organised about three times in every decade, and that many warning voices have been raised ; but having read that " a prophet shall not be with- out honour, save in his own country," we feel ourselves absolved from patronising home products, and if we are ever taught it win be by a stranger. There is a friendly one waiting to teach us on the other side of the world, and if we are wise we shall take our lesson from him, instead of waiting for some rougher and ruder teacher from European shores. During the progress of the world's history many other nations, having gone to sleep with unguarded doors, have paid the penalty. Japan is one of the few who, having fallen into the error, has had the energy and resource to repair it before it was too late. She is also the one whom we, situated as we are, may most profitably study ; but let us not forget that during the fifty-odd years which elapsed between Japan's first awakening and her trial, she had time to prepare. For long, indeed, we have been talking of reform, but we have been talking in our sleep — we are not even yet fully aroused ; and who can say that the period between our awakening and our trial will be as long as that vouchsafed to Japan ; or that, even if it is, we shall have the qualities — the patriotism, the discipline, and the education — ^which will enable us to make the most of it, as Japan took advantage of every chance during her years of preparation. Apart from the dangers of actual invasion, which all thinking men who have studied the subject regard as very real, there is another reason why we should strive to place ourselves on an equality with Japan. However much peo- ples or rulers may be drawn together by sympathy, alliances are no longer made for sentimental reasons, but are based purely on a consideration of the advantages to be gained 30 THE ALLIES from them. For the moment our alliance with Japan is one of mutual convenience. Between us we control the Far East. By it Japan is secured from anxiety while she is preparing for an even greater struggle than that from which she has triumphantly emerged. In return her friendship not only enables us to relax our vigilance in the East, and thus free troops and ships for other purposes, but also relieves some of our anxiety as to the safety of India. England, however, is not the only nation to whom an alliance with Japan would be desirable, and although an alliance with her wiU probably suit our ends for many years to come, it is possible that when, in ten years' time, the term of our treaty with her expires, other suitors for her hand may come forward. If their power of offence has increased more rapidly than ours, and they can pay a price which is beyond our means, it will be in the nature of international poMtics that she will accept the one that best serves her purpose. Should this happen it matters little which of the three great Powers it be : the result would be the same — the control, and what is more important to the average Englishman, the trade, of the Far East would have passed out of our hands. Therefore, if only for the sake of a renewed alliance with her, it behoves us to study the methods of Japan and try to imbibe some of the patriotism and self-denial which have enabled her to stand so severe a test. During the progress of the war our interest in Japan was, strictly speaking, purely a naval and military one. Her strategy, tactics, and organisation, together with those of her enemy, were watched and described by experts and eagerly studied by members of the fighting professions, as accounts of the ever-changing conditions of modern civilised warfare would be. Had Japan been defeated these tech- nical lessons would have been equally valuable, but would in time have been replaced by newer ones, and the Russo- THE ALLIES 3l Japanese War would have been forgotten by all but his- torians, or, at most, vaguely remembered as an interesting attempt of a small and newly armed nation to perform an impossible feat. Japan's extraordinary series of successes, however, coupled with our alliance with her, forces us to look upon her in a new light. She is no longer a nation from whose tactical and strategic achievements and mistakes certain lessons may be learnt, but a Power with whom, whether for good or evil, we are bound to fight side by side should the necessity arise, and which, existing under con- ditions somewhat similar to our own, has, without our experience or opportunities for preparation, performed a task which would probably have taxed our strength and resources to breaking point. Let us imagine, for the sake of illustration, that the position of the two countries is reversed, and that a great Continental power with a fleet equal to our own is holding fortified positions on the North Sea, and threatening in- vasion. Can any one in his wildest dreams suppose that we, unaided, could drive him back to Central Europe and inflict on him such a series of defeats as would force from him terms of peace as favourable to us as were those of the Treaty of Portsmouth to Japan. If the thesis be accepted that Japan, a country naturally circumstanced in somewhat similar manner to ourselves, has performed a remarkable feat, and that it is worth our while to try and copy her, it will be well to foUow some of the reasons which have been given to account for her success, and to see what lessons may be learnt from them. On the declaration of war between Japan and Russia the majority of thinking Europeans looked upon the former's doom as sealed. A few, it is true, thought that she might prolong the struggle by some naval successes which could have no effect on the final result, while a small minority 32 THE ALLIES believed in her ultimate victory. Even this minority based its belief less on Japan's strength than on the weakness of the Russian line of communications, holding, as it then seemed plausibly, that the supply of an adequate force by a single line of railway, six thousand miles in length, was an impossibility. But just as Japan had many sur- prises in store for the majority of the prophets, Russia had one for the minority, who in their prognostications over- looked the possibilities of such a miracle-worker as Prince Khilkoff arising — the man to whom, thanks to his untiring energy and powers of organisation, must be credited one of the most remarkable feats in the annals of war. The soundness of the adage which warns us against prophesying until we know having been duly vindicated, the votaries of the fascinating but delusive art, retiring into their respective sanctuaries, remained in seclusion tiU the end of the war. Then, coming forth like giants refreshed, they were able to tell us all the reasons why Japan could not have failed to win. Some of these conclusions or explanations were partly true. Others appear to have been founded on fallacies. Others, again, employed the method of explanation favoured by a certain conjurer who used to astonish London by his sleight-of-hand some years ago. Having exhibited some incomprehensible transformation of cards, canaries, or what not, he would blandly observe, " That's how it's done," and was perfectly correct in his statement. He used no springs or false bottoms, and aU he had done had been performed in full hght before our eyes ; but as we had been unable to foUow his movements, the explanation taught us nothing. So until we are able to follow and sympathise with Japanese modes of thought, we may break our heads from now to doomsday over explanations, and be no nearer grasping their inward meaning than we are now. THE ALLIES 33 Another form of explanation consisted in the simple device of explaining a puzzling series of facts by a difficult word. " Bushido," for instance, the knightly spirit of the Samurai, has been assumed to account for the success of Japan's arms : being as it is the spirit of self-sacrifice and self-effacement, of the uncomplaining endurance of hardship, the antithesis of the spirit of advertisement and fighting for personal reward, it is more than probable that its posses- sion was one of enormous advantage ; but it must be borne in mind that the SamUrai never amounted to more than 2 per cent, of the population, and even supposing that the national levies in Manchuria were aU imbued with this spirit, it adds but little to our knowledge. What use is there in crying " Bushido ! " to a people among whom chivalry is dead, in preaching self-effacement to a nation of advertisers ; or the silent endurance of hardship to an electorate who would turn out any government daring to hint at the country's right to their services. Before we can understand Bushido we must be educated in the prin- ciples which make it possible. In about fifteen years we taught the Egyptian fellah to stand up and be shot at like a man, because his instructors were experts in the art they were teaching ; but before Bushido can become a practical force in England its professors will themselves have to be taught, and possibly bred. Japan, it is asserted, was fighting for her existence, and this is true enough of the nation as a whole ; but as far as the individual soldier is concerned it probably applies quite as much to the Russians as to the Japanese. Primed by their officers with blood-curdling stories of the horrors which awaited them if they were captured by their barbarous foe, the Russian soldiers fought for dear life, as our men fought against the Dervishes. While to the governing classes, and, at aU events, to the higher officers, it was 3 34 THE ALLIES known that Russia was fighting not only for her prestige as an Asiatic power, but for the only open-water outlet for her trade. " A great European power like Russia cannot afford to go back," said a distinguished diplomatist at the outbreak of the war, " any more than England could afford to be beaten in South Africa." The Boers, too, were fighting for their existence in South Africa ; but had they fought with the skill and spirit of the Japanese it is more than doubtful whether England would not have had to accept defeat, whether she could afford it or not. Again, it is stated by some that the Japanese victories were due solely to the bad leadership of the Russian generals. Granted, for the sake of argument, that this may have been the case, it advances us no further than the Bushido explanation. Why should the Japanese generals, some of whom received their military education in the days of bows and arrows, be more skilled in modern warfare than men who had served their apprenticeship in European campaigns ? Or — to apply this reasoning to ourselves — will officers, who find it too much trouble to learn their profession, begin to do so now because the Japanese have done so ? The answer is that they certainly will not, unless by some means they can be inoculated with the spirit of devotion to country, before aught else, which dominates Japan. Another explanation is that the courage of the Japanese soldiers was due to their being in a comparatively backward stage of civilisation, and that a generation of prosperity and closer intercourse with the Western world will reduce them in point of courage to the average European level. The latter part of this statement, entering as it does the domain of prophecy, can be left to fulfil itself or other- wise, but the first part of it is based on one or more fallacies. THE ALLIES 35 That the Japanese troops fought splendidly is admitted on aU sides, but the Russians frequently did so with equal courage ; and without wishing in the smallest degree to detract from the undoubted bravery of the Japanese private, it must be said that the action of the Japanese generals in daring to sacrifice thousands of their men, when they considered it necessary, brought the courage of their soldiers into greater prominence. However great it may have been, however, it certainly was not due to an inferior civilisation to that of the Russians, unless the authors of this explanation attach a pecuHar meaning to the word " civilisation," and look upon it as synonymous with " Christianity." In all its ordinary aspects civilisation is revealed in a more advanced stage in the Japanese than in the Russian soldier ; the former is far better educated, and is more refined, sober, clean, self-restrained, and humane than the latter. The argument, if such it can be called, is merely founded on the belief so firmly rooted in some minds that contempt of death is a sign of barbarism, and that therefore a fearless man is necessarily an uncivilised one. It is as though one should say, " All black men have squat noses ; you have a squat nose, therefore you are a black man." The original state- ment is untrue, and the conclusion drawn from it is fallacious. If, however, it can be shown that " Christianity " and " civilisation " are synonymous terms, it must be admitted that the propounders of this explanation are in the right, for, fortunately or unfortunately, Christianity, as it is interpreted in the present day, seems to offer fewer induce- ments to its adherents to run the risks of another world than any religion that we know of. It is comprehensible and even natural that men of aU creeds should mourn the loss of those dear to them, even if they believe them to have passed to a happier state ; but 36 THE ALLIES it is only among latter-day Christians that one hears of the dead and not the living being pitied. In no communities save in Christian ones does one hear the departed spoken of as " Poor So-and-so." " If your lordship is not in the south of France within a week, you will be in heaven," the doctor is reported to have said to the bishop. "Is it as bad as that ? " was the alleged reply, and the story, though probably fabulous, conveys a truth. It has also been said that the Japanese are intensely- patriotic, which is undoubtedly true ; but as the interest which we take in their victories is less academical than practical, this advances us but little, unless we can learn how a similar patriotism can be instilled in ourselves. It has, it is true, been often urged that we are patriotic, and the rush of volunteers to South Africa during the Boer War has been adduced in proof of this assertion. That the number of these, as compared to the population, was not remarkably great is shown by Mr. Amery's figures, quoted on page 2 ; but no one who knows Englishmen will deny that they have still the fighting instinct, as well as its more modern manifestation, the sporting one ; although the latter, among the masses, is chiefly exhibited in watching rabbit-coursing, or in paying sixpence to see some one else play (and get kicked) at football. StUl, when there is a fight going Englishmen generally wish to be in it, and this being the case, it is in the nature of things that the best of them should volunteer for South Africa. The important question, however, is not whether we can get raw, untrained material, in time of war, to waste the ammunition and eat up the supplies of the army, but whether we can get a sufficient number of men in peace-time to give up time, pleasure, or money to become efiicient fighting machines themselves, or to pay for the training of others. It must, however, be admitted that although England is THE ALLIES 37 destitute of practical patriotism (of the sort which expresses itself in shouting there is still plenty), her army, or part of it, is possessed by a spirit nearly allied to it, the sentiment which, for want of an English equivalent, is known as esprit de corps. It is rather odd that this, our last remaining possession, should be inerpressible in our language ; but be that as it may, it is a real force to be made use of if we will. There are thousands of men who would not give up a day's rabbit-coursing to save the Empire who would gladly give their lives for the honour of their regiment. It must, however, be borne in mind that, for this sentiment to exist, the regiment must be one to be proud of, either on account of its history or its present distinction. One can no more expect a soldier to give his life for a regiment without a history, and without a name, than one can expect a civilian to sacrifice a fortune to save the honour of a family which has never had that possession. Comparatively smaU though this asset may be, it is a matter for great congratulation that the spirit exists, for it is probably the one germ which is capable of being cultivated to a wider growth, and it is also a link with one of the roots of Japanese patriotism and efficiency which wUl be dealt with later. In addition to the various rather unsatisfactory explana- tions which have been given to account for Japan's success, there are certain phenomena which must have been noticed by those who followed the course of the war. The first of these was the marvellous secrecy which Japan was able to maintain, not only as to her future movements, but also as to such past events as the authorities did not wish to become public property. The knowledge of future movements being confined to the authorities, the secrecy with which they were guarded is more intelligible, though even that was far in advance 38 THE ALLIES of anything we have ever been able to attain. But in ad- dition to official secrets, there were many others which must have been matters of common knowledge to a great number of irresponsible persons, particularly naval ones, such as the fate of ships and the position of fleets. It is impossible to suppose that Russia had no spies in Japan, and it is certain that there were in the country many unfriendly neutrals and a host of foreign newspaper corre- spondents — men trained to collect information and prepared to pay large sums for authentic news. Yet hardly one item of information which could have been of service to the enemy was allowed to leak out. It is true that the censor- ship of the Press was very rigid, and that the movements of correspondents were circumscribed ; but just as it is said to be possible to drive a coach-and-four through any Act of Parliament, human ingenuity has so far always failed in devising a system of censorship which would prevent a newspaper correspondent making use of any good copy which he had been lucky enough to obtain. The meagreness of the news forwarded to Europe can only be accounted for on the assumption that the correspondents were unable to get any. Is it possible to conceive any conditions under which the British Press would modify its unceasing cry for " copy," or under which the British public would turn a deaf ear to it if it was made worth its while to listen ? Yet, in spite of the fact that the sums which correspondents would have been ready to give for authentic news would have seemed fortunes to many Japanese, there is no record of any of them having yielded to temptation. It would seem as if the whole people was not only possessed with a sense of what might or might not be said, but was absolutely tongue- tied on all matters affecting the country's interests. Again, the patient confidence of the people in their rulers THE ALLIES 39 is in striking contrast to our own behaviour under the strain of war. For months they were content with meagrest official notifications of the course of the great struggle in which not only the fate of their country, but that of their friends and relations was involved. One can imagine the indignation of the British nation and the vituperation of the Press had their knowledge of events in South Africa been confined to occasional official lists of killed and wounded, and two such notifications as, " Our army has relieved Ladysmith," " Our army has occupied Pretoria." Yet it was little more than this that was received in Japan, and until the day when they thought that they had been trifled with, and that the Treaty of Portsmouth had made their sacrifices of no account, no word of complaint was uttered. It is true that our system of party government, with its necessary adjunct, a party Press, is the cause of much complaining, it being the function of the Opposition to show that aU acts of the Government are harmful, and that of its Press to educate the people to this view. Yet this is in- sufficient to account for the great difference of behaviour of the two nations under a similar strain, and in order to understand it we must seek some deeper cause. The third most remarkable feature of the war was the lowness of the death-rate, from all causes, and the fact, unprecedented in military history, that the mortality from disease was lower than that from wounds. " British troops," said Sir F. Treves,^ " entered into a war with many determinations. One was to have 10 per cent. sick. It was what they were accustomed to, and they got it. Now the Japanese were quite content with 1 per cent, sick, and they got it." Surgeon-Major Seaman, after stating that the average 1 Quoted by Baron Suyematsu, The Risen Sun, page 343. 40 THE ALLIES proportion in prolonged campaigns had been four men died of disease to one from wounds, says ^ : " I yet unhesitatingly assert that the greatest conquests of Japan have been in the humanities of war, in the stopping of the needless sacrifice of life through preventable disease." Without burdening the reader with tedious statistics two examples may be given. In our late war in South Africa the deaths from disease were seven times more numerous than those from wounds, and in the American war with Spain, fourteen times ; while the Japanese lost about four- and-a-half times more men from wounds than from disease, while only 1-j^ per cent, of the entire army died of disease.^ The low death-rate and comparative immunity from disease was undoubtedly due partly to the climate in which the operations were carried on, and to a very great extent to the excellence of the medical department and the completeness of its preparation ; but also largely to the spirit which animated the individual soldier, who, firmly impressed with the belief that his life was his Em- peror's, let no considerations of personal comfort influence him. He looked upon an insanitary, but possibly tempting act, which might result in his admittance to hospital and the consequent temporary loss of his services, as a disloyal and hardly less disgraceful one than that of being taken prisoner while the power stiU remained in him of disabUng one of his country's enemies. This explanation, however, like the others, is of little practical use to us until we have grasped the sentiments which move the Japanese; and the other explanations 1 The Real Triumph of Japan, page 2. London, Sidney Appleton, 1906. 2 The total Japanese losses were : kiUed and died from wounds, 52,946 ; died from all diseases, 11,992 ; 24 per cent, of the force were wounded, but only 1'5 per cent, of them died. THE ALLIES 41 having proved to be little less delusive, we cannot do better than accept that given alike by the Japanese admirals and generals when accounting for their success — that they were attributable to the " glorious virtue of His Majesty the Emperor." CHAPTER II Misconceptions Mr. Ritdyard Kipling has told the world that East and West will never meet, and the world, which mostly lives in low latitudes and knows little of meridional concentration at the Poles, has not only believed him, but, basing its judgment on an arbitrary geographical expression, has extended his ban to countries far removed from those of which he wrote. Arguing plausibly but fallaciously, they assume that, if the gulf between West and East is great, how much greater must be that between West and farthest East ! Yet if it suited the convenience of navigators to take New York, instead of Greenwich, as the central meri- dian, Japan, from being farthest east, would become farthest west ; and if it suited the convenience of lazy or busy people to think of things as they are, instead of as they are labelled, they would know that there is as much difference between India and Japan as there is between a Red Indian and a New Yorker, who are both labelled Americans. One of the greatest differences between the Japanese and ourselves is the one which has most helped this miscon- ception — that of early education. A Japanese child is brought up by its mother, who, no matter what her class, rarely leaves it day or night, and teaches it by precept and example from the moment it can understand anything ; with the result that when the time comes for it to be taken in hand by schoolmasters, its ideas are fully formed accord- 42 MISCONCEPTIONS 43 ing to its station of life on all matters excepting those of mere learning. Describing the influence of the Japanese mother, Miss Bacon says ^ : " The Japanese mother takes great delight and comfort in her children, and her constant thought and care is the right direction of their habits and manners. . . . No matter how many servants there may be, the mother's influence is always direct and personal. No thick walls and long passage-ways separate the nursery from the grown people's apartments, but the thin paper partitions make it possible for the mother to know always what her children are doing, and whether they are good and gentle with their nurses, or irritable and passionate. . . . The Japanese mother's life is one of perfect devotion to her children. She is their willing slave. Her days are spent in caring for them, her evenings in watching over them ; and she spares neither time nor trouble in doing anything for their comfort and pleasure." Nor, as far as a stranger can judge, is it only the women who devote themselves to the children. In parks, streets, railway carriages, and tramcars, it struck me that men of aU ages paid quite as much attention to the children as the women did. Everywhere one may see old, young, and middle-aged men — men in Japanese, nondescript, or correct European dress — walking hand in hand with children. Any day in the public parks one may come across dreamy students or venerable greybeards on benches, absorbed in their books or newspapers, till suddenly from behind a bush or rock appears their master, a young man, of from three to seven years old, clad in sandals, kimono, and yacht- ing cap, who marches up to them, with an air that shows he is not accustomed to be denied, takes them by the hand, and leads them off. No sign of impatience or annoyance is ever shown at the interruption, but, with a smile, the book 1 Japanese Girls and Women, page 85. Gay & Bird, London, 1902. 44 THE ALLIES is shut or the paper folded, and the willing victim is led off to give place to another. I have sat one day for nine hours in a railway carriage opposite a Japanese couple and their child, aged about two. The weather was hot, the carriage crowded, and the child (for a Japanese) rather peevish ; and it is no exaggeration to say that during no fraction of any of those five hundred and forty minutes did either the father or mother relax their efforts to keep it amused. Papers just bought from the newsboy and still unread were made into streamers to flutter from the window. For about an hour it was the tyrant's pleasure to lift the Japanese " Bradshaw" as high as his arms could stretch, and then hurl it on to the floor. Every time, with a smiling face, the father would stoop down, pick it up, and hand it back. In order to do this he had to be free, so the child was put on to its mother's lap ; but it did not like this so much as his father's arm, and after about half an hour he was transferred, the father holding him as high as he could to give a greater fall to the book, while the mother dutifully did the picking up. I wUl spare the reader a full description of that Japanese day's entertainment, which would be wearisome in recital ; but in spite of heat and dust it kept me enthralled from first to last, not only on account of the almost superhuman patience and affection which were shown, but because of the sporting interest in it. The couple had made up their minds that, come what would, that baby should not cry, and as the hours rolled by the interest became almost breathless, and as one saw httle puckers forming themselves about the child's mouth, one wondered by what possible new device they could avert the coming storm ; and, even if they suc- ceeded that time, whether their resources would be equal to meeting the next. English parents would probably call this " spoiling," and MISCONCEPTIONS 45 the Japanese child is certainly subjected to that process, but it is never spoilt. This may be partly, as Miss Bacon suggests,^ that it is " the product of a more perfect civilisa- tion than our own " ; but it is also the result of the object- lessons in courtesy and forbearance which are ever before it. Lafcadio Hearn wrote : " I have been fourteen months in Izumo, and have not yet heard voices raised in anger, or witnessed a quarrel ; never have I seen one man strike another, or a woman bullied, or a child slapped." As he points out elsewhere,^ the traditional plan of Japanese education is almost the exact opposite of ours. " With us, the repressive part of moral training begins in early childhood : the European or American teacher is strict with the little ones ; we think that it is im- portant to inculcate the duties of behaviour, — the ' must ' and the ' must not ' of individual obligation, — as soon as possible. Later on, more liberty is allowed. . . . Con- straint among ourselves begins with the chUdhood, and gradually relaxes : constraint in Far-Eastern training begins later, and therefore gradually tightens ; and it is not a constraint imposed directly by parents and teachers — which fact, as we shall presently see, makes an enormous difference in results. Not merely up to the age of school life — supposed to begin at six years — but considerably be- yond it, a Japanese child enjoys a degree of liberty far greater than is allowed to Occidental children. . . . The general rule is that the child be permitted to do as he pleases, providing that his conduct can cause no injury to himself or to others. He is guarded, but not constrained ; ad- monished, but rarely compelled. . . . Punishment is ad- ministered only when absolutely necessary. ... To frighten a child by loud, harsh words, or angry looks, is condemned ^ Japanese Girls and Women, page 15. ^ Interpretation, pages 457-60. 46 THE ALLIES by general opinion : all punishment ought to be inflicted as quietly as possible, the punisher calmly admonishing the while. To slap a child about the head, for any reason, is proof of vulgarity and ignorance. ... To be perfectly patient with children is the ethical law. At school the dis- cipUne begins ; but it is at first so very light that it can hardly be called discipline : the teacher does not act as a master, but rather as an elder brother ; and there is no punishment beyond a public admonition." He then goes on to show how the discipline is gradually tightened, until by the time a young man reaches the univer- sity he is subjected to a very severe one ; but I have quoted enough to show how a Japanese child is trained by kindness and example, how he is kept in constant friendly touch with his mental superiors, and how, to quote Mrs. Hugh Eraser,^ " they grow up imperceptibly in the right shape, they mould their thoughts and expressions on those of the sovereigns of the home." The upper and middle-class children of England, on the contrary, are from the first handed over to the care of in- feriors — ignorant and generally prejudiced women, without a spark of originality or a grain of culture, the class of women who think in labels and put all creation into some half-dozen jampots, ticketed "good," "bad," "black," "white," " God," and " the DevU." " You mark my words, they don't call 'em Turks for nothing," said the old woman who was listening to a discussion on some Armenian atrocities, and she was probably, mentally, a fair type of the class to whom the formation of our characters is entrusted. Women who, knowing even less than the average missionary of the ancient religions, label aU non-Europeans " pore 'eathens," and describe as " savidges " races who are sensible enough to wear healthy clothing and avoid the cultivation of corns. ' Letters from Japan, page 304. Macmillan & Co., New York, 1899. MISCONCEPTIONS 47 Our very health is sacrificed to their ignorance. Not only do they insist on our being coddled in a way that makes us liable to catch cold for the rest of our lives, but even our stomachs suffer in after life from the food they give us. Not long ago I happened to be a fellow passenger with two little girls. As the voyage went on the youngest got thinner and thinner tUl at last her mother noticed it, and consulted the doctor, supposing that the child was suffering from the heat. He, however, soon found that the child was HteraUy starving. At home her chief diet had been milk, but on board the nurse had given her nothing to drink but tea, because the milk was not fresh from the cow ! During the hottest weather these two children and the nurse slept in a stuffy cabin with the door fast shut, because the woman was afraid that if it were only closed by a curtain some one might look in and see her in bed ! If a Japanese mother should happen to read these lines she will probably exclaim, " Is it possible that there can be such people in the world ? " I can assure her that it is not only possible, but a fact, that there are many millions of them. Left in our childhood to the care of such people, it is little wonder that our children " too often pass through the evolutionary stages of monkeys and savages before they reach that of man ; and some never reach it," ^ or that we should grow up prejudiced, unhealthy, and ill-mannered. It says much for our inborn common- sense, refinement, and health, that when we reach maturity we should be as civilised, as broad-minded, and as hardy as we are. Yet even the best of us are far from having reached the ideal. Not one in a thousand has acquired the power of seeing things as they are, or has escaped, as Professor Chamberlain puts it,^ from " the power over us of words 1 Lotos Time in Japan, page 315, by Henry T. Finck. Published by Lawrence & BuUen, London, 1895. 2 Things Japanese, Introduction, page 9. 48 THE ALLIES which we have ourselves coined." Not one in a million has the natural politeness and thoughtfulness for others which is the birthright of every Japanese,^ and none of us have the health and hardiness which are the common properties of the inhabitants of Japan. " Foreigners," said the Samurai pupil in Hearn's story, " A Conservative," ^ " are not hardy like we are. They soon tire, and they fear cold. All winter our teacher must have a great fire in his room. To stay there five minutes gives me the headache." Edward Carpenter wrote ' : "I find that in MuUhall's Dictionary of Statistics the number of accredited doctors and surgeons in the United Kingdom is put at over 23,000. If the extent of the national sickness is such that we require 23,000 medical men to attend to us, it must surely be rather serious ! And they do not cure us. Wherever we look to- day, in mansion or slum, we see the features and hear the complaints of ill health ; the difficulty is really to find a healthy person. The state of the modern civilised man in this respect — our coughs, colds, mufflers, dread of a waft of chill air, etc. — is anything but creditable, and it seems to be the fact that, notwithstanding aU our libraries of medical science, our knowledges, arts, and appliances of life, we are actually less capable of taking care of ourselves than the animals are." That such intelligent people as the Japanese should be blind to oiir weaknesses it is impossible to conceive, but their good manners make it very difficult to learn how far they actually look down upon us. Professor Chamberlain * throws a Httle light on the sub- 1 Under European influence some have already lost it. 2 Kokoro, page 184. 3 Civilisation, its Catise and Cure, page 2. Swan, Sonnenschein & Co., London, 1897. * Things Japanese, page 241. MISCONCEPTIONS 49 ject. Speaking of the aUied relief of Pekin, he says : " One incidental result of such close contact with European diplomacy and with European soldiers was to diminish the respect of the Japanese for Europe. They discovered that their revered Western instructor in science and the prac- tical arts was no better morally than themselves — less good, indeed ; that his unctuous phrases and laboured circum- locutions were a mere veil for vulgar greed. At the same time it began to be suspected that as soldiers, too, the Westerners might be no braver than the Japanese — less brave, perhaps." Again,^ " From hints dropped by several of the educated, and from the still more interesting, because frankly naive, remarks made by Japanese servants whom the present writer has taken with him to Europe at different times, he thinks he may state that the travelled Japanese consider our three most prominent characteristics to be dirt, laziness, and superstition." While, with regard to our philanthropy, he says, " They know also well enough — ^for every Eastern nation knows it — that our Christian and humanitarian professions are really nothing but bunkum." Casual remarks I heard, too, from time to time, conveyed the idea that many of them were quite alive to our failures. " Many of you behave very badly when you come here," an hotel-keeper's daughter remarked to me one day ; " but you have been much better since the war." " Is it true," I was asked by a university student, " that in London the prostitutes stand in the streets under the electric lamps to be chosen ? " And again, " I suppose your marriage cere- mony is much simpler than ours." Hints such as these were the most I ever heard. My impression is, however, that, whatever view they may take of Europe as a whole, the Japanese now fully under- stand that the English are their friends. They are grateful 1 Things Japanese, page 4, 4 50 THE ALLIES for the line which England took during the war with Russia, and (whatever their statesmen may think as to the way in which we are fulfilling our obligations) the people are unfeignedly pleased with the alliance. No one who was in Tokio during the visit of our squadron could have doubted the genuineness of the popular enthusiasm, which, as we hear from Lord Redesdale's book, was even more marked during the visit of the Garter Mission. Ofiicers of our fleet also told me that it was even more noticeable in out-of-the- way ports — ^where it would be less likely to be inspired by order — than in the capital. English is now taught (it is not compulsory) in all the schools, and although this may be merely for commercial reasons, the same cannot be said of the teaching of our national anthem to school children. Englishmen, too, as a rule, like the Japanese better than members of other nations do, and affection is generally reciprocal. The result is that some very warm friendships have undoubtedly sprung up between individuals of the aUied nations. Educated Japanese women also like talking to Englishmen, partly, perhaps, because of the undisguised admiration which most of us have for them, but chiefly because, from our habits of respect for woman and her opinions, we are inclined to take them more seriously than their countrymen, as a rule, do. In an article quoted elsewhere,^ the Yomiuri speaks of the " intellectual and social inferiority of our women," and lays the blame for it on the " unnatural oppressive standard of education in the past " ; but in the opinion of most Englishmen who have had the privilege of talking to educated Japanese women, this is merely searching for an explanation of some- thing which does not exist. Although we may safely ignore the importance of the 1 Page 215. MISCONCEPTIONS 51 meridional gulf which is supposed to eternally separate us from Japan, and must remember that nearly all missionary estimates of Japanese character ^ are tinged by their ingrained habit of dubbing certain classes of action as exclusively Christian, we cannot disregard the opinion of such a man as Lafcadio Hearn, who spent the last twelve years of his life among the Japanese and lovingly and in- telligently studied them, with the advantage of a thorough knowledge of their language. It must be admitted that this great authority looked upon the task of understanding them as almost hopeless. " Long ago," he wrote, in his last book. An Interpretation,^ " the best and dearest Japanese friend I ever had said to me, a little before his death : ' When you find, in five or six years more, that you cannot understand the Japanese at all, then you will begin to know something about them.' " And again,^ " The trained sociologist . . . would recognise that between those minds and the minds of his own epoch no kinship of thought, no community of sentiment, no sympathy whatever could exist, — that the separating guK was not to be measured by thousands of leagues, but only by thousands of years, — that the psychological interval was hopeless as the distance from planet to planet." Yet he admits * that there is no anatomical unlikeness between the Japanese and ourselves, and that " the mental difference between a Japanese and European child is mainly potential." The Japanese, it is true, have evolved for many centuries ^ The following is a fair example of this class of argument : " Masses of women and men alike are ignorant of those principles of right that animate the ambition of the Christian. And how can it be otherwise, seeing that they know not the source of purity and peace ? " {Japan To-day, page 109, by T. A. B. Scherer ; Kegan Paul, Tronck, Triibner & Co., 1905). 2 Page 9. ^ Pages 418-9. * IrUerpretation, pages 12-13. 52 THE ALLIES apart from us, and on independent lines. They have not the past in common which Hnks the European nations. " China is her Greece and Rome," ^ and many of our most familiar allusions would require long explanations to make them comprehensible to a Japanese. It would, therefore, be a coincidence bordering on the miraculous if their lines of thought did not greatly differ from ours. But did one not know that, however much circumstances may modify it in detail, human nature is fundamentally the same everywhere,^ it would be a coincidence hardly less remark- able that the Japanese differ from us so little. That we do not understand the Japanese at present I fuUy admit, but in spite of France being within sight of our shores, (on a clear day), and of the scores of books that have been written by Frenchmen and Englishmen about their neigh- bours, do we understand each other yet ? Are not our views on many subjects as widely opposed as those of the English and Japanese ? Can any one who has lived much among Germans or Americans help wondering how people, sprung from the same stock, can have developed such differences of mental habit ? In our standard of female beauty, for instance, we differ more from the Germans ; in our views on the value of birth, more from the Americans ; and in our sexual morality, more from the Southern European, — than from the Japanese. Nearly every book on Japan has a chapter or devotes several pages to the tendency which the Japanese have to do things in the contrary way to ourselves. Some writers mention these habits merely as curiosities, others to prove the racial differences between us and the conse- quent impossibility of real sympathy. Most of these ' Things Japanese, page 134. ^ I am no believer in the " man and brother " doctrine, and cannot admit a common ancestry between ourselves and certain tribes. MISCONCEPTIONS 53 chapters appear to have been taken either wholesale or but slightly altered from Professor Chamberlain's article entitled " Topsyturvydom," in his Things Jajpanese^ but some writers have expanded his remarks. For instance, he says, " Japanese books begin at what we should call the end, the word finis coming where we put the title-page." Not content with this, a missionary writer points out, as a further evidence of original sin, that they write " from right to left, instead of from left to right." Yet as a Christian teacher he should know that his own Bible, in the original, is written in that way, and that in the Hebrew editions the first chapter of Genesis begins on the right-hand top corner of what we should caU the last page. Yet he sees no racial difference between himself and the Hebrew sufficient to prevent him accepting their sacred book as the Word of his God. As an instance of the lengths to which ignorance and prejudice may lead the orthodox, the following story is not out of place here. A friend of mine happened to remark to a person of uncompromisingly orthodox belief that a certain verse of the Bible would be more intelligible if a comma was substituted for a full stop. " How dare you," was the reply, " attempt to change the stops which were placed by God Himself ? " The good man was apparently unaware that in Hebrew there is only one stop — the colon. Without going into the reasons which led us to reverse the old system of writing from right to left — the direction which the hand naturally follows in drawing a line — I would ask any reader to look, say, for an illustration, whose place he is not certain of in a book, and he will find that he naturally turns over the leaves from the end. In spite of our long acquired habit of reading the contrary way, it is still the most easy method. 1 Pages 481-2. 64 THE ALLIES Many of the customs which Professor Chamberlain mentions are due to the fact that there are generally two equally good ways of doing a thing, and the Japanese have chosen one and we the other ; but we need not go to war like the inhabitants of Lilliput over the ques- tion of whether an egg should be opened at the large or small end. In some they obviously adopt the most sensible line. It can hurt no one, except the wearer, if a hat is retained in the house, but practically the whole world outside Europe knows that boots fresh from a muddy street are liable to bring dirt into rooms. I admit, however, that our objections to taking our boots off is now justified by the fact that they have made our feet unpleasant objects. Professor Chamberlain mentions babies being carried on the back as a Japanese peculiarity,^ but that habit is also prevalent in some parts of Europe, though not so conveni- ently and expeditiously as in Japan. As I heard a sailor say who was watching a Japanese woman hitching on her baby, " It is wonderful ; they just take a round turn and there they are." In Europe, too, I know many people, who prefer comfort to show, who follow the Japanese habit, mentioned by Professor Chamberlain, of having their best rooms and their garden at the back of the house. " Strangest of all," he concludes, " after a bath the Japanese dry them- selves with a damp towel ! " Any one who has taken a Turkish bath knows that the best way to avoid catching cold, and also to keep oneself clean, by stopping the flow of perspiration, is to close the pores of the skin quickly. A Japanese accomplishes this by fanning himself, leaving ' Miss Bacon says that this only appUes to the middle and lower classes, and that children of the upper classes " are never carried about in this way. The young child is borne in the arms of an attendant within doors and out" {Japanese Qirls and Women, page 7). MISCONCEPTIONS 55 enough water on his skin to produce coolness by evapor- ation. Although all these differences are very unimportant, there is one which, as far as I know, has never been noticed as such, and which shows, at one point at all events, great divergence in Japanese and Enghsh Unes of thought. Pro- fessor Chamberlain tells us ^ " it is not usual in Japan, as it is in England, to drop the title of ' Mr.' between friends. To do so would savour, if not exactly of contempt, at least of that excessive familiarity by which contempt is said to be bred. Officials, however, mostly drop the ' Mr.' in addressing their subordinates when on duty." This is the exact reverse of our habit. The young man who may be " Tom " or " Dick " to his official superior in private life, becomes " Mr. Smith " when addressed on duty, and I cannot help thinking that in this respect we take the better line and one really more in keeping with the Japanese spirit, alluded to elsewhere,^ which, while demanding ob- servance of the most rigid etiquette between master and servants, when it is required, allows the greatest freedom in their relations at other times. The one great barrier which Europe and Japan have set up against each other is that of religion, or rather its conse- 'quences, for it is less the reUgion itself than the sense of proportion due to it which makes understanding difficult and misrepresentation easy. Japan objects to no reUgion as long as its professors do not make themselves a nuisance ; and we, so far from having any rooted objection to ancestor- worship, have not yet whoUy forgotten the faith of our forefathers, concerning which Herbert Spencer wrote,^ 1 Handbook of Colloquial Japanese, p. 259. Sampson, Low, Marston & Co., 1898. =" Page 68. = Principles of Sociology, vol. i. page 295. Williams & Norgate, London, 1876-1896, 56 THE ALLIES " How unwarranted is the assertion that the superior races have not passed through this lower cult will be again seen on remembering that, down to the present time, ancestor- worship lingers among the most civilised of them. Through- out Europe it still shows itself, here feebly and there with some vigour, notwithstanding the repressive influence of Christianity. And in another place,^ " Law, whether written or unwritten, formulates the rule of the dead over the living. In addition to that power which past genera- tions exercise over present generations by transmitting their natures, bodily and mental ; and in addition to the power they exercise over them by bequeathed private habits and modes of life, there is this power they exercise through these, regulation for public conduct handed down orally or in writing. ... I wish to make it clear that when asking in any case. What is the Law ? we are asking. What was the dictate of our forefathers ? " Ancestor-worship, and especially the form of it which prevails in Japan, has the effect of making the part always subservient to the whole ; that is to say, of making the country of more importance than the parish, the parish than the family, and the family than the individual. It is the principle of which the injunction, " If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out," was the ultimate logical conclusion; the members must be sacrificed for the welfare of the body. It is the principle which is the mainspring of all Japanese thought, action, and custom ; it is the secret alike of their success and their charm : but it is also the source of most of the difficulties which Europeans have in understanding them. To us, nations, parishes, and families, are mere groups of individuals, generally with some interests in common, but all free to act as they think best for their own ^ Principles of Sociology, vol. ii. page 514, MISCONCEPTIONS 57 advantage. In Japan individuals are but corpuscles of the body, helpful or harmful according to their capacity to serve it. I say advisedly capacity, and not willingness, because so far is the principle carried that intentions, how- ever good, count for little if their results are bad. " Though the sins committed by the wise man be great," wrote the Buddhist teacher, " he shall not fall into hell ; though the sins committed by the fool be smaU, he shall surely fall into heU." This doctrine may seem hard, but it is, at all events, in accord with nature ; any one who will glance at the history of his own life, with its record of misfortunes and illnesses, must acknowledge that he has suffered more from his folhes than his sins. Providence may temper the wind to the shorn lamb, but it does not cool the red-hot poker for the ignorant child. The following extract from Hearn's Interpretation ^ gives a good illustration of this spirit. " In certain rough communities, blunders endangering life are immediately punished by physical chastisement — not in anger, but on traditional principle. Once I witnessed at a fishing settle- ment a chastisement of this kind. Men were killing tunny in the surf ; the work was bloody and dangerous ; and, in the midst of the excitement, one of the fishermen struck his kiUing-spike into the head of a boy. Everybody knew that it was a pure accident ; but accidents involving danger to hfe are rudely dealt with, and this blunderer was instantly knocked senseless by the men nearest to him, then dragged out of the surf and flung down on the sand to recover himself as best he might. No word was said about the matter, and the kiUing went on as before. Young fisher- men, I am told, are roughly handled by their fellows on board ship in the case of any error involving risk to the vessel." 1 Page 108. 58 THE ALLIES In seeming contradiction to this spirit is the remarkable leniency accorded, under the old laws, to criminals of the humbler and more ignorant class. " The application of the law was made less and less rigid as the social scale descended," Hearn tells us ; and lyeyasu, in his Legacy, while recommending the infliction of capital punishment to adulterers of the upper classes, advises great moderation in judging the same class of criminals among the common people, suggesting that, among the young and simple-minded especially, " some momentary impulse of passion may lead to folly, even when the parties are not naturally depraved." While, discussing the morals of the Daimyo, he wrote ^ : " Concerning debauchery among them, it should be judged and punished according to the degree in which it constitutes a bad example for the lower classes." The last-quoted sentence is the key to the whole, the idea being that the importance of any individual action was dependent on its results to the community, and that the lower a person was in the social scale, the less influence his example would be likely to have. It is true that English criminal law chiefly aims at pro- tecting the community, but our system of education is principally based on the idea of fitting the recipient to attain individual salvation in the next world and individual success in this ; and it is difficult for any one, brought up in this school of thought, to tune his mind to that of a people accustomed to ignore the individual and appraise all human actions by the effect they are likely to have on the community. Yet the differences between us are merely those of educa- tion — ^hereditary education, it may be granted, but still education. Although heredity influences our actions, it has not the same effect on our opinions, and in the absence ^ Legacy, Art. 88, MISCONCEPTIONS 59 of any anatomical difference there is no reason to suppose that — ^given the same education — Japanese and Enghsh children would greatly differ. Any one who has seen a Japanese child climb a tree, make sand-castles on the sea-shore with its wooden spade, play hide-and-seek, or any of the weU-known games, must have noticed the extraordiuary likeness it bears to its English coevals. There is not a gesture it gives, or a cry ^ which it utters, which are not familiar ; any difference there is, is one of degree, not of kind, and " the three-year- old child's soul," says the Japanese proverb, " will remain the same till he is a hundred." It may be argued that the immature human being is pretty much the same all over the world; but that is certainly not my experience, after they are, say, about a year old. The little surprised-looking, round-tummied Sudani, the contemplative Hindu, the patient, sore-eyed little Fellah, the impish, begging Neapolitan, the stolid infant Laplander (probably a distant cousin of the Japanese), the amphibious Malay, or the stick-throwing Zulu, are all distinct infantile types, and none of them bear the resemblance — ^in habits — to our children that those of Japan do. I cannot beheve that such a child as I have seen hundreds of in Japan, brought up and educated entirely by Europeans, would develop any marked non-Europeanopinions or habitsin after- life ; though perhaps his hereditary disciphne would cause him to surprise his adopter and shock his schoolfellows by his affection and docility. A European child, on the other hand, brought up by Japanese, would probably have opinions ^ Oddly enough, it reverses the process the grown-ups have applied to the Chinese ideographs. With them, these characters retain their original meaning, but are given a different vocal value ; while the Japanese baby, Miss Bacon says (Japanese Girls and Women, page 13), uses such words as mamma, lata, and hebS, in a different sense to the European ones. 60 THE ALLIES entirely in accord with those of his adopters, but would possibly shock them and surprise his schoolfellows by his disregard of the authority of the one and his tendency to punch the heads of the others. The experiment, as far as I know, has never been tried in its entirety,-^ but a number of Japanese young men have been educated in Europe and America, and have come back so much more European than the Europeans that they raise doubts as to their genuineness. They run down their own country, say it is centuries behind the times, and that there are no amusements in it for a civilised man ; but they are young and have drunk rather too deeply of the waters of pleasure, as it is known in Europe, and their talk, though mischievous, does not prove much one way or the other. It is naturally with great diffidence that I venture to offer any opinion at variance with that of so great an author- ity as Lafcadio Hearn ; but for many years Japan has been giving Europe a series of surprises, and starthng changes come with such swiftness that the textbooks are out of date in many respects almost before they have left the printer's hands. Only two years ago Mr. Hearn's Japan, An Attempt at Interpretation, was the very last word on the subject ^ ; yet, even in that short time, a change has taken place in the status of women which he would have never dared to prophesy ; and unless the cries of Japan's com- mercial rivals are, like the squeals of the little pig, only anticipatory, his gloomy forebodings as to her inabihty to compete with Europe are far from being justified. The books of a couple of years ago were unanimous in their ^ Both Professor Chamberlain and Mr. Hearn mention an Englishman named Black, born in Japan, who has become so thoroughly naturalised in feeling that he is able to earn his living as a Japanese story-teller. It would be interesting to learn how far he has identified himself with Japanese modes of thought. 2 The last reprint was published ia October, 1905. MISCONCEPTIONS 61 verdict that whatever other qualities the Japanese had, they were not scientific or inventive ; yet within the last few months an American electrical engineer, who has had exceptional chances of judging, has given it as his opinion that they are ahead of the Americans in inventive faculty, and will soon be their most serious rivals in the fields of science and invention. Again, nothing could be more pessimistic than the views expressed by Professor Chamberlain in 1904 on the progress of European music in Japan. " Of all the elements of Europeanisation, European music is the one for which the Japanese have been slowest to evince any taste," he says •* ; and after alluding to concerts in which the performers " possess a considerable amount of theoretical knowledge," and which are largely attended, he remarks, "It is to be presumed that most do so out of curiosity, and some bring infants who accompany the performance with their squalls. Still a beginning has been made, and we know that some- times a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. May this happen before another century elapses." Only two years later we find Lord Redesdale writing ^ : " Could it be possible ? Here was an orchestra of some forty musicians, all, or nearly all of whom, . . . were Japanese. All the first violins were young ladies in their native dress ; . . . the programme was of the most ambitious character. ... It was amazing to see ^ these players, and equally amazing to see an audience brought up in the strictest school of Chinese music . . . now listening with eager ears to a full band and applauding Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Wagner." It must also be borne in mind that Japan's success in the 1 Things Japanese, pages 343-344. ^ The Garter Mission, page 72. ^ It would have made the case stronger if Lord Redesdale had said " hear." 62 THE ALLIES late war has given her confidence in herself which she lacked before. The Japanese are now less afraid of saying anything which might possibly cause Europeans to laugh at them. " After all, we are Japanese," I have heard said more than once when discussing some difference of custom. With Japan's assured position in the world, and her official as well as national friendship with England, she is less mistrustful of other nations than she once rightly was. I believe that the task of understanding her is not so hopeless as Hearn thought, and that, helped by sympathy, the natural lovableness of the people, and by a knowledge of the advantages which each would gain by a thorough understanding, the problem may be solved. " It has been often averred," writes Knapp ^ (also a resi- dent of long standing), " even by those who have had ex- ceptional opportunities to gain glimpses behind the scenes, that the inner life of the Japanese is absolutely inaccessible, and that it will for ever remain an unknown land, which no spiritual Perry can open. But there are approaches to it, though they can be gained only by the severest toU." It must be admitted that the pioneer must be a man of exceptional character, a man of absolutely open mind, free from all prejudices, and, above aU, free from a belief in his own or his couiitry's innate superiority. As Knapp says,^ " Let him prove, especially to the scholars of the Empire, his genuine appreciation of aU that is wise and true in their own learning, and his way to the heart of Japan lies open . . . and they (the Japanese) will prove themselves capable of that genuine friendship which St. Francis Xavier deemed one of the finest qualities of the Japanese nature, and in gaining which, it may be added, he achieved the sole Chris- tian missionary success ever attained in the Orient." He who would understand the Japanese must be one of ^ Feudal and Modern Ja/pan, page 314. ^ Ibid, page 314. MISCONCEPTIONS 63 those to whom children will teU their real thoughts. The Japanese are very far from being children, but they have one quaUty in common with them, a mistrust of " grown- ups," spoilers of sport, and persons who think they " know better." We had acquired all our material wisdom when we first came in contact with the Japanese, and, like many other " grown-ups," imagined that experience and wisdom were synonymous, regardless of the instinctive wisdom which we had forgotten and which our so-caUed inferiors stiU re- membered. The pupil must also be a man of tact and sympathy, — tact in order that he may not jar on the feeUngs of an intensely sensitive race, with an almost idolatrous love of their country ; and sympathy in the strict etymological sense of " feeling together " — the sympathy without which the most learned in the art of war can never become great generals, for without it they can never put themselves in the place of their opponents, and must ever make their moves in the dark. With one exception I have been denied the pleasure of meeting any of the men whose books have helped us so far in understanding the Japanese, and, therefore, do not know how the personalities of the majority would strike me ; but the one I have met seemed to me to have been specially moulded by nature for his task, and is also the one whose books are most full of understanding and true sympathy. If the explorer of Japanese character is fortunate enough to speak the language it will make the whole difference to his pleasure, will enable him to see all sides of Japanese Hfe, which would otherwise be hidden from him, and to pick up much out-of-the-way and intensely interesting information. But even without this knowledge he will not be the solitary wanderer in a desert that he would have been a few years ago. English is being learnt to a remarkable extent by men 64 THE ALLIES and women of all classes, and the number of English-speak- ing Japanese is daily increasing, so that, although the non- Japanese-speaking traveller is still cut off from the mass of the people, he is no longer wholly dependent on a paid in- terpreter or a few officials. The prodigious effort of memory required to learn the thousands of Chinese characters which are necessary for an understanding of Japanese literature has given the whole nation a training which makes the learning of our comparatively simple language easy. Among members of all classes one hears English spoken with wonderful fluency, but, as far as my experience goes, the women learn it more readily and speak it more correctly than the men, and the remarkable intelligence of the Japanese woman makes her, in my opinion, the best of all possible guides for the understanding of her people. I re- marked to a Japanese once on the ease with which his countrywomen learnt Enghsh, and he explained it by saying that " women are more simple than men," a statement with which I venture wholly to disagree, but which nevertheless explains why Japanese women like talking to Europeans. CHAPTER III Misrepresentations The artificial barriers which have been set up between the Japanese and ourselves are partly due to the deliberate misrepresentations of rivals, partly to the prejudice and ignorance of missionaries, partly to the relatively different value of actions viewed from the Christian and Shinto stand- points. With regard to the first class I should only be furthering the ends of the calumniators by repeating their stories, even for the sake of contradicting them. We are ruled by proverbs almost as much as by labels, and that mischievous and misleading one which tells us that " there is no smoke without fire " carries great weight with a large mass of minds. The most probable result of any refuta- tions that I could offer would be that they would call forth the remark, " After aU, I expect there is something in it." Nevertheless, it may be worth while to glance at the cause of these stories, which nearly all have their origin in Shanghai. The person who interferes with vested interests, real or imaginary, must expect to get some hard knocks or words for his pains. The trader who by energy or intelligence sup- plants a rival firm, the statesman who aims at the destruction or restriction of a monopoly, the woman who gains the affec- tion of another's lover, all have to take their share of abuse. It is into the position of one of these that Japan has now put herself, through no fault of her own, it is true, but in these 65 5 66 ,THE ALLIES matters intention is taken into no more account than it is in Japan in the cases cited a few pages back. Europe forced itself on Japan, and to keep her indepen- dence Japan had to adapt herself to European methods ; and the pupil having proved to be exceptionally apt, the teacher is now beginning to cry out at the results of his teaching. I fail to see that blame attaches to either side. Europe, in forcing open the doors of Japan for her own gain, merely followed her natural instincts, as the man who puts animals to death that he may have beef, mutton, and pork, follows his ; and Japan, in defending herself, merely followed the ordinary law of self-preservation. But to the nations who have long looked upon China as their natural prey the strength and attitude of Japan must be particularly annoy- ing. While the Shanghai merchant who has exiled himself for years, buoyed by the hope that by a certain period, whose length he has calculated to a nicety, he will have made a fortune on which he can retire, may well be excused for the disappointment and rage with which he views the prospect of his toil being almost indefinitely prolonged by Japan's commercial success. In his bitterness he becomes like a jealous and hysterical woman who actually persuades her- self that the list of crimes which she imputes to her rival is a correct one. We are sorry for her, and we should be sorry for the Shanghai merchant ; but there is no reason why we should beheve what he tells us about Japan. As an instance of the heights of improbability to which they will soar, one of them gravely assured me that the Turkish Moslems, now said to be on their way to Japan in the hopes of converting the Japanese to Mohammedanism, are in reality Egyptian sheikhs who, using rehgion as a cloak, have come to get instruction from the Japanese Government as to the best means of organising an anti-English rising in Egypt. He also told me (I may mention that he was a MISREPRESENTATIONS 67 German) that our recent dispute as to the Anglo-Txirkish frontier was entirely caused by Japanese intrigues at Con- stantinople. Although such assertions, by their very ab- surdity, refute themselves, they are worth mentioning as an indication of the spirit which prompts them. The stories told by disappointed traders are generally pure inventions, often so preposterous that, to those with any knowledge of the subject, they carry their own contradic- tion ; but the other class of criticisms are usually based on some well-known characteristics of the Japanese, noted by the thousands of tourists who visit the country, and likely to be rightly or wrongly interpreted by them according to their degree of knowledge. The commonest, most plausible, and at the same time the most baseless of these, is the charge of sexual immorality.^ It is plausible, to the ignorant European, because he notices that the Japanese women of the lower classes have a freedom of manner which in his own country rarely goes without freedom of morals. The EngMsh ^ " They have not learned the same high ideal of womanly purity and honour that is so warmly cherished in the hearts of those that love the Virgin's Son," says the author of Japan To-day, page 109 ; (Scherer) Kegan Paul, 1904. And A. H. Keane says : " A mercenary disposition and unbridled licentiousness are also amongst the darker shades of a picture which is nevertheless apt, by its cheerful and brighter aspects, to beguile the unwary stranger " {Asia, article " Japan," page 626 ; Edward Stanford, 1886). On the other hand, A. B. Mitford (Lord Redesdale) says : " The better the Japanese people come to be known and understood, the more, I am certain, wiU it be felt that a great injustice has been done them in the sweeping attacks which have been maxie upon their women. Writers are agreed, I believe, that their matrons are, as a rule, without reproach. If their maidens are chaste, as I contend that from very force of circximstances they cannot help being, what becomes of aE these charges of vice and immodesty 7 Do they not rather recoil upon the accusers, who would appear to have studied the Japanese woman only in the harlot of Yokohama ? " (Talea of Old Jwpan, page 43). 68 THE ALLIES maid-servant who laughed and joked with, say, a guest at an hotel, would be regarded as, to say the least of it, for- ward ; but the Japanese girl of the same class does it naturally and perfectly innocently, partly from the in- stinctive wish of the whole nation to please, and partly as a result of the freedom and friendly relations which have always existed between employer and employed, a spirit which stiU lingers in old-fashioned English villages, in which the Squire is looked upon more as a friend than a master, and in which the villagers love his children as their own. Writing of this spirit in Japan Mr. Knapp says ^ : " No- where else has there existed such an unapproachable aristo- cracy, and at the same time nowhere else could be found, under the common conditions of social distinctions, such a spirit of apparent good-fellowship between man and man pervading all ranks and classes. I have myself seen in his home a Japanese noble with his retainers, under conditions where the observance of the conventions was required, and the gulf between them seemed impassable. I have seen them also at times when no special etiquette was demanded, and then nothing could exceed the genuineness of the spirit of camaraderie pervading their intercourse. On the evening of New Year's Day, the common birthday of all Japanese, it was the custom, I was told by the wife of the Master of Ceremonies of the Imperial Household, for her husband to invite to the house every servant, even to the humblest in his employ. In that festive gathering the spirit of fun dominated everything, and all the family, including the Imperial Master of Ceremonies himself, joined in the sports, paying even the forfeits, which involved the smearing of the face with the black marks of defeat. Another charming custom was for the heads of the family, on the occasion of * Fendal and Modern Japan, page 101. MISREPRESENTATIONS 69 the individual birthday of either, to issue invitations to one representative of each family of servants to accompany their master and mistress to the theatre." The pure-minded indifference to nudity which charac- terises the Japanese is also a source of misunderstanding and occasional scandals, owing to the tendency which most of us have of jumping at conclusions based on European ideas. If an English chambermaid walked into a room in which a man was, say, having his tub, he would expect her to do one of two things — either to scream and run away, or to come in with a meretricious giggle and shut the door. If she did the latter he would draw conclusions which would probably be right ; but the Japanese housemaid under the same conditions (except in hotels where they have been drilled to European ways) would almost certainly walk in, not with a giggle, but with her usual placid smile, and calmly go about whatever the business was that she came for. " Europeans are very much afraid of showing their flesh," a Japanese said to me, and I had to admit that we were, but, as I did not wish to appear conceited, I did not tell him that we believed the sight of it must have a de- moraHsing effect on all beholders. The attitude of the Japanese in this respect is due to the fact that they cannot see why a man who is having his tub, or has just come out of it, should be more strongty impelled by the procreative instinct than one in full marching order. It may be due to some flaw in my brain, but I own that I am equally unable to see it. In the hope that it may afford some satisfaction to the tract-and-trouser brigade at home, I may say that the Japanese are being rapidly educated in this respect, and that photographs and post-cards, chiefly from the south of Europe, of persons in various stages of undress, are being largely sold and highly appreciated, and that, thanks to 70 THE ALLIES Europe, the rising generation is developing quite a cultivated taste in indecency. I have confined my remarks to the servant-girl class, because, with one exception, it is practically the only one with which the ordinary tourist comes in contact ; and also because, on account of the more than French strictness with which she is brought up, it would be impossible for a girl of the upper classes to do anything which could be misinterpreted by the most strait-laced. On this subject, Mitford, in his Tales of Old Japan,^ wrote : " The best answer to the general charge of im- morality brought against the Japanese women during their period of unmarried life Ues in the fact that every man who can afford to do so, keeps the maidens of his family closely guarded in the strictest seclusion. The daughter of poverty, indeed, must work and go abroad, but not a man is allowed to approach the daughter of a gentleman ; and she is taught that if by accident any insult should be offered to her, the knife which she carries at her girdle is meant for use, and not merely as a badge of her rank. Not long ago a tragedy took place in the house of one of the chief nobles in Yedo. One of My Lady's tire-women, herself a damsel of gentle blood and gifted with rare beauty, had attracted the attention of a retainer in the palace, who fell desperately in love with her. For a long time the strict rules of decorum by which she was hedged in prevented him from declaring his passion ; but at last he contrived to gain access to her presence, and so far forgot himself, that she, drawing her poniard, stabbed him in the eye, so that he was carried off fainting, and presently died. . . . The truth of this story was vouched for by two or three persons whose word I have no reason to doubt, and who had them- selves been mixed up in it. I can bear witness that it is 1 Page 42. MISREPRESENTATIONS 71 in complete harmony with Japanese ideas ; and certainly it seems more just that Lucretia should kill Tarquin than herself." According to other writers, however, it was the outraged who often kiUed herself. Dr. Nitobe says ^ : " Girls, when they reached womanhood, were presented with dirks {Kai-ken, pocket poniards), which might be directed to the bosom of their assailants, or, if advisable, to their own. The latter was very often the case. . . . When a Japanese Virginia saw her chastity menaced, she did not wait for her father's dagger. Her own weapon always lay in her bosom. It was a disgrace to her not to know the proper way in which she had to perpetrate self-destruction. For example, Kttle as she was taught in anatomy, she must know the exact spot to cut in her throat ; she must know how to tie her lower Hmbs together with a belt, so that, whatever the agonies of death might be, her corpse be found in utmost modesty with the limbs properly composed. . . . Chastity was a pre-eminent virtue of the Samurai woman, held above life itself. A young woman taken prisoner, seeing herself in danger of violence at the hands of the rough soldiery, says she will obey their pleasure, provided she first be allowed to write a line to her sisters, whom the war has dispersed in every direction. When the epistle is finished, off she runs to the nearest well and saves her honor by drowning. The letter she leaves behind ends with these verses : " For fear lest clouds may dim her light Should she but graze this nether sphere, The young moon poised above the height Doth hastily betake to flight." Of the other class of woman with whom some Europeans ^ Buskido, by Inazo Nitobe, pages 129-131. Pubhshed by the Student Company, Tokio, 1905. 72 THE ALLIES are brought into contact it woiold be unnecessary to say much, were it not for the exaggerations which have been written on the subject. There are prostitutes in Japan as there are in all civilised countries, but they are confined to a particular quarter of the town and made to wear a distinctive dress. There are no street-walkers and no drunken, brawling women. Japanese immorality is, at all events, natural, orderly, and under strict police and medical control. Such horrors as may be seen, by those who wish for them, in Paris and Chicago, are unknown and undreamt of, and that blot upon our civilisation, Regent Street at night, fills all Japanese who have seen it with amazement and disgust. Kyoto, which until the present Emperor's succession, was the residence of the Mikados and the idle and rather effeminate Kuge, still bears the stamp of its past and is essentially the pleasure city of Japan, the city in which the municipal regulations for prostitutes are the least strict, and of whose easy-going, cheerful, and lazy inhabitants it is said that they will starve themselves for the sake of fine clothes.^ It is the one city of Japan in which vice might be expected to be most noticeable. Of all its streets those in the neighbourhood of the Shijo bridge contain the greatest number of the class of houses known in England as " disorderly " ; they are distinguished by a lantern of a certain shape and design, and cannot be mistaken. The principal street of this group is that known as Gion Machi, and the European in search of shocks to his sense of propriety, and accustomed to the conditions of hfe in his own country, might reasonably expect that a stroll down it after nightfall would afford him some of the sensations he was in search of. But he would be grievously ^ The Osaka people are supposed to be the exact reverse, and ready to sell their clothes for a good dinner. MISREPRESENTATIONS 73 disappointed, and, without the help of an interpreter of manners and customs, would probably think that he had been misinformed as to the nature of the locality. I may go farther and, without any exaggeration, say that the most particular of European mothers might let her daughter walk down the Gion Machi at any hour of the night, without her running the risk of a rude glance, or seeing or hearing any single thing that could offend her. People there are in plenty, respectable and otherwise : young men and maidens, old men and children, fathers with their families, matrons with their daughters, and young and pretty middle or lower-class girls alone ; also singing or dancing girls, generally in pairs and running hand-in-hand, laughing and chattering to each other hke children just let out of school, joro attended by their maids, hurrying to a house of assignation, and here and there a tayu in a jinriki- sha, dressed in the stately garb of sixteenth-century Japan and with a demeanour to match. Nowhere a hint of vul- garity or rowdiness, nowhere a trace of drunkenness or vice, or a sign or gesture that could be taken exception to by the most prurient. I have walked down this street alone at aU hours between sunset and midnight, and thence through the Maruyama Park to the hotel I was staying at ; first past a row of shooting-galleries, booths, and drinking saloons, which have the reputation of being very disreputable, and then down a long dark avenue. I rarely saw a policeman, and never once was I accosted or molested, or noticed the shghtest sign of vice or disorder. One night I dined at a restaurant with a Japanese friend, who took me afterwards to a " tea-house " and sent for some dancing girls. As we walked down the street, one running at right angles to the main one, I wondered what sort of den I was being taken to. The street was narrow 74 THE ALLIES and dark, and the character of the mean-looking houses was clearly shown by their lanterns. It was the sort of street in which the careful European would like the com- panionship of a thick stick, and even the careless one would be inclined to put his watch into an inside pocket. How- ever, except the children, who all smile at one in Japan, no one took the slightest notice of us, and finally, passing a narrow and dilapidated doorway, we entered a dimly lighted passage and, after taking off our shoes, went up- stairs. I will not describe the girls or the performance, about both of which more than enough has been written ; but I can describe my impressions, both of them and of the house, best by saying that on my return to a European hotel my chief feeling was one of oppression at the glare and vulgarity of the latter and its inhabitants. It was like walking out of a cathedral into a gin-palace. As the night was very hot we went into all the rooms to choose the coolest, and everywhere was perfect cleanliness, taste, and refinement. It was a house which one could have made one's home without wishing to change any one item of the decoration, or even any one of the servants ; one of those houses of which one feels instinctively on entering it, " This place has been lived in by gentlemen." Yet it was a house in which joro would have been provided as readily as dancing girls, together with accommodation for the night. In the half-dry bed of the river under the Shijo bridge rough platforms on piles have been placed in the stream, while the shingle between the channels is covered with switchbacks, refreshment booths, and various forms of cheap amusement. The whole is thickly hung with coloured lanterns, and during the hot weather the lower and middle classes of Ky5to assemble for what they call " Shijo cool- MISREPRESENTATIONS 75 ing," which consists in sitting on the platforms, close to the draught of the river, dangling their feet in the water, and eating ices. Although it is in the centre of the immoral quarter, no prostitutes or, as far as I know, even singing girls, ever mingle with this crowd, and I only mention it now because I wish to emphasise the respectability of the behaviour of a class from whom people, with only European experience, might expect some vulgarity. The platforms, each covered with a red blanket, are about six feet square, and are occupied by groups, generally of three or four persons, of whom the majority are women — mothers with their daughters, parties of girls, girls with their lovers, or their little brothers and sisters, and oc- casionally a father and mother with a whole family of children ; some obviously of the poorest class, and others evidently well-to-do tradesmen. Any one who has seen such a crowd amusing itself at home, especially at night, knows that, even if it is respectable, it is pretty certain to be rowdy ; it is certain that some members of it will be the worse for drink, and that among all there will be a great deal of pinching, pushing, screaming, and loud laughter. At first the silence and order of such a crowd as that enjoying Shijo suzumi come almost as a shock, and, until one has noted aU the happy faces, the gentle smiles and the subdued murmur of conversation, one is inclined to wonder whether, as was foolishly said of the English, they do not " take their pleasures sadly " ; but one soon learns that they only take them gracefully. To my mind one of the most pleasing sights in Japan is that which may be seen nightly, during the summer, under the Shijo bridge. The gleam of the water, the hundreds of coloured lanterns, the platforms and verandahs of the adjoining tea-houses all decked with graceful figures, the little pools in which boys and girls pay a copper for the 76 THE ALLIES privilege of fishing with a noose, the men and girls gliding in the air down the wire rope switchbacks, and, above all, the gentle murmur of subdued happiness, lend a charm to it that is wanting in any other place of amusement that I have ever been to. There is as much difference between it and an English fair as there is between the fairyland of. Phantasies ^ and that of Drury Lane pantomime. If the missionaries who prate about Japanese immorality would make themselves acquainted with the so-caUed pleasures of Western cities, or, disguised as laymen, express a wish to see life in the European quarter of Shang- hai, they could hardly have the effrontery again to compare our morality with that of Japan. The way in which prostitution is conducted in Japan is so obviously cleaner and better than in Europe that the subject is not worth arguing about, but, in a pamphlet recently published by the anonymous author of the Nightless City,^ a statement so astounding as to its extent is made as to require some notice. The author assumes that Yokohama possesses 100 licensed houses, making a total of 454 for the Kanagawa Prefecture. He then gives 400 houses to each of the forty-five other pre- fectures, and 2,000 for the three Imperial cities, and, after some other assumptions, arrives at a total of 400,000 prosti- tutes — " probably," he adds, " 500,000 would be nearer." In the absence of statistics I cannot flatly contradict him, but I should say that any calculation which places the country prefectures on an equality in this respect with Kanagawa is grossly unfair. Yokohama is the city of foreigners, and, as the Rev. W. Griffis wrote,' " Before they opened any port to foreign trade, the Japanese built two places for the ^ By George MacDonald. 2 Probsthan & Co., 1899. ' Quoted by H. T. Finck. Lotos Time in Japan, page 285. MISREPRESENTATIONS 77 foreigner, a custom-house and a brothel " ; while Tokio is the city in which, until the restoration, the Daimyo and their retainers had to spend three months in every year, in enforced idleness, hanging about the Shogun's court, and it was chiefly due to the presence of this large body of idle men that the Yoshiwara grew to such a size.^ Not satisfied with this estimate, however, the author continues : " When to these women are added at least a milhon daruma and meshi-mori, etc., the total number of women practising prostitution is probably over 1,400,000 ; and if to this again about 500,000 geisha be added, the complete grand total cannot be short of nearly two millions, or say 5 per cent, of the entire population of Japan, or 10 per cent, of the female population of all ages ! " Women age early in Japan, and it is doubtful if any woman over thirty could successfully carry on the profession of prostitute. I have no means of learning how many women between the ages of, say, sixteen and thirty there are, but out of a population of about twenty-five million females cer- tainly not more than half, which would make about one woman in every four a prostitute, which, as Euclid says, is absurd. In the absence of statistics it is difficult to say whether there are more prostitutes in proportion to the population, in Japan, than with us ; but if there are it is because there are more wanted, because the bulk of the female population is more unapproachable and ir- reproachable. Apart from the married women, against whom the most rabid anti-Japanese have never dared to say a word, every Japanese-speaking European who has travelled about the country and studied the inhabitants tells the same story of the chastity of the lower-class girls. Exceptions may 1 The number of its inmates has greatly decreased within the last few years. 78 THE ALLIES of course be stumbled on in Japan, as elsewhere, but I am sure that any man who has found much immorality outside the licensed brothels must have searched for it very dili- gently. " I am sorry to find so many naughty words in your dictionary," said the lady to Dr. Johnson. " You must have looked for them, madam," was the reply. The pamphleteer explains that daruma and meshi-mori are names given to secret prostitutes in so-called tea-houses, but I am told by Japanese that the first of these names, literally " rice fiUer," simply means a waitress, and that the second is a nickname for a fat, ugly country girl. But in any case the author evidently includes the waitresses of inns and tea-houses as prostitutes. This assumption is in direct variance with the testimony of every European, who has had opportunities of judging, with whom*I have spoken on the subject.^ It is true that, in spite of the vigilance of the police, there are bogus tea-houses and bars in the cities and tourist resorts, but, compared to the weU-conducted inns, they are a negligible quantity. Of these latter the authors of Murray's Handbook say ^ : " Too many foreigners, we fear, give not only trouble and ofEence, but just cause for in- dignation by their disregard of propriety, especially in their behaviour towards Japanese women, whose engaging manners and naive ways they misinterpret. . . . The waitresses at any respectable Japanese inn deserve the same respectful treatment as is accorded to girls in a similar position at home." The author of the pamphlet already quoted from adds : " Persons may disagree with classing geisha as prostitutes, inasmuch as they are supposed to be singing and dancing ^ The law against secret prostitution is very severe, and the penalties even for conniving at it heavy. ^ Murrains Handbook, page 17. Murray, 1903. MISREPRESENTATIONS 79 girls only ; but as a matter of fact their favours are only a question of money, and they are recognised by the Japanese themselves as first-class prostitutes." I cannot from personal experience refute the first part of this statement, which is, however, wholly at variance with that of many persons whom I believe to be well versed in the subject. In his Tales of Old Japan, Mitford, speaking of the geisha, says,^ " These women are not to be confounded with courtesans." After some forty years his opinion does not seem to have changed, for in his The Garter Mission,^ after praising her dignity, grace, and distinction, he says : " When the last chord has been struck, when the courtly obeisance has been made, and she glides away with aU the stateHness of a grande dame, I for one cannot help feeling indignant with those who, when Japan was only known by what took place in the open ports, so cruelly misrepresented a class of which they had heard but which they never saw, and which in their ignorance they confounded with some- thing quite different." The second part of the pamphleteer's statement is cer- tainly not legally correct. The geisha are not officially classed as prostitutes, and are not subject to medical examination. They are, however, undoubtedly the class from which concubines are largely drawn. On the whole it may be said that the morality of the upper classes of Japan is considerably higher than that of their European equals, that of the peasantry slightly higher, and that of the geisha about on a par with that of similar classes at home.^ If the author's estimate is correct, we must, to make a fair comparison, include among the prostitutes of England ' Page 45. ^ Page 235. ^ With this difference, that within certain limits concubinage is ac- knowledged by the law of Japan, 80 THE ALLIES the whole of the barmaids, waitresses, music-hall performers, and female members of the theatrical profession, an estimate which would undoubtedly produce a fine row of figures, but one based on a glaring libel. No discussion on this subject can be impartial without some notice of the conditions under which women enter houses of prostitution, and of their treatment in them and ultimate fate. Therefore, difficult though it is to arrive at the truth, I must make some attempt to approach it. The laws on the treatment of the women and the con- ditions under which they can enter the houses are un- doubtedly severe and humane, and, if they are strictly carried out, must prevent any possibility either of a girl being forced into prostitution or detained against her wiU. It is required that they shall be posted in a conspicuous place in all brothels, and, as practically no young Japanese women are illiterate, the women must have a full know- ledge of their rights. Nevertheless, it is maintained, both by the author of the Nightless City and by Mr. Henry Norman (who are among the few men who have written fully on the subject), that, in spite of the law, girls are often still sold into prostitution, can rarely escape from it, and are swindled by the proprietors of the houses. Evidence both for and against the correctness of these assertions might be produced indefinitely without settling the question, and for the, sake of argument we will assume that the first two are proved and that the third is possible, if the proprietor of the house is dishonest. But, granting the correctness of these as- sumptions, we must then try to look at the matter from the point of view of the Japanese and not that of the English girl, and also from that of Japanese and not English pubhc opinion. MISREPRESENTATIONS 81 In discussing this subject I shall not touch on the moral side of the question, merely accepting the fact that prostitu- tion is not peculiar to Japan, and trying to arrive at some conclusion as to whether it is, or is not, conducted in that country in a manner least injurious to the nation at large and to the women engaged in it. That it has long been looked upon as an evU is shown by the remarks of lyeyasu on it in the sixteenth century. In the 73rd section of his Legacy he writes : " Virtuous men have said, both in poetry and classic works, that houses of debauch for women of pleasure and for street-walkers ^ are the worm-eaten spots of cities and towns. But these are necessary evils, and if they be forcibly abolished, men of unrighteous principles will become like ravelled thread, and there will be no end to daily punishments and floggings." Nevertheless, Hearn and Mitford say that in many castle towns such houses were never allowed.^ It must be borne in mind, in the first place, that the whole spirit of Japanese religion and custom has a tendency to sacrifice the individual to the community. It is this spirit which is responsible for Japan's success, which makes her sons and daughters willing to give their lives, and more than their lives, for the common good, and the loss of which would entail the loss of her place among the nations. To repeat what I have said in the earUer part of this chapter, the parish is sacrificed to the nation, the family to the parish, and the individual to the family ; and this spirit is so inborn in the people that sacrifices which to us appear terrible are accepted by them as ordinary incidents in their round of duty. Perhaps some of the sacrifices and discomforts which our social code entails on us may seem as hard to them as some of theirs do to Europeans. That the acceptance of a 1 The latter have been wholly suppressed by law. 2 Interpretation, page 374. 6 82 THE ALLIES life of prostitution is a sacrifice cannot be doubted. Mr. Henry Norman ^ stigmatises as " mostly unmitigated rub- bish " the statement that a girl may volunteer for this life " in order to pay her parents' debts ... or even to lay by a little money for herself ; and that, this done, she returns to the bosom of her family as if nothing had happened — ^in- deed, with an added halo of fihal piety." The prostitute is looked down upon in Japan as elsewhere — indeed, the law goes so far as to say that they have " lost the rights of human beings, they may be likened to cattle." ^ There are, however, two points of difference between her and her European sisters, one affecting the estimation in which she is held and the other her own happiness. The first of these is that, whereas in Europe, in the majority of cases, a girl takes to this life either because her passions make it the only one she is fitted for, or because of the cruelty of public opinion (chiefly directed by her more virtuous sisters), which makes an outcast of a girl who has been found out in one sexual slip. In Japan the prostitutes are generally the victims of duty, and it is recognised by their fellow countrymen that, no matter how much they may have polluted their bodies, their minds may remain pure. The author of the Nightless City says : " The one redeeming trait of the Japanese courtesan is that she never appears to fall to the low and vicious level of the Western prostitute, and her position is such that she is likened by an Eastern alle- gorical expression to ' the lotus in the mud,' in the mire truly, but not besmirched by it." Love of purity, moral and physical, is an important tenet of the Shinto faith, and a prostitute may be compared to the corpse of a loved friend, ^ The Real Japan, page 293. Fisher Unwin, 1892. 2 Notification issued by the Judicial Department, No. 22, October, 1872. MISREPRESENTATIONS 83 whose spirit is treated with all possible affection and respect, while it is a defilement needing a special purification to touch his body. Low though these women may have fallen in the esteem of their fellows, they are not outcasts as they are with us, or as the Eta are in Japan — the unfortunates, who, for the sin of their forefathers, committed so long ago that no one knows exactly what it was, are still condemned to ostracism by the rest of the nation. Knapp ^ says it is " probable that the exceptional fierceness of their (the Japanese) disdain has its source in some ancient affront to the people's intense sentiment of patriotism, some long-forgotten hurt to the Empire, of which the only remaining trace is this undying hatred, now become a national instinct " ; while Hearn says, " They are said to be descendants of the family and retainers of Taira-no-Masakado-Heishino, the only man in Japan who ever seriously conspired to seize the Imperial throne by armed force " ; while another account puts them down as survivors of the great Tartar Armada, which failed to invade Japan. Whatever the truth may be matters little ; the in- teresting point is that these are generally beUeved to be descendants of some person or persons guilty of the supreme crime of disloyalty, and consequently infinitely lower in the social scale than any one who, no matter how much she may have degraded her body, has done so from the highest of all motives — that of loyalty, either to her parents, or her family, or even her family's master. The relative esteem in which the two are held is shown by the fact, mentioned by Pro- fessor Chamberlain,^ that when Encho, the Japanese novehst, adapted the plot of Wilkie Collins's New Magdalen to modern Japanese life, he substituted " for the courtesan of the ^ Feudal and Modern Japan, page 208. * Things Japanese, page 150. 84 THE ALLIES English original a girl who had degraded herself by marrying an Eta." Kaempfer ^ tells us of the prostitutes that the guilt of their life was "by no means laid to their charge, but to that of the parents and relations, who sold them for so scandalous a way of getting a livelihood in their Infancy, before they were able to chuse a more honest one " ; and that, having served their time, they might marry and " pass among the common people for honest women " ; but that " The Bawds, on the contrary, tho' possess'd of never so plentiful an estate, are for ever denied admittance in honest companies. They . . . put them upon the same foot with the Jetta {Eta) . . . the most infamous sort of people in their opinion." With regard to the personal happiness of the women, it must be borne in mind that the difference of the step which leads to this life or to an honourable marriage is not so great as with us. A European, or at all events an EngUsh girl, has probably formed an attachment for some young man and hopes eventually to marry him. A Japanese girl, on the contrary, if she has been so unfortunate as to form such an attachment, knows that marriage will probably mean separation. A man whom she has n^ver seen will be chosen as her husband, and to him she must dutifully devote the rest of her life, giving up all outside amusements and friends. Whether the choice of her first partner rests with her parents or the fancy of some visitor to the brothel can make little difference to the shock to maiden modesty which we must suppose must always Tcsult from the first contact with an unloved stranger. For whether she marries or enters a house of prostitution, it is to a stranger that she will be handed. After that, well, ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute, and the chances are that her lover 1 History of Japan, vol. ii. page 84. MISREPRESENTATIONS 85 will find money enough to pay her a visit from time to time. There is another point, possibly a minor one, in favour of the Japanese women of this class, that those in one place are nearly all recruited from the same neighbourhood. The majority of the women in the Yoshiwara, for instance, come from Niigata, on the west coast, while those at Kyoto are drawn from Nagoya ; they are thus only doing what they know has been done by many of their companions, and which has come to be looked upon by the lower classes in these towns as their natural lot. Further, when they arrive at their destination they are among old friends, who form a link with home. Taking it for granted, however, that their fate is as hard as the most gloomy picture has represented it to be, it cannot be denied that it is infinitely better than that of the street-walkers in London, condemned in cold or wet to tramp the thoroughfares for half the night, leering at every passer-by, insulted or pushed out of the way by some, despised by all, a prey to loathsome disease, constantly in sight of freer and happier women, only to go back at last to some comfortless lodgings, and perhaps beaten by some drunken ruffian who Uves on their gains. The Japanese woman lives, at aU events, in health and an atmosphere of cleanliness and comfort, and suffers neither insults nor physical hardship. On the day I left Japan I noticed the following paragraph in The Japanese Chronicle. It is, I beUeve, a continuation of some previous correspondence on the subject. THE PURITY CAMPAIGN AT NAGOYA Inteeesting Incident at Osaka The proprietor of the licensed house at Nagoya who has been repeatedly advised to resign his membership of the Prefectural Assembly or to sever his connection with his immoral business. 86 THE ALLIES continues to completely ignore the advice. The proprietors of other licensed quarters have agreed to combine to protect their interests, and have decided to procure powerful newspaper sup- port by bribery. The agitations in Nagoya have had an effect in Osaka. Mr. Amakawa, a leading member of the Osaka Municipal Assembly, has discontinued his connection with the business, and Mr. Higuchi, another member of Assembly, has followed his example. The Asahi congratulates the Osaka Assembly on the honourable course taken by these two members. As the extent to which women are, or may be, swindled by the keepers of licensed houses cooking accounts, and keeping them nominally in their debt, must obviously depend chiefly on the character of the licence-holder, it would seem that any action which is likely to give the control of these places to a lower class of men is to be regretted. I, there- fore, cannot join the Asahi in its congratulations. If such houses are necessary they are surely likely to be better conducted by responsible persons, such as members of a municipal council, than by unknown and irresponsible men. I never visited the Yoshiwara at Tokio, for the same reason that I never go to zoological gardens or have caged birds in my house, that I do not like seeing living things in captivity ; but I have had descriptions of it from many Englishmen, whose views naturally differ with their tem- peraments. AH, however, agree that it is a wonderful sight, and the more sensitive describe it as an intensely sad one. Looked at from the Japanese point of view, which I be- lieve to be the only right one, that the interests of the com- munity should come before those of the individual, such an institution fully justifies itself. This fortress of vice, on the outskirts of the city, is a thing apart from the life of the town, and, orderly though such cities as Ky5to are, the vicious quarters are not cut off so completely as in Tokio. This isolation, too, probably adds to the convenience and MISREPRESENTATIONS 87 health of the inmates of the Yoshiwara. Within the limits of their stronghold they are free, and can get an amount of air, exercise, and society which is denied to women of their class in other towns. On the general merits of the system I cannot do better than quote Mr. Henry Norman,^ who criticises some aspects of the Yoshiwara so severely that he cannot be accused of any bias in its favour. "As I have written so frankly, it is only fair to the Japanese authorities to point out that their pecuhar system has absolutely eradicated the appearance of vice in Tokio ; you might walk the streets of this city of a milUon people ^ for a year without seeing a sign of it — a state of things prob- ably without parallel in the civihsed world. Then, too, they have dissociated it from riot and drunkenness and robbery ; the streets of the Yoshiwara are as quiet and orderly as Mayfair or Fifth Avenue. And nobody in Japan can fall into temptation unwittingly ; he must go in search of it. That these are matters of some value, at any rate, the people who are responsible for the police des mmurs and Mabille, for the Strand and the Haymarket, for the purUeus of Sixth Avenue and the heUs of Chicago and San Francisco, are hardly in a position to deny." Concubinage is so closely connected with the rehgious belief of the Japanese that it will be more conveniently dealt with in another chapter, and it will sufl&ce here to say that if it is immoral, then Abraham, "The friend of God," was an immoral man. It has, however, always been discouraged by the Japanese if indulged in merely for selfish reasons, unconnected with the continuance of the family. Writing on it in his Legacy,^ lyeyasu says : " Silly and ignorant ^ The Real Japan, page 305. == The population has nearly doubled, but the orderliness is unchanged. — H. E. C. 2 Quoted hj Heam, Interpretc^ign, page 380. 88 THE ALLIES men neglect their true wives for the save of a loved mistress and thus disturb the most important relation. . . . Men so far sunk as this may always be known as Samurai without sincerity or fidelity." It was also an exclusive privilege of the higher classes — i.e. those whose families it was most necessary to perpetuate. Thus by the first article of lyeyasu's Legacy, " princes may have eight concubines, ofQcers of the highest class may have five mistresses, a Samurai may have two handmaids ; all below this are ordinary married men." I have explained why the charge of immorality, as enun- ciated by the ignorant, but in these matters experienced, traveller, has a certain plausibility. It is also plausible from another point of view, that of the learned but babe- like sociologist. His researches will have acquainted him with the fact that, with the Japanese as with other ancestor- worshippers, fihal piety ranks highest among the virtues, chastity takes only a second or third place, instead of the first as with us, and that for the good of the family a woman may be called upon to sacrifice even her virtue. Mrs. Hugh Eraser -"^ writes on this subject, " In no country in the world more than in Japan does the woman faithfully reflect the opinions and codes of the man of her own class ; and the Samurai woman is as brave, as self-controlled, as calmly self-sacrificing as her father or her husband. As far as self-sacrifice goes, she has more to give. His honour will always remain to him ; hers must be asked for, and must not then be withheld. " The Sammai's wife must be chaste as Lucreece, faithful as Penelope ; but she dehberately sacrifices herself, again and again, in Japanese history, for the good of her family, or for her husband's lord." Basing his judgment on such facts, the mere scientific 1 Letiera from Ja/pan, page 314. The Macmillaa Co., New York. MISREPRESENTATIONS 89 inquirer may come to the conclusion that a nation which does not give the highest place to chastity is not likely to be so chaste as another which ranks it first among the virtues.^ I hope I have already shown that, whatever these probabiHties may be, they are not fulfilled in practice ; but, bearing in mind the remarkable and world-famed fascination of the Japanese women, there is the possibihty that any male opinion on this subject may be put down to bias, and I shall therefore close this part of the subject with another quotation from Mxs. Hugh Eraser's Letters,^ which must, at all events, be free from all suspicion of masculine partiality : " The Japanese girl ! She is a creature of so many attractive contradictions, with her warm heart, her quick brain, and her terribly narrow experience ; with her sub- mission and self-effacement which have become second nature, and her brave revolts when first nature takes the upper hand again and courage is too strong for custom. . . . I want to tell you how deeply she interests me, how I believe in her. . . . The books I have read on Japan have always had a great deal to say about the musumi, the pretty plebeian tea-house girl, or the geisha, the artist, the dancer, the witty brilliant hetaira of Japan. I suppose they are about as unrepresentative of the normal Japanese woman as a music-haU singer would be of the European sister of charity. That they are very much less objectionable than the cor- responding classes at home is doubtless due to the innate refinement of the Japanese woman ; but what a gulf is set between them and the girls of whom I would speak — ^girls surrounded with punctiHous care, and brought up with one inflexible standard always kept before their eyes, the whole 1 See quotation from Kaempfer, page 130. 2 Letters from Japan, page 304. 90 THE ALLIES law of duty ! Inclination may never govern their conduct after they have arrived at years of reason, early reached in Japan ; and if they are the brightest children, the most faithful wives, the most devoted mothers, always serene, industrious, smiling, it is surely because Duty is justified of her children. " Very gently, but persistently, one lesson has been preached to her ever since language meant anything in her ears — ' Give up, love, help others, efface thyself ' ; and in the still atmosphere of the home, with its ever-repeated round of necessary but unpraised duties, in that quiet sunshine of humility, high motives grow and are not pulled up by the roots to be shown to admiring friends — the young heart waxes strong and pure, and should the call to heroic sacrifice sound a noble woman springs forward to answer it. Should it never ring in her ears the world is none the poorer, for a true, sweet woman is passing through it, smiling at every duty that meets her on her unnoticed way, leaving a train of gentle wholesome memories behind her when the journey ends. In real womanliness, which I take to mean a high combination of sense and sweetness, valour and humility, the Japanese lady ranks with any woman in the world, and passes before most of them." On the question of the commercial morality of the Japanese, which has been severely criticised, I am whoUy incompetent to speak from personal experience ; but from what I have read and been told, it seems that a few years ago their business methods were, to say the least of it, un- reliable. This was undoubtedly due to the fact that during Japan's period of isolation, during which she was wholly self-supporting, every encouragement had to be given to the producing classes. The result was that the trader was placed at the bottom of the social scale, and that, con- sequently, when the country was opened, European mer- MISREPRESENTATIONS 91 chants only found the dregs of the population to deal with — men who less than any others had been touched by the leaven of Samurai honour ; and when, on the abohtion of the feudal system, many ruined Samurai embarked in trade, their unbusiness-like training only made matters worse. " Those who are well acquainted with our history," writes Dr. Nitobe,^ " will remember that, only a few years after our treaty ports were opened to foreign trade, feudalism was abolished ; and when with it the Samurai's fiefs were taken and bonds issued to them in compensation, they were given liberty to invest them in mercantile transactions. Now you may ask, ' Why could they not bring their much- boasted veracity into their new business relations and so reform the old abuses ? ' Those who had eyes to see could not weep enough, those who had hearts to feel could not sympathise enough, with the fate of many a noble and honest Samurai who signally and irrevocably failed in his new and unfamUiar field of trade and industry, through sheer lack of shrewdness in coping with his artful plebeian rival. When we know that 80 per cent, of the business houses fail in so industrial a country as America, is it any wonder that scarcely one among a hundred Samurai who went into trade could succeed in his new vocation ? It will be long before it will be recognised how many fortunes were wrecked in the attempt to apply Bushido ethics to business methods ; but it was soon patent to every observing mind that the ways of wealth were not the ways of honour." Dr. Nitobe is too polite to say so, but it was not only the plebeian rivals among his own countrymen whom the Samurai merchant found too artful to deal with, but the European merchant, who, thinking Providence had placed some guileless natives in his hand, hurried eastwards to make the most of his opportunity. Concerning the methods 1 Bushido, pages 61-2. 92 THE ALLIES which he employed there is some instructive reading in the " Correspondence respecting the Stoppage of Trade by the Japanese Authorities : Presented to the House of Lords in 1860." Those who have read the despatches of Mr. (afterwards Sir Rutherford) Alcock will not be disposed to accuse him of undue partiality for the Japanese, and his strictures on the conduct of the European " pioneers of trade and civilisation," as he calls them, cannot be dis- regarded. Having read in print, and heard in conversation with English and foreign traders, so many adverse criticisms on Japanese commercial morality, I think it only fair to show the lessons the Japanese received from their early European instructors, and therefore give in an appendix Sir R. Alcock's despatches on the subject. For the benefit of those who do not care to read through a lengthy official document, I will briefly summarise the story which he teUs. The Japanese coinage at that date consisted of gold and silver pieces, four of the latter having a surface value equal to one of the former, while the intrinsic value of the gold coins is fifteen times that of the silver ones. These in their turn were intrinsically worth one-third of a dollar. It was stipulated in the treaty between Japan and the European Powers that foreign coin should be accepted as currency by the Japanese ; and, on the other hand, that Japanese gold coin should not be exported.^ The large profits, however, which the export of gold yielded was too great a temptation for the traders to resist, and the Japanese Government, finding that their country was being drained of gold, appear to have passed round the word to the people that foreign currency was not to be accepted. This action had the effect of practically causing a dead- * Marco Polo tells us that as early as the thirteenth century this prohibition existed. Yule's translation, vol. ii. page 200. MISREPRESENTATIONS 93 lock in trade, and after many negotiations Sir Rutherford Alcock made an arrangement by which the Japanese Treasury agreed to accept dollars and recoin them into Japanese silver currency, returning to the depositors weight for weight of silver ; it being stipulated that not more than 5,000 dollars should be received from any one individual. This arrangement Sir Rutherford, in his despatch of Septem- ber 7th, 1859, to Lord John Russell, described as " most satis- factory " ; but said, " It may, indeed, interfere with some who desire to make a traffic by exporting the gold and silver coin of Japan, the former, at its present rate, yielding a profit of 100 per cent., and the latter some 6 or 7 per cent. But . . . the prevention of such a traffic is one of its peculiar recommendations. ... I cannot for a moment conceive that this exportation of Japanese coins was con- templated by any of the Contracting Powers as a desirable or legitimate object of trade, but the exchange of produce. And I am very certain that this last, and only ostensible object, cannot fail to be much prejudiced by any large dealings in the former." The foreign traders, however, had no intention of being thwarted of their 100 per cent, profit by any mere interna- tional agreements, and as individuals were limited in the amounts which they could exchange, they hit upon the brilliant idea of creating mythical merchants, whose com- bined requirements amounted to sums which (to quote Sir Rutherford), " not only the applicants could not produce in dollars, but . . . which a lifetime would not suffice to count." He describes the documents as essentially " false and dishonest . . . and a positive disgrace to any one bearing the name of an Englishman or having a character to lose." He gives it as his belief that " it was this . . . even more than religious quarrels and encroachments, which led, 250 years ago, to the total expulsion of both Spanish and 94 THE ALLIES Portuguese, and the long isolation of Japan from Western Nations." ^ Sir Rutherford adds : " We are threatened with the same dangers now, by persons wholly regardless of what may happen if they can only secure their own temporary ad- vantage. . . . Neither England nor Japan have anything to gain, but much to lose, by such pioneers of trade and civiUsation as these, and the sooner the country is rid of their presence the better." Nor, according to Tilley,^ were the European traders of the early 'sixties the first to set an example of commercial laxity, their predecessors of the seventeenth century being fully as bad. He tells us that the Dutch merchants at Nagasaki were employed by the Japanese as spies over other European nations, but "cheated the Japanese, brought them inferior goods, peculated . . . and made their miUions " ; while Kaempfer, the Dutchman, writes ^ : " Now as to the fall of the Portuguese, I heard it often affirm'd, by people of good credit amongst the Japanese themselves, that pride and covetousness in the first place, pride amongst the great ones, and covetousness in people of less note, contributed very much to render the whole nation odious. Even the new converted Christians were astonish'd, and grew im- ' Tilley says : " The Portuguese, and afterwards tlie Dutoh, reaKsed enormous profits on their trade, which was chiefly in precious metals : and it is estimated that those nations drew from Japan, during the ninety- five years preceding the prohibition in 1708, metal to the amount of nearly one million pounds sterling per annum " {Japan, the Amur, and the Pacific, page 98. Smith, Elder & Co, London, 1861). Kaempfer (page 157) says of the Portuguese : " The merchants in their trade, and the priests in the propagating of the gospel, prosper'd equally well. . . . The gold of the country was exchang'd against European and Indian curiosities, medicines, stuffs, and other things of like nature. Upwards of 300 tuns of this precious metal was exported every year." 2 Japan, the Amur, and the Pacifx., page 75. ^ The History of Japan, vol. ii. page 158. MISREPRESENTATIONS 95 patient, when they saw that their Spiritual Fathers aim'd not only at the salvation of their souls, but had an eye also to their money and lands, and that the merchants dispos'd of their goods in a most usurious and unreasonable manner." Such early lessons in commerce, imparted to a class who were already looked upon as the lowest in Japan, were scarcely calculated to enhance their commercial probity. Yet — whether it be merely that honesty has been found to pay, or that a better type of men are engaging in trade matters little — Japan's reputation for commercial morality is rapidly improving, and I was told by an English merchant of Yokohama of great experience that the Japanese mer- chants did not now deserve the bad name which they have got, and that he found them more trustworthy than the Chinese. He also explained that many of the disappoint- ments to which European merchants had been subjected at the hands of the Japanese were due to their habit of accepting contracts with them without making any in- quiries into the character of the other party, a proceeding which would never be dreamt of elsewhere. I have read many statements about the Japanese mer- chants' habit of adulterating food. Whether these are founded on fact or not I do not know, but, even if they are, anything that they may have done is certainly eclipsed by revelations from the Western country which has lately startled us with its Chicago tinned meat story. Writing on this subject Mr. Henry T. Finck said^ : " I doubt very much if Japan could match the report of Special Agent A. J. Wedderburn, of the United States Agricultural Department, which reveals the horrible fact that the amount of food adulteration Teaches the immense sum of $1,014,000,000 annually. As at least 2 per cent, of the ' Lotos Time in Jafan, pages 283-4. 96 THE ALLIES whole is deleterious to health, $135,200,000 constitutes the annual amount paid by the American people for sacrifice of their lives or injury of their health." While to quote Dr. Nitob6^ : "As late as November, 1880, Bis- marck sent a circular to the professional consuls of the German Empire, warning them Of ' a lamentable lack of reliability with regard to German shipments inter alia apparent both as to quantity and quality.' Nowadays we hear comparatively little of German carelessness and dishonesty in trade. In twenty years her merchants learned that in the end honesty pays. Abeady our mer- chants are finding that out." The other misconceptions and misrepresentations about Japan are of a less serious nature. That which paints her as a nation of mere imitators, who within the last fifty years have made a mushroom growth from barbarism, is a source of satisfaction to her enemies, who base on it hopes of her early downfall. As it is probably for the good of the rest of the world that they should continue in this belief, which does no harm to Japan, I shall make no attempt to shake it ; but those who are interested in the growth of Japan's civilisation will find the fullest details in the works of Chamberlain, Hearn, Knapp, and others. Other criticisms of the Japanese character are based less on fact than on opinion, and consequently cannot be dis- cussed with any advantage. The Japanese, for instance, have been called fickle, shallow, heartless and greedy, cold, sensual, cruel, and a host of other hard names, which those who like them think wholly undeserved ; but we are all apt to make sweeping generalisations on rather meagre data, and it is probable that both the friends and enemies of Japan might modify some of their views on a more extensive examination of facts. It is, I know, presumptu- ' Buahido, page 64 MISREPRESENTATIONS 97 ous of me to offer any opinion on such short acquaintance, but I will, nevertheless, give my view that they differ fundamentally but little from the rest of mankind, and that most of their pecuharities are due to the extraordinary self-control which centuries of stem discipline have im- planted in them. Lafcadio Hearn writes of this ^ : " Everybody was trained from infancy in this etiquette of expression and deport- ment. ... It " (the code of etiquette) " required not only that any sense of anger or pain should be denied all outward expression, but that the sufferer's face and manner should indicate the contrary feeling. Sullen submission was an offence ; mere impassive obedience inadequate ; the proper degree of submission should manifest itself by a pleasant smile, and by a soft and happy tone of voice. ... In the military class especially this code of demeanour was ruth- lessly enforced. Samurai women were required, like the women of Sparta, to show signs of joy on hearing that their husbands or sons had fallen in battle : to betray any natural feeling under the circumstances was a grave breach of decorum. And in all classes demeanour was regulated so severely that even to-day the manners of the people every- where still reveal the nature of the old discipline. The strangest fact is that the old-fashioned maimers appear natural rather than acquired, instinctive rather than made by training. . . . We must suppose that the capacity to acquire such manners depends considerably upon inheritance — that it could only have been formed by the past experience of the race under discipline." The severity of this discipline may be inferred from the following sentence in the 45th article of lyeyasu's Legacy : " The term for a rude man is ' other-than-expected- fellow ' ; and a Samurai is not to be interfered with in ^ Interpretation, page 191. 7 98 THE ALLIES cutting down a fellow who has behaved to him in a manner other than is expected." I believe this extraordinary self-control manifested under all possible conditions makes us, accustomed to give full expression to our passing emotions, attribute to the Japanese the lack of many qualities, which, on a more intimate knowledge of them, they are found to possess, as fully, or even more fully, developed than many European nations. " It is doubtful to my mind," said Sir Edwin Arnold,^ writing of Japan, " whether any nation possesses a more finely developed nervous organisation than its people." It would be tedious to quote the many instances which might be culled from books and the personal observation of Europeans, proving the sensitiveness of the Japanese to pain, reproach, joy, and grief, but only expressed when they think themselves unobserved. It will suffice to remark on the fact that hysterical diseases (a sure concomitant of a sensitive, nervous temperament) are very prevalent in Japan; and — to give the views of a Japanese on this subject — Dr. Nitobe writes ^ : "It has also been suggested that our endurance of pain and indifference to death are due to less sensitive nerves. This is plausible as far as it goes. The next question is — ^Why are our nerves less tightly strung ? . . . Personally, I believe it was our very excitability and sensi- tiveness which made it a necessity to recognise and enforce constant self -repression." ^ Japonica, page 94. T. Osgood, Mcllvaine & Co., 1892. 2 Bushido, page 99. CHAPTER IV Religion The attribution of their victories to the virtue of the Em- peror, which often occurred in the despatches of Japanese commanders, must have come as a surprise to many EngUsh readers, unacquainted with Japanese beliefs, and accus- tomed to take the literary style of their own generals as the one on which such documents should be based. Such utterances, however, are wholly in accord with the senti- ments of the Japanese. They would be surprised and shocked at hearing one of their generals claim a victory as the result of his own skill ; and look upon their Emperor, not merely as an earthly ruler, in whose service it is an honour to die, but as the focussing point of their religion, and the connecting link with the heroic hosts of the past. In such a one virtue would naturally lie, in the sense of the sixth definition of it, given in The Century Dictionary — " An inherent power, a property capable of producing certain effects, strength, force, potency, influence " — and in the sense in which Jesus said the virtue had gone out of Him. In order to understand the attitude of the Japanese towards their ruler we must try to make ourselves ac- quainted with their religion. Further, in order to study this sympathetically, we should bear in mind that all religious beliefs spring from a parent stem, common to mankind, but which, in some cases, has hardly yet begun 99 100 THE ALLIES to put forth branches, and, in others, has been stunted at their expense ; while the perfect plant, well proportioned in all its parts, is very rare. Again, the character of the branches has necessarily been modified by the condition of their surroundings. Some, hemmed in by other growths, have been unable to take their natural shapes ; others have had their development retarded or distorted by parasitic creepers ; while the artificial grafting of alien growths is responsible for many hybrids. If the perfectly proportioned plant is rare, even rarer is the one in which the branches, allowed fuU space for extension, have taken a shape and size wholly suited to their environment — to the soil that nourishes them, the winds that sway them, and to the light, heat, and moisture to which they owe their life. Primitive savage tribes may be likened to trees of the first category ; their religious growth is so far natural, but undeveloped. The reUgion of Europe spread by the con- quering Romans may be compared to the engrafted limb, which was itself the result of parasitic modification. That of Japan nearly approximates to the natural growth. Free from invasion in historic times, Japan has had no ahen faith forced on her. Unhampered by her neighbours, she has developed at the bidding of her own instincts ; while the teachings of Confucius ^ and the Buddhist missionaries can hardly be said to have modified her ancient creed, but merely to have added to it certain qualities in which it was lacking. Though parasitic, they have never been harmful : the parent tree has been vigorous enough to support itself and its adopted child, and instead of allowing the climber to suck out its life, it has utiUsed it to add to the glory of its foliage. As the briUiant bloom and delicate tendrils of a climbing ^ Although Confucianism is not a religion, the mental habit which it induces is one calculated to influence the direction of religious development. RELIGION 101 clematis may add beauty to the cold grace of the white- rimed birch, so the gorgeous ritual and kindly teachings of Buddhism have given softness, colour, and grace to the snowlike purity of Shinto. The Japanese have taken the blossom of their cherry- tree, simple, sweet, never tenacious of life, and blown hither and thither by each passing breeze, as the emblem of their warrior spirit. The birch, I think, of all trees might fitly be taken as the symbol of their native creed. Simple, upright, clean, and hardy, it takes no fantastic shapes, and flourishes alike on the poorest soil and on the verge of Arctic snows. Like Shinto, it is unobtrusive, abstemious, and demands no exclusive rights ; and like Shinto, on its native soil, will resist all attempts to stamp it out. In spite of all foreign importations, Shinto is, as it always has been, the rehgion of Japan, because it is her spirit, and in religion as in all else, whUe she has modified her body to suit novel conditions, she has kept her spirit intact. It is Yamato-damashi ^ directing the latest European engines of destruction which has made Japan irresistible in war, as the same spirit, applied to Western arts and in- dustries, must inevitably bring her to the fore in peace. Before attempting to describe the offshoots of religious belief, which have taken such different forms in Europe and Japan, it may be well to glance briefiy at the growth of the parent stem. " Ancestor-worship," Herbert Spencer tells us,^ " is the root of every religion." As far as the primitive faiths of Europe are concerned this is undoubtedly the case — the 1 " The soul of Yamato (or Heart of Yamato). We might correctly, though less literally, interpret the expression as ' The Soul of Old Japan ' " (Heam, Interpretation, page 177). ' Principles of Sociology, vol. i. page 411. 102 THE ALLIES patriarchal conditions with which it was always originally associated prevailing on the Continent, at all events, till the century preceding the Christian era ; and, up to a certain point, the development of religious belief in Europe and Japan was on similar lines. With slight modifications, resulting from her hospitality to foreign creeds, the evolution of Shinto has continued to follow its natural bent until the present day ; while, on the other hand, the beliefs of Europe, Asia, and Africa have been so modified by colonisa- tion, conquest, and the intermingling of races in different stages of evolution, that none can now be taken as an example of purely natural growth. In order to understand the nature of the force which, entering Europe nearly two thousand years ago, was destined to transform its faiths, we must glance also at their history, and shall learn that they in their turn were the result of many conflicting elements. Without going into the stiU open question as to the period in their career in which the Hebrews imbibed Chaldean influences (them- selves the result of much intermingling of races), it will suffice here to point out that accounts of the Creation and the Flood as given in Genesis resemble the description of these events as described in the Assyrian tablets too closely to be the result of mere coincidence ; and that their views on the life beyond the grave were practically identical with those of the Babylonians, the Hebrew Sheol (rendered by us as " hell " or " the grave ") ^ differing in no respect from the dreary Babylonian House of the Dead, Arallii. Neither of them appear to have formulated any idea of a paradise or special abode of the blessed dead, in which they would hold communion with their God. " In death there is no remembrance of Thee : in the grave ^ It is usually rendered as the former in the version of the Psalms given in the Liturgy, and as the latter in the Authorised Version of the Bible. RELIGION 103 who shall give Thee thanks ? " says David ^ ; and again in Ecclesiastes ^ we read, " For there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave (sheol), whither thou goest." The Old Testament has many such gloomy pictures of the condition of the dead. That Sheol was regarded by the Hebrews neither as the place of torment nor merely as the grave is shown by Jacob's remark ^ when he was told of Joseph's death. " I will go down into sheol * unto my son mourning," he said. As he believed Joseph to have been eaten by wild beasts, he could not have been alluding to his place of sepulchre, while it is unlikely that he supposed his favourite son to be in that of the damned. At what period the Hebrews formulated the idea of their Supreme Being, Javeh (Jehovah), "The Lord God of Israel," is not known ; but it is unlikely that it was derived from the polytheistic Babylonians, whose chief deity, Bel, after- wards identified with the local god of Babylon, Marduk, was never regarded by his worshippers as more than the strongest of their gods. " Marduk, thou art glorious among the great gods," the other gods say to him when they choose him as their champion against Tiarmat.^ Nor is it known to what extent Hebrew beliefs were influenced by the captivity in Egypt, though, as Moses was initiated into the Egyptian mysteries, it is improbable that he can have been ignorant of the lofty conception of the priesthood of that country, of whose Neb Ur Tcher, " The Lord of Holiness " (the Lord Great Holy), it was said*: "God is one and alone, and none other 1 Psalm vi. 5. - ix. 10. ' Gen. xxxvii. 35. * " The grave " in the Authorised Version. ^ Maspero, Dawn of Civiliaation in Egypt and Chaldea, page 539. Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, London, 1897. * See Religion und Mythologie, Dr. Brugsch, page 96. 104 THE ALLIES existeth with Him. . . . God is the hidden Being, and no man hath known His form. No man hath been able to seek out His likeness." Be that as it may — ^whatever the religious idea of the Israelites may have been when they entered Egypt — ^it may be taken for granted that they left it a monotheistic people in so far as they only worshipped Jehovah, but polytheistic in that they admitted the existence of the other nations' gods, looking upon them as enemies of, but inferior to, their own deity, or, as the Rev. A. W. Oxford ^ puts it, "in ancient Israel monolotry existed, but not monotheism." " The Israelites," says Mr. Oxford, " who had no con- ception of the world or a universe, were of course unable to reach the conception of an infinite and supreme God. . . . Jehqvah was but one god by the side of many others, as is shown by the fact of his bearing a proper name, by which he was distinguished from other gods.^ Jehovah, however, was Israel's only god." In course of time, as they became more strictly monotheistic, they changed their conception of them, reckoning them as devils or subordinates of God's great rival Satan, to the evolution of whom they were 1 Article " Ancient Judaism " in The Religious System of the World, page 52. Swan, Sonnenschein & Co., 1892. 2 IHVH, rendered Jehovah in our Authorised Version, is a singular masculine noun, but ALHIM (Elohim), translated God, is formed by the addition of the masculine plural termination IM to the noun ALH (Eloh), which has a feminine termination (e.g. AYSh, a man ; AShH, a woman). Thus a strict rendering of the first Mne of the Bible would be, " In the beginning the God and Goddess created, etc." The first chapter of Genesis and the first three and a haK verses of the second chapter belong to what are known to Hebrew scholars as the Eloist writings (from their using the word Elohim instead of Jehovah). They were both written at approximately the same date (i.e. between 700 and 800 B.C.), but appear to belong to different schools of thought ; possibly the former may be due to Egjrptian influence. RELIGION 105 probably indebted to the Egyptian conception of Set, the brother and enemy of Horus ; and the serpent Apep, the adversary of Ra. They do not, however, appear to have accepted the Egyptian conception of a possibly happy life after death ; while the patriarchal nature of their creed made them unsympathetic to the Egyptian idea of a feminine principle in nature, with its corollary, the elevation of woman's status. With the single exception of a modification of their ideas on the Resurrection which took place long after the Christian era, their faith has remained unchanged to the present time — an even more remarkable instance of re- ligious conservatism than that of Japan ; for while the latter country has been practically unmolested by external influences, the Hebrews, of all people, have been least able to lead a national life. While the Hebrews remained practically unchanged, the Egyptians, to whom, quite as much as to the former, Europe owes her present beliefs, underwent many modi- fications in their creed. Among the most important of these was the high place which the Osiris worship attained. Whatever the origin of this cult may have been, and there is Little doubt that Osiris was originally one of the deified heroes common to ancestral faiths, it is of extreme anti- quity, and in the earliest Egyptian records we find him accepted as the Man-God, who, having been killed by his enemies, rose and conquered death, and was the hope of aU men who died. It was not, however, till some three thousand years after the date of the earliest texts that he became accepted almost as a national god, and the son of Ra (the visible personification of the Unknowable). By this time (i.e. about the sixteenth century B.C.), to quote Budge ^ : " The 1 The Egyptian Rdigion, page 61. Kegan Paul & Co., London, 1899. 106 THE ALLIES original ideas concerning the god were forgotten and new ones grew up ; from being the example of a man who had risen from the dead and had attained unto life everlasting, he became the cause of the resurrection of the dead." As the being to whom they looked for resurrection and eternal life, he almost superseded the other gods,^ and by the beginning of the Christian era had come to be looked upon as the equal, if not the superior, of his father Ra, whose supremacy, however, was fought for to the end by the priests of Heliopolis. Indeed, in this respect the Egjrptian and Christian ideas were almost identical, and " Never," says Budge,^ " did Christianity find elsewhere in the world a people whose minds were so thoroughly well prepared to receive its doctrines as the Egyptians." It must be borne in mind, however, that not only was Christianity preached in Egypt after the coming of Christ, but that for some time before His advent Egyptian ideas had been permeating the in- tellectual centres of Eastern Europe. With the endowment of a temple to Serapis at Alexandria, by Ptolomy Soter, the popularity of that city began to increase, and by the beginning of the first century B.C. its university had become the recognised centre of learning of the civilised world, throwing into the shade the older university of Heliopolis administered by the priests of Ra. Thither flocked the students of Greece and Rome, returning to their own countries imbued with the " wisdom of the Egyptians," and preparing the world for the doctrine of the Resurrection, the Mediator, and the Trinity of Osiris, Isis, and, Horus, which were unknown both to the Hebrews and the inhabitants of Europe. 1 It should always be borne in mind that^^these gods were but manifesta- tions of the one God. 2 The Egyptian Religion, page 81. RELIGION 107 Thus, by the time Christ began His ministrations, the more advanced section of the civiHsed world had been al- ready educated to a conception of many of His teachings ; while to the uneducated, Christianity brought the (to them) even more welcome doctrine of equality of all men in the eyes of God, and in course of time became so popular with the masses that the Roman emperors, yielding to pubhc opinion, were forced to embrace it. Roman conquests, in their turn, caused its spread over Europe. During the early centuries of our era the principal Chris- tian doctrines were probably those of the Resurrection, the Trinity, and the equality of all men in the eyes of God ; but as time went on men naturally began to modify them according to their national tendencies. It must be remem- bered that Christ, a Hebrew Himself, never questioned the supremacy of His people's God, Jehovah, but merely added some softer characteristics to those attributed to Him by the Jews, and extended His sway from that of a mere tribal god to that of the Lord of All. The sterner races of the north, while accepting the doc- trines of the Resurrection, the Trinity, and the equality of men in the eyes of God, had Httle real sympathy with those which inculcated compassion, charity, and forgiveness. They, therefore, gradually drifted into the more Hebraic side of Christianity — namely, that which, while accepting Christ as the Son of God, deprived the Father of most of His Christian attributes, and practically fell back on the Hebraic conceptions of the vengeful and jealous Jehovah, and his great rival, Satan. The softer races of the south, who happened also to be more in touch with Egyptian ideas, on the other hand, almost forgot the existence of the Father, and concentrated their devotions on the Virgin Mother and her miraculous Son, while they satisfied their natural tendencies to poly- 108 THE ALLIES theism by the worship of numerous saints substituted for the deposed minor gods. The outcome of this process, the Christianity of to-day, is thus divided into two distinct sections, — that which in all but name has returned to its parent Egyptian source, and which devotes its attention chiefly to the New Testament ; and that which has gone back to the worship of the Hebrew Jehovah, but has added to the Hebrew faith a belief in the Resurrection and the divine origin of Christ. With the members of this section the Old Testament is naturally in the greatest favour. There are, however, many shades of opinion between the two extremes, which may be said to be represented respec- tively by the peasants of Southern Italy and the members of the Scotch Free Kirk. The Church of England, occupjdng an intermediate position, does its best to reconcile the worship of the stern, unbending Jehovah with the teaching of His compassionate Son. There are also a few (in the present stage of our evolution there cannot be many) with intelligences sufficiently developed to grasp the idea of Pure Spirit ; but to the majority an anthropomorphic deity is a necessity, because they are mentally incapable of imagining any Intelligent Being differing from themselves, except in degree. Their God is therefore like the god of savages, a man made in their own image, all-powerful, it is true, but still such a one as they can imagine they themselves would be, could some miraculous process confer on them omni- potence and invisibility. To the cruel. He is cruel ; to the jealous, jealous ; to the judicially minded, an upright judge ; while to the gentle and compassionate He may appear as a God of mercy and forgiveness, but always with human attributes. By painters, oddly enough, the Immortal and Indestructible is almost invariably depicted showing the signs of senile decay. RELIGION 109 The story of the evolution of our creed cannot well be passed over without some notice of the Power of Evil, almost as important a personage in the eyes of some sects as that of the Supreme God.^ Among primitive tribes it is to the evil spirits that sacrifices are most usually made, as the ones most necessary to propitiate ; and feeling the need of a leader in spiritual as in earthly communities, they have almost invariably given them a chief. The Egyptian religion, derived from various sources, absorbed into its system many of these devils ; but the chiefs were undoubtedly Set, the enemy of Horus, and Apep, the great serpent, and nightly vanquisher of Ra. In adopting these the Hebrews appear to have regarded them purely in the Egyptian light, that of leaders of hostile hosts ; and, indeed, their vague ideas on the condition of the dead, which evolved no separate places of punishment and reward, necessarily precluded the later conception of Satan as the ruler of hell ; but as the enemy of God he would be regarded as the tempter of man. " What is loved of God is obedience ; God hateth disobedience," ^ wrote Ptah-hetep (3000 B.C.), and to cause man to disobey would naturally be one of the objects of his rival. How far the early Christians were indebted to the Hebrews for their conception of the Devil it is difficult to say, but judging from the fact that he is usually depicted as a Roman Satyr, it was probably of comparatively late date, and de- rived from Italian, rather than directly from Hebrew or 1 The late Henry Eangsley used to tell a story illustrative of the fact that Devil-worship has by no means expired in Europe. When a notorious old sinner in the West Country was dying, the parish clergyman offered him the usual consolation, telling him that if he repented of his sins God would be merciful to him. " Oh, yes ! " said the dying man, " I know He's all right ; but it's that other beggar as I'm af eared of." ^ Prisse Papyrus, Etudes sur le Papyrus Prisse, Paris, 1887. 110 THE ALLIES Egyptian, sources. His form clearly indicates the light in which he was regarded — that of a ruler of the powers of nature, which by a strange reversion of ideas had come to be looked upon as in constant opposition to the God of whose will they were the expression. The faith of the Japanese has undergone, within historic times, no such vicissitudes as that to which ours has been subjected, and the origin of the race is a matter of such uncertainty that it is impossible to do more than guess at its early developments. We know from their burial customs in the earliest historical times ^ that the present ruling race must have had a nomadic origin, and thus almost certainly came from the Asiatic continent, bringing with them a patriarchal ancestral cult, similar to that which has de- veloped under like conditions in all parts of the world ; but their religion in its present form exhibits certain pecuharities foreign to other patriarchal religions — notably that of including goddesses iu its pantheon, of whom one, Ama-Terasu, the sun goddess and an- cestress of the Imperial House, is the most revered of aU. Such beliefs, wholly at variance with patriarchal ideas, which invariably make the generative principle masculine, have, nevertheless, certainly obtained in Japan from a very early date. Assuming the Yamato, or conquering race, to have been Asiatic nomads, it is improbable that they brought such ideas with them ; but it is impossible to say definitely whether they evolved them spontane- ously, or incorporated into their own faith some of the behefs of the conquered race, as so often happened in Egypt. Although it may be urged, on the one hand, that the Yamato conquerors would not be likely to take much heed "• Interpretation, page 44. RELIGION 111 of the religion of the low type of savages ^ with whom their invasion brought them into contact ; on the other hand, it is not probable that a patriarchal, ancestor-worshipping people would spontaneously evolve animistic tendencies. On the whole, therefore, it seems safest to accept the theory that, brought in contact with an agricultural ^ race of nature- worshippers, the conquerors gradually absorbed some of their ideas. Such a process, however, would be one requir- ing a long period for its accomplishment, and throws back to a very early age the date from which Shinto may be said to have begun its independent development.^ From that moment, whenever it may have been, until the present day, it has remained proof against all external pres- sure. It is therefore an almost unique example of a wholly independent growth, unmolested by such influences as the nmnerous conquests and invasions which modified the re- ligions of the Egyptian and Hebrew, and through them, the European. It is also an intensely interesting one of a primitive faith keeping pace with the evolution of its fol- lowers, and remaining in the twentieth century the essence of the spiritual aspirations of an enlightened, highly educated, and scientific people. The peoples of Europe, more particu- larly those of the north, ignorant of aU but a foreign faith^ the legacy of the Roman legions, can no more reaMse the unity of the Japanese with this offspring of their very soul 1 From Mr. Batchelor's observation on the Ainu language, it would appear to be of Aryan origin, one of its peculiarities, the change in the root, being essentially characteristic of the Aryan tongues (see An Ainu- English- Japanese Dictionary, by Rev. John Batohelor; Kegan Paul, Tronck, Triibner & Co., London, 1906). 2 The natural features of Japan and its vegetation, make it impossible that the aborigines should have been a pastoral people. The beliefs of the Ainus are stiU purely animistic, and their chief deity is the sun goddess. ^ Kaempfer says it " seems to be nearly as ancient as the nation itself " (History of Japan, vol. iL page 3). 112 THE ALLIES than can the hired spinster nurse sympathise with the passion of a mother's love for the child, which is all in all to her because it is her flesh and blood. If we would under- stand the Japanese, we must understand Shinto ; yet, because it is a soul and not a body, it is impossible to por- tray — so impossible thatmany have even deniedits existence, as the scientist unable to weigh, measure, or test God has repeated the folly which was in the heart of the fool. The best we can do is to copy the methods of the Egyptian and Buddhist priests, who, despairing of making the Absolute comprehensible to the people, having painted Him in con- crete symbols. Maybe from the dry bones of formula and ceremonial some spiritual physiologist might construct the semblance of a living body, as the mammals and reptiles of the geo- logical past have been reconstructed from their fossil remains, if only one could be found to draw even the skeleton with a true enough hand. The one man — of whose writings Professor Chamberlain says, " Never was scientific accuracy of detail married to such exquisite brilliancy of style " — Lafcadio Hearn, has been taken from us, and alas ! there is none to replace him. His works, however, stiU remain to us, but the matter is scattered over many volumes, and if I succeed at all in making the spirit of the Japanese rehgion understood, it will be by much culling from them. In Japan we see the primitive creed, which seems to be instinctive to the human race, unchanged by foreign ideas, but modified from within, as the people rose in the scale of civilisation. Its followers have of themselves evolved a creed extremely simple and wholly free from the meta- physical subtleties of Buddhism, and yet one which for all practical purposes is identical with that which Gautama, the Buddha, thought out some two thousand years ago. By a curious irony of fate, similar to that which has made the RELIGION 113 Buddha an object of worship, it is the primitive nature cult of Shinto, teeming with gods and demons, which has sim- phfied itself down to a religious instinct ; while the severe teaching of the Buddha, that man's future is dependent on nought but himself, has expanded into one rich in spiritual helpers and adversaries and with an elaborate system of posthumous punishments and rewards. Religious services, chiefly laudatory, are, it is true, con- ducted by the Shinto priests ; but they are rarely attended by the people, and, being conducted in an ancient tongue, would be incomprehensible to them were they to attend. The people, indeed, from force of hereditary habit, still make pilgrimages and bring offerings to the Shinto shrines, and pay reverence to certain gods and goddesses ; but for all practical purposes it is to the masses what Bushido was to the Samurai — a rule of living. How far its more advanced followers place any behef in the powers of its nature spirits it is difficult to say, as it is difficult to learn how far an edu- cated but devout Cathohc believes in the miracles of the people's saints. It is also an open question how far the word " worship " is a correct definition of their cult ; but whatever their views may be on the non-human Kami,^ it may be taken stiU as a conviction that sways the conduct of and is generally believed in by aU classes, that in some form the dead live and influence the living. " Even among the skeptical students of the new genera- tion," says Hearn,^ " this feeling survives many wrecks of faith, and the old sentiments are still uttered : ' Never must we cause shame to our ancestors ' ; ' It is our duty to give honour to our ancestors.' During my former engagement 1 Human and non-human spirits, usually translated " gods " ; but Heam considers that " superiors " or " higher ones " would be a more correct rendering (Interpretaiion, page 54). 2 Kolcoro, page 283. 8 114 THE ALLIES as a teacher of English, it happened more than once that ignorance of the real meaning behind such phrases prompted me to change them in written composition. I would suggest, for example, that the expression, ' to do honor to the memory of our ancestors,' was more correct than the phrase given. I remember one day even attempting to explain why we ought not to speak of ancestors exactly as if they were living parents ! Perhaps my pupils suspected me of trying to meddle with their behefs, for the Japanese never think of an ancestor as having become ' only a memory ' ; their dead are alive." The statement that the Japanese are believers in two re- ligions at the same time may seem a strange one to European Christians, accustomed to sharp demarcations of creed, and to the habit of regarding members of all other faiths as the enemies of God, who will eventually be punished for their audacity in the fires of heU. The two religions of Japan are, however, so tolerant and elastic that there is little friction between them. Shinto, almost destitute of dogma, deals chiefly with the practical side of religion, making neither threats nor promises ; while Buddhism (as it reached Japan vid China and Korea) has much to say on a future state. Thus the two creeds clash but little, and a Japanese at his birth is usually received into the Shint5 creed, and at his death buried according to Buddhist rites.^ Shinto is, how- ever, the State religion of Japan, and in spite of European education and advanced scientific ideas, still has a hold on the Japanese which it may safely be said no religion of Europe has on its adherents. " In the Occident," says Knapp,^ " reMgious institutions continue, to aU outward seeming, in full force and vigor, while at the same time an almost universal plaint is raised ^ Things Japanese, page 409. ^ Feudal and Modern Japan, page 160. RELIGION 115 that the heart and life have gone out of them. In Japan, amid the deserted shrines of the nation's ancient worship, and with scarcely any outward evidence of the prevalence of the primitive faith, the essence of that faith is still the most vitally effective force which can be found in the life of any nation " ; while Hearn describes Shinto ^ as " the real religion of Japan, the rehgion still professed in one form or another by the entire nation " ; and in another place " he calls it " the whole emotional life of the race, the soul of Japan." This is the more remarkable when it is borne in mind that Buddhism, which most Europeans regard as a superior re- ligion to Shinto, has been estabhshed in Japan for some 1,200 years ; that Japanese rulers have professed the foreign creed ; and that during a period of many hundred years the Buddhist priests gained an almost complete ascendency in the country. Yet Shinto, though cramped by its rival, can hold up its head, and that its root was never killed is shown by the way in which it burst forth with re- newed vigour under the new regime, in which Buddhism and the Shogun, who had both for so long usurped the rights of Japan's ancient faiths and rulers, were put into their proper place. It is true that to-day nearly every Japanese is still a Buddhist in that he accepts some of the Buddhist teaching, but Shinto is the religion of his heart. The following extract from The Japan Daily Mail ^ giving a translation of an article from the Nippon on the occasion of General Kodama's funeral, gives a good idea, not only of the extent to which Shinto and Buddhist beliefs are inter- mingled, but also of what may be taken as typical views of ^ Interpretation, page 27. ^ Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, page 389. Kegan Paul, Tronck, Triibner & Co., 1905. = July 30th, 1906. 116 THE ALLIES the modern Japanese gentleman. The reader need not be reminded that General Kodama, the Chief of the Staff in the war with Russia, was a representative of the highest type of modern scientific soldier, and one whose loss Japan will find it hard to repair. " General Kodama's eldest son, who returned from Seoul to attend his funeral, says that his father's regular habit was to stand in some retired place for about an hour every morn- ing after rising, and, while facing towards the rising sun, to utter some words in a low tone. Questioned by his son as to the import of this procedure, he replied : ' When man has done everything in his power there remains nothing but the help of God.' " Commenting on this the Nippon says " that such has always been the creed of the hushi. In the very forefront of the doctrines laid down for guidance appeared the rule, ' Have faith in the Kami -^ and the Hotoke.' ^ Thus it is known that men like General Kuroki and Field- Marshal Nozu never failed to solicit heaven's aid on the eve of great enterprises, and that having put up the prayer they issued their orders with absolute confidence. The biishi may be said to have derived his negative fortitude from Buddhism and his positive from Shinto. His god of war, Hachiman, was a Shinto deity,^ and to him he prayed on the inception of vital projects ; while from the Zen sect of Buddhism and its practice of Zazen he acquired the negative courage of meeting any vicissitude with complacency. "Christians," says the Nippon, "may ridicule these methods of worship, and may denounce those that practise them as idolaters, on the ground that there is * Ancestral and nature spirits. — H. E. C. 2 Buddhas.— H. E. C. 3 According to Hearn {Interpretation, page 210), he was accepted by the Buddhists as identical with Amida. RELIGION 117 only one true God. But who shall determine the attributes or identity of the true God ? The situation is beautifully expressed in the formula of the ever-renowned priest Saigyo Hoshi, when he visited the shrine at Ise. ' Knowing not what may be present, yet I shed tears of thankfulness.' That has always been the bushi's mental attitude — unknowing, yet faithful. It is when we come to dispute about the superiority or inferiority of our own special divinities, whom our own imagination has clothed with superlative attributes — it is then that are begotten those intolerances and persecutions which disgrace the religions responsible for them." After all, who are we that we should cast the first stone in this matter ? We also have two reHgions, though we caU them one. Our Old and New Testaments belong to whoUy different schools of thought, and even our inter- pretation of them has been affected both by our original faiths and the medley of tribal beliefs which scarcely com- bined to form the religion of Egjrpt. The whole has never united to form what is known to chemistry as a " com- pound," but remains a " mixture," whose component parts are still to be discerned. In its crude and early form Shinto was, what it is generally described to be now, a mixture of nature-worship and ancestor- worship. In other words it followed the ordinary lines of the growth of religious belief ; but it differs from all primitive forms of these cults in that it is religion not of fear, but of love. Among primitive races religious rites consist for the most part of propitiatory offerings to hostile spirits, such as those which inhabit the still, and usually harmless water, to drag men beneath its surface, or cause branches of the inert shade-giving tree to suddenly fall on selected victims, or dart fire from the placid sky to burn up men and 118 THE ALLIES houses.^ In other cases it is the spirits of the dead who have to be pacified. Great chiefs who were feared while on earth lose none of their terrors by passing from it, and are believed to be capable of wreaking terrible vengeance on their subjects, should these be neglectful of their dignity and comfort in the other world. Hence slaves, wives, and animals must be sacrificed, that their spirits may accompany them, and that they may not be deprived of their accus- tomed pomp, companionship, and nourishment in their disembodied state. One of the best ghost stories that I know is connected with this belief. In 1903 a tourist at Abu Hamed, taking a stroll after dinner on the outskirts of the town, was chal- lenged by a sentry. As he could see nothing but desert he was puzzled at this, and on his return asked what there could be on the spot to guard, and was told that it was the burial-place of the two Enghsh officers of the Sudanese battalion who had been killed there in the battle in 1897 ; but that there was certainly no sentry on it. As he knew nothing of Sudanese beliefs he thought httle more of the matter, till, on his return to Cairo, he learned the Sudanese conviction that if any of their officers are killed in battle, the men who fall on the same day must take it in turn to do sentry-go over their graves. Like most stories of its class this is unfortunately second-hand, but, whether true or not, has the novel element of being based on the belief which ^ I am aware that the modern evolutionist holds that ancestor-worship has always preceded animism, or in other words that a behef in spirits arose from one in ghosts, the latter being the result of dreams ; but from personal experience of African tribes I do not think this rule to be one without exception, and am inclined to think that the order of precedence depends to a great extent on the conditions of hfe, agricultural races being more prone to animism. I beheve this was the view of the late Colonel Ellis, the author of several most instructive books on the customs and rehgions of West African tribes. RELIGION 119 prompted suttee among the Hindus, junsi in Japan, and many similar customs elsewhere. The natural corollary of the belief that certain objects were inhabited by spirits would be that all were similarly tenanted, while the act of freeing by death the spirits of men and animals, that they might form the retinue of departed chiefs, is in itself an acknowledgment that post- humous existence is not the monopoly of the powerful. Thus to the primitive mind the other world would soon become a thickly populated realm, whose inhabitants are aU represented by earthly counterparts, some hostUe, some beneficent, and others neutral. The neutral ones, having little influence on human affairs, would soon be disregarded, while the wholly beneficent ones, being willing to confer favours without payment, would not receive the same attention as those who, by hostile acts, constantly reminded their victims of theic needs. The earlier rites of a savage tribe are, therefore, nearly always devoted to those spirits who are thought to be capable of inflicting injury,-^ and it is not until a comparatively high stage of advancement is reached, and the sentiment of gratitude has been born, that offerings are made to such benign influences as the life- giving power of the sun, the fructifying spirit of the water, or the manes of those departed heroes who were not only feared but loved. The Japanese, like the inhabitants of Europe, have un- doubtedly passed through all these phases, but having both arrived at a certain stage of development, their paths parted. The direction which they took is very remarkable, the followers of Him who taught that God is Love tending to accentuate the importance of the Incarnate Evil, while to the Japanese, guided only by their instincts, the evil spirits became less and less worthy of attention. Thus, 1 See note, page 118. 120 THE ALLIES before they had reached the stage of development in which rulers of the spiritual forces are generally chosen, the malignant spirits had so fallen into the background that the creation of a chief for them never became a necessity. On the other hand, a tendency to revere the good and beautiful gained in strength, to an extent that is probably without parallel in religious history, and of all religions Shinto is the one which best fulfils the definition given by Fielding in The Heart of Man} " Religion is the recognition and cultivation of our highest emotions, of our most beauti- ful instincts, of all that we know is best in us." Christianity, we are constantly told, is a religion of love, yet almost in the same breath we are reminded of some savage forebears' creed of terror, are told to " fear God," and reminded of the endless torments which await those who fail to reverence Him. The follower of Shinto worships God, as manifested in the power of nature, not from fear, but love ; not because he believes that only by continued supplication may he avert the doom of eternal torment, not because he fears the thunder, the flood, and the earthquake, and would propitiate the evil powers that cause them, but because he loves the beauty of the land, the sea, and the sky, because he is grateful for the light and life and joy of the world. He pours forth his gratitude, not as one would do to some exacting monarch, ever ready to take offence at the slightest sign of forgetfulness or neglect, but to a loved and revered friend to whom he owes his all. " Hail to thee this day, August One ! " is his morning's greeting to the sun,^ as it might be to his father. I read once that Cecil Rhodes was asked by a clergyman to what church he went. " That is my church," he an- swered, pointing to the beautiful slopes of Table Mountain, behind Groote Schuur. A Japanese might make the same 1 Page 298. ^ Interpretation, page 151. RELIGION 121 reply ; his whole country is the temple of his god, the god of nature. He even goes further than Cecil Rhodes, and actually treats a beautiful spot as holy ground. Knapp, after describing the torii, or sacred gateways of the Shinto temples, says ^ : " This sacred entrance arches the path wherever, in Japan, the foot approaches hallowed ground. . . . You may find it everywhere in your wanderings over hill and dale, at the entrance to mountain paths, or deep in the recesses of the woods. . . . Pass under its arch and follow the path it indicates, and, it may be only a few steps or it may be after a long walk or climb, you are led sometimes, indeed, to a temple, but oftener to a simple shrine. In the shrine you will find — ^nothing. But close by you will see some reason for it being there placed. There is a twisted pine, or a grove of stately trees, or a fantastically shaped rock, some suggestion of nature's wildness or loveliness. The shrines are built, not for idols, but to consecrate the beauty in the midst of which they are placed. And further, it often happens that, following the path under a torii, you look in vain for either temple or shrine. The path ends in that which to the Japanese heart is more sacred than either ; it leads to some spot where, in the magnificent panorama spread out before him, he can gaze on the beauty or the grandeur of his country. Here is the true shrine of his religion. Wherever he can stand and behold the land of his birth, there is the temple of his faith." In his mental attitude towards the dead the same idea prevails. BeUeving, as the Shintoist does, that death is but incorporeal life, he cannot imagine that the mere casting off of the body changes the character of the soul, which remains good or bad as it was when clothed with flesh, the only difference being that the removal of bodily limi- tations has given it a freedom which adds greatly to its ' Fevdal and Modern Japan, page 165. 122 THE ALLIES power. Death, instead of being a parting, as with us, is rather a drawing together ; the husband and wife, the father and son, who, hampered by the limitations of language, may have failed wholly to understand each other in life, are brought by death into closer union — one in which soul can respond directly to the vibration of soul, as on a lower plane the telephone gives us the direct voice of the speaker, whUe the telegraph can only transmit his words by means of tedious symbols. Death, too, brings back the absent to their homes. To the family of a soldier on a distant campaign, parted from them by hundreds of miles of sea and land, his death is the welcome order which brings him home. Tied to his body in Formosa or Manchuria, he was cut off from all communi- cation with those he loved ; but his spirit, freed by death, knows that welcome awaits it at the household shrine, and those who for months, and years perhaps, have been yearning for him, know that, having got his release, he will hasten to the trysting-place. As it is with those who have but lately entered into the life of freedom, so it is with those who have long cast off their flesh. All are near and in close touch with the hving, more especially with those who, by bond of blood and affection, are most in sympathy with them. Living ever in the presence of his departed forebears, the authors of his being, the sources of his knowledge, and the builders of his fortune, the Japanese daily pours out his gratitude to them. It is through no fear of haunting ghost, or jealous master ready to strike the living if they fail to do his will, that he utters daily before his household shrine : " Ye forefathers of the generations, and of our families, and of our kindred — ^unto you, the founders of our homes, we utter the gladness of our thanks." -^ ' Heam, Kokoro, page 290. RELIGION 123 Gladness is indeed the note that rings clearest in the Shinto faith. Glad himself in the joy of living, in the beauty of his country, in the affection of his countless ancestors, the Japanese would make all others, dead as well as living, glad as he is. To the dead he owes all, and gladly, willingly, repays his debt, not in deed only, but in word and thought. Living ever in their presence, he extends to them the same hospitality that he would accord to an honoured guest, the same respect he would yield to a loved parent. Not only do they share all famUy events and rejoicings, but no word must be uttered or thought tolerated which could give them pain. The dead are a constant check on the conduct of a Japan- ese, such as our religion fails to offer us, because we do not, cannot, know God as the Japanese knows and loves his ancestors. " He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen ? " asks St. John.^ Loving those in whose presence he always is, the Japanese would no more dream of doing a disgraceful or disloyal act before their spirit eyes, within hearing of their spirit ears, than he would of doing such an act before an honoured father or grandfather who was watching him in the flesh. The dealings of the Japanese, however, with their ancestors are not merely of a negative character. They do not content themselves with abstaining from any acts which might cause them pain, but do their utmost to promote their happiness, by including them in the life of the family which they guard. It is for this reason that a Japanese marriage ceremony is one of great solemnity. Not only do the bride and bridegroom accept each other to the accompaniment of certain texts, but, being conducted in the bridegroom's house before the family shrine, and in the presence of his 1 The Epistle of St. John, iv. 20. 124 THE ALLIES ancestors, the bride considers herself accepted by the ancestral ghosts of her husband. On leaving her parents' house she has parted with her own, more than dead to her own family. It is true they wear mourning, as if she were dead ; but the dead return to the household and ever hover near it. She is cast off from it for ever, to join, in due course, if she is worthy, the ancestors of the family into which she enters ; if through misconduct she should be rejected by them, to become a wandering spirit, homeless and friendless throughout the In all matters, great and small, they are included, because, as Hearn says,^ " From their shrine they observe and hear what happens in the house ; they share the family joys and sorrows ; they delight in the voices and the warmth of the life about them. ... To forget or neglect them, to treat them with rude indifference, is proof of an evil heart ; to cause them shame by ill conduct, to disgrace their names by bad actions, is the supreme crime. They represent the moral experience of the race ; whosoever denies that ex- perience denies them also, and falls to the level of the beast, or below it. They represent the unwritten law, the tradi- tions of the commune, the duties of all to all ; whosoever offends against these, sins against the dead." Believing in the goodness of nature, as the follower of Shinto does, yet knowing that evil exists in the world, he attributes it to the influence of evil ghosts, spirits of men who have allowed the godlike purity of their souls to become tarnished ; yet he does not on that account try to cut them off from all communication with him. They were once his flesh and blood ; to them too, even if they be evil ; he owes much ; and therefore to them, as to the others, he makes the daily offering. ^ Interpretation, page 53. RELIGION 125 On this account Shinto has been stigmatised as " devil- worship." Writing on this subject Hearn says ^ : " But between the evil spirit of Christian and of Shinto belief there is a vast difference. . . . The evil Kami are not devils ; they are simply ghosts who influence the passions of men. . . . Being ghosts, the gods ^ are altogether human, having the various good and bad qualities of men in varying proportions. The majority are good, and the sum of the influence of all is towards good rather than evil. To ap- preciate the rationality of this view requires a tolerably high opinion of mankind — such an opinion as the condition of the old society of Japan might have justified. No pessimist could profess pure Shintoism. The doctrine is optimistic, and whoever has a generous faith in humanity wiU have no fault to find with the absence of the idea of implacable evil from its teaching." Not only does Shinto reject the idea of absolute evil, but the firmest article in its faith is its belief in the goodness of the human soul. Made of the very substance of the gods, it is inherently pure, and to keep it so is the highest ideal of the followers of their " Way." Ancestor-worship may be their most marked characteristic, being as it is the one which entails the most constant ceremonial (if their friendly intercourse with the dead can be called ceremonial) ; but it is quite as much due to gratitude and affection as to religious injunction. But the preservation of purity, physi- cal and moral, is a rehgious duty acted up to for so many generations that it has become a national instinct. " Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God," said Christ ; and among all people who should see Him, surely the fol- lowers of Shinto should be first. The physical cleanliness of the Japanese is proverbial, but perhaps their mental purity is not so generally appre- ^ Kokoro, page 276. ^ i.e. Kami, see note, page 113. 126 THE ALLIES ciated, and misled by its very naivete Europeans have mis- taken for coarseness a child-like innocence. Nature being looked upon as good, they are not ashamed either to see or speak of any of its manifestations ; but always in Nature's own spirit, never in that of certain decadent races of the West. Literature they certainly have, and art too, as instanced by Sir Rutherford Alcock,^ which may be classed as immoral ; but at all events it is never vicious. Some of it, perhaps, might not pass the censorship of our police, but in none of it is the nastiness of much European literature that does. As in writing, so it is in speech and action. Things may be done in Japan before the eyes of all men, or shouted aloud, which in Europe would be veiled or whis- pered ; but it is the veil and the whisper which give a flavour of " naughtiness " to that which, if done or said openly, is but a plain physiological fact. As purity is the soul of the Shinto faith, so is simplicity the heart of its ceremonial, the chief object of which is puri- fication. Not only is ceremonial purification required after all acts which are thought to entail physical or moral defilement, but a solemn national lustration takes place twice yearly in the great temples for the nation, and before each household shrine for the family. Even at the great temples, the headquarters of Shinto, the utmost simplicity and severity are observed. Hearn says ^ : " It is particularly at the temples of Ise (where down to the fourteenth century the high priestess was a daughter of emperors), or at the great temple of Izumo, that the archaic character of the ceremonial can be studied to most advantage. There, in spite of the passage of that huge wave of Buddhism, which for a period almost sub- merged the more ancient faith, all things remain as they were ' Capital of the Tycoon, voL ii. page 256. ^ Interpretation, page 164. RELIGION 127 a score of centuries ago. . . . Within, all is severely plain and pure : there are no images, no ornaments, no symbols visible — except those strange paper-cuttings (gohei), sus- pended to upright rods, which are symbols of offerings and also tokens of the viewless. By the number of them in the sanctuary you know the number of the deities to whom the place is consecrated. There is nothing imposing but the space, the silence, and the suggestion of the past. The innermost shrine is veiled ; it contains, perhaps a mirror of bronze, an ancient sword, or other object enclosed in multiple wrappings— that is aU. For this faith older than icons, needs no images ; its gods are ghosts ; and the void stillness of its shrines compels more awe than tangible representation could inspire." Apart from its teachings on the two distinct sets of spiritual beings, of whom the ex-human ones are the most important, Shinto concerns itself but little with the other world. Indeed, some writers, among whom Professor Chamberlain is one, hardly count it as a religion at all. " Shinto," he says,^ " so often spoken of as a rehgion, is hardly entitled to that name even in the opinion of those who, acting as its official mouth-pieces to-day, desire to maintain it as a patriotic institution. It has no set of dogmas, no sacred book, no moral code." ^ Further on in the same article he says it has " neither heaven nor hell," and doubts ' " if that can be called a religion which sets ^ Things Japanese, page 419. 2 BLaempfer says the chief points of the Shinto rehgion are: " (1) The inward purity of the heart ; (2) a rehgious abstinence from whatever makes a man impure ; (3) a diligent observance of the solemn festival and holy days ; (4) pilgrimages to the holy places at Isi6." He defines " inward purity of the heart " as " doing or omitting those things which they are order'd to do, or to avoid, either by the law of nature and the dictates of reason, or the more immediate and special command of civil magistrates " {History of Japan, vol. ii. page 16). 3 Ibid, page 422. 128 THE ALLIES out from the principle that the only two things needful are to follow one's natural impulses, and to obey the Mikado." In answer to most of these criticisms I cannot do better than quote Fielding ^ : " Creeds are not religions. . . . The instincts are innate or do not exist at all. Like aU emotions and feelings they cannot be created or destroyed by reason. . . . None of these creeds or dogmas will, as a whol«, stand criticism. They fall before the thinkers into irretrievable ruin, and therefore the freethinker imagines he has destroyed religion. But religion lives on, and he wonders why, and puts it down to the blindness of men. The theologian rejoices because the continued hfe of religion seems to him the vindication of the creeds. Yet they are both wrong. Men are not fools, nor does religion live by the truth of its creeds. . . . The creeds are but theories to explain religion. It matters not where you go. ... It makes no matter if you will but look aright. For you must know how to look, and where ; you must learn what to read. It is never in books . . . never creeds, never theologies, never reasons, nor arguments. You will not find what you search in libraries, nor yet in places of worship, in ceremonies, in temples . . . not even in their innermost recesses is the secret hid. . . . But I would have you go to the temple of the heart of man, and read there what is written, not in words, but in the inarticulate emotions of the heart." With regard to the sole injunction which Professor Chamberlain teUs us Shinto gives — " Follow your natural impulses and obey the Mikado " — it may be well before condemning it to glance again at our own system, and see how much it differs from that of Japan ; bearing in mind that a religion is not what it pretends to be, but what it is, * The Heart of Man, page 299 ei seq. Hurst & Blaokett, Sept., 1901. RELIGION 129 and that Shinto of twentieth-century Japan can only be fairly compared with the European religions of to-day. To compare it with first-century Christianity would be as misleading as to compare our present religion with the Shinto of that period. Christ laid many injunctions on his followers which are not included in the Shinto code, but as they are not included either in the code which is practically followed by us, it would not be fair to place them in the balance when com- paring two modern religions. Even a bishop, for instance, would not be expected to carry out such precepts as those which bid us sell all oiu: goods and give the proceeds to the poor, to turn the other cheek to the smiter, or to take no thought for the morrow. Notwithstanding anything that he may read in church on Sundays, the ordinary respectable layman's hfe is re- gulated by principles differing but little, if at all, from those which guide a Japanese of the same class. Indeed, if for " Mikado " we substitute the word " law," it will be found that an Englishman following the Shinto injunction would be looked upon as one leading a most exemplary life. If in addition to following his impulses, in so far as they led him to do nothing unlawful, he was a man whose most cherished possession was the untarnished brightness of his family honour, he would universally, and rightly, be looked upon as one of exceptional probity. The substitution of the word " law " for " Mikado " may be looked upon as changing the sense of the injunction, and it may be urged that the law is one thing, and the wiU of a man, however good and powerful, another ; but, to the Japanese, the terms are synonymous, and, in spite of a constitutional government and a parliamentary system, the Emperor, in their eyes, is the law. As to the practical working of the Shinto system, I cannot 9 130 THE ALLIES do better than quote Kaempfer, who was certainly not biassed in its favour. After alluding to the law of inward purity and in explanation of it, he says ^ : " They have no other Laws given them, neither by Divine nor Ecclesiastical authority, to direct and to regulate them in their outward behaviour. Hence it would be but natural to think that they should abandon themselves to all manner of voluptu- ousness and sinful pleasures, and allow themselves, without restraint, whatever can gratify their wishes and desires, as being free from fear of acting contrary to the will of the Gods, and httle apprehension of the effects of their anger and displeasure. And this perhaps would be the miserable case of a nation in this condition, were it not for a more powerful ruler within their hearts, natural reason, which here exerts itself with full force, and is of itself capable enough to restrain from indulging their vices, and to win over to the dominion of virtue, aU those, that will but hearken to its dictates. But besides, the civil magistrates have taken sufficient care to supply what is wanting on this head ; for by their authority there are very severe laws now in force against all sorts of crimes and misdemeanors. And certainly the Japanese Nation, consider'd in the main, makes it evident, that the dictates of natural reason, and the laws of civil magistrates, are sure guides enough to aU those, that will lead a good and virtuous life, and preserve their hearts in a state of purity." In order to understand the spirit in which the Emperor is regarded, it will be necessary to glance briefly at Japanese mythology. Evolved apart from the other great races of the old world, the Japanese, nevertheless, in their re- ligious beliefs followed the lines already sketched, and created spirits from the powers of nature, and also, impelled by an instinct which seems to be universal, chose 1 The History of Jo/pan, vol. ii., page 16. RELIGION 131 rxilers for them when they reached a certain stage of advancement. Without deaUng with the compHcated story of the evolu- tion of the gods and the subsequent creation of Japan, which, Knapp remarks,^ is " extraordinarily Hke that suggested by the nebular hypothesis," it will suffice to say that, as in Egypt all the gods were but manifestations of the one God, so in Japan they were aU beheved to have proceeded from the male and female creative principles, Izanagi ^ and Izanami. Among these, to a nature-worshipping people, the most important would naturally be the deity of the life-giving sun, who in Japanese mythology is represented by the goddess Ama-Terasu ; and it was this goddess who sent her grandson down to earth as the ruler of Japan, in place of the reigning monarch of Izumo. In the words of Mr. Okakura-Yoshisaburo^ : " On his departiu-e a formal command to descend and rule the land now placed under his care was accompanied by the present of a mirror, a sword, and a string of crescent-shaped jewels. These treasures, still preserved in our imperial household as regaHa, are generally interpreted to mean the three virtues of wisdom, courage, and mercy — ^necessary qualities for a perfect ruler. It was on the high peak of Mount Takachiho that the divine ruler descended to earth. He settled down in the country until his great-grandson, known in history as Emperor Jimmu, founded the empire, and began that unique line of rulers who have governed the ' Land of the ' Feudal and Modern Ja-pan, page 30. 2 Kaempfer mentions an esoteric doctrine of the growth of primeval spirit from chaos, and places Isanami only in the seventh place of celestial spirits {The History of Japan, vol. ii. pages 6-7). 3 The Ja/panese Spirit, page 36. Archibald Constable & Co., London, 1905. 132 THE ALLIES Gods ' for more than two thousand years, the present emperor being the hundred and twenty-first link in the eternal chain." The Emperor's origin, therefore, causes him to be regarded as beyond all ordinary men ; for apart from the fact that he is looked upon as above all others by the present genera- tion, it must be remembered that his fathers have been venerated by the fathers of his subjects since the beginning of history. Therefore, in him is concentrated the veneration of hundreds of generations of ghostly ancestors, all eager that their progeny should show no lack of respect to that which they hold most sacred. As to the ordinary European this claim to godlike descent may at first appear ridiculous, and the worship of a man impious, it is necessary again to draw comparisons with our own system. Christians believe that the Pounder of their faith, whom they speak of as the Son of God, was nevertheless the offspring of a human mother, and, whether they accept the divine origin of the Mikado or not, they can hardly discover anything more intrinsically improbable in the one belief than the other. Although disapproved of by democrats, the belief ia the divine right of kings is by no means extinct in Europe, and logically there is httle difference between divine right and divine succession. It is also an interesting fact (although, as no practical use is made of it, it cannot be used in the present argument) that our King can claim through Alfred the Great descent from the Scandinavian Wodin, the equivalent of the Hermes of the Greeks and the Thoth of Egypt. With regard to the second part of the possible objection, as has been pointed out before, human beings, as at present developed, are generally incapable of grasping the abstract idea of spirit, and are forced to put their idea of the supreme RELIGION 133 spirit into some concrete form. The Egyptian priests got over the difficulty by giving distinct personalities to the various attributes of the Supreme Being, and bringing these within reach of the people's understanding by means of symbols. The Hebrews concentrated their veneration on the Being whom they created in their own image, the essentially Israelitish Jehovah. Even the Buddhists, who do not admit the superhuman, have been forced to supply the popular craving by their acceptance of a number of spiritual beings whom they class as manifestations of the Buddha ; while we, taking the general idea of the Hebrew Jehovah, have painted him to fancy, in our own image. Granted the craving of the human race for a Supreme Being, and its inability to conceive him in other than material form, there appears to be little to choose between the European and Japanese methods of satisfying these conditions, or if there is it is in favour of the Japanese. If perfection can only be grasped in the concrete form, it is surely as weU represented in the person of a loving and lovable monarch, the descendant of a long line of illustrious ancestors and the embodiment of just laws, as in the semblance of an indefinite human being of uncertain charac- teristics which we have evolved in our inability to conceive anything more spiritual. This comparison is obviously a general one, applying chiefly to the masses. Both in Europe and Japan there are many men and women who need no material form with which to clothe their conception of spirit, but in neither case can their conception be put into words. To such of the Japanese who have reached this stage the Mikado would probably be regarded as the embodiment of the idea of empire and law, and the point to which the veneration of all his ancestors is focussed ; but no matter what the 134 THE ALLIES personal beliefs of his generals and admirals may have been, they were justified in ascribing their victories to his virtue, for it was only by the concentration of the spirit of patriot- ism into one head, by their forces, that they were able to achieve such marvellous results. CHAPTER V Love and War The ancient myth of Mars and Venus was based neither on a poetical fancy nor on the attraction which the strong man has always exercised on the female, but was a concrete representation of the relation and interaction of the two great forces — the instincts of creation and destruction, self- preservation and race-perpetuation — ^which from the begin- ning have swayed all living matter. The atom of potassium, tearing that of oxygen with such violence from the embrace of its two hydrogen handmaids that one is burnt in the flames of its passion,^ is an instance of the simultaneous ex- hibition of the creative and destructive instincts ; while the shrub, pushing out its roots only into suitable soil and attracting pollen-bearing insects by the sweetness of its flowers, is one of the self-preservation and race-perpetuation instincts acting independently. Two stags fighting almost to the death, eagerly watched by the herd of hinds, who know not, till one falls, which is to be the sultan of the year, are a fine example of love and war, but not, strictly speaking, of the two instincts — the battle has been only for the right to be the father of the generations to come ; but let the spectator of such a scene suddenly show himself, rifle in hand, and the stampede 1 2 K + H20 = 2 KOH + H= ; H^ + = H^O. Or more fuUy, potassium, added to water, produces caustic potash and liberates heated hydrogen, which, combining with the oxygen of the air, forms water again. 135 136 THE ALLIES which will follow his appearance will prove which of the two instincts is the stronger. But supposing that he should fall in love himself, and that his beloved should suddenly be beset by some great danger from which she can only be rescued at the cost of his own life, his conduct will probably depend on the degree of his advancement. It may generally be said that the lower an animal is in the scale of evolution, the stronger in proportion is its instinct of self-preservation. In immature animals the procreative instinct is whoUy absent ; in the vegetable world the in- stinct of self-preservation is the predominant one. Man is the only animal having a constant desire to propagate his species, and the procreative instinct has tindoubtedly a less important influence on the lives of our lower races than on the higher. Among the lowest tribes, such as the Andaman Islanders, it is true the two instincts are concurrent ; but while with them the self-preservation instinct is strong enough to make them fight, the race one is inadequate to do so. They have not even arrived at the stage in which the law of sexual selection comes into operation. In this respect some of the least evolved human races seem to be less advanced than the higher animals. It is true that it is only for a few weeks in every autumn that this law impels the stag to fight for the droits de seigneur, and that dmring the rest of the year he devotes himself entirely to eating and running away ; but during that period the impulse is an overpowering one, while with the lower races of mankind its strength never equals that which impels flight from danger, and is no stronger than that which urges them to eat. The only exception that I know of to the universal law of self-preservation is that of the ephemerids, cited by Metchnikoff ^ as an argument in support of his theory of ^ The Nature of Man, page 272. Heinemaim, London, 1904. LOVE AND WAR 137 the instinct of natural death. These instincts, foredoomed to death in the act of procreation, are wholly free from the impulse to flee from danger. Whether, as he holds, an ani- mal which has fulfilled the natural term of its life would necessarily cease to fear death, is a question which I am not competent to discuss ; but the behaviour of the ephem- erids shows that with them the race instinct is whoUy pre- dominant. It is another curious instance, surpassing in one respect even the marvellous social organisation of the bees and ants, of the advanced stage of evolution which has been reached by certain insects. Judging from analogy of savages and animals it would seem that evolution gradually changes the values of these two instincts, causing the race-preservation one to take the highest place ; and conversely, that a nation in which the race instinct has attained predominance is on a higher evolutionary stage than one ruled chiefly by the instinct of self-preservation. From what has been said in other chapters it wiU have been noted that the Japanese have developed their race instinct to an extraordinary extent, almost to the point of extinguishing the self-preservation one. Not only have they arrived at the stage of regarding their individual lives as of no account compared with the life of the state, but they have even purged the sexual instinct of selfishness to a degree which is without parallel in the world's history, making it in the truest sense one of race-preservation. Whether a degree of civilisation high enough and powerful enough to over-ride the law of natural selection is not a danger to itself is a question which will be discussed later ; but, before doing so, it wiU be convenient to review the evolu- tion of the two great impulses, first up to the stage which all civilised nations reached in common, and then to follow it in Europe and Japan. 138 THE ALLIES The instinct of self-preservation must have manifested itself in the early days of our race, as it does now in newly born animals by an impulse to take nourishment and to flee from danger. A newly hatched duckling's first acts are to get into the element in which inherited memory teUs it it is safest, to catch insects, and to escape from man and other dangerous animals under the shelter of its mother's wing. Those of a new-born babe are simpler, and consist in taking nourishment from its mother's breast and clutching at phantasmal branches, instinctively remembered as the birthplace of its arboreal ancestors, and from which it was fatal to fall. Throughout the lower sections of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and among the immature of aU species, parallel tendencies prevail, aU wholly individualistic and based on personal self-protection. It is only when a comparatively high stage of development is reached that we find any tendency to combined action or mutual help. As man gained intelligence he learnt that he could fight as well as run away, and having made the discovery that he could kiU other animals, and also eat them, his self-preser- vatory instinct led him to adopt offensive as well as defensive tactics, but these were probably wholly individuahstic. Men and other animals were slaughtered, some for reasons of personal defence, and some for the food of the individual. As in these struggles cunning counted for quite as much as strength, those survived who, in addition to strong, active bodies had the best brains, and man by natural selection gradually gained in intellect. Force, however, would long remain the dominant power, and early races would be at the mercy of their strongest men ; but weaklings are always in the majority, and when a tribe reached that stage of mental development which makes combination possible, the weaker majority would by force of numbers be able to put restraint on the monopohes of the strong. This stage may LOVE AND WAR 139 be termed the dawn of law and the first interference with natural selection. A growing belief in nature-spirits or gods would produce wise men or priests, who claimed the power of interpreting their wishes, and the teachings of these would gradually become incorporated in the law, thus changing its character from that of an institution designed for the defence of the community against individual aggressors (one to which our law has practically returned) to one which claimed also to protect the race from the wrath of supernatural powers aroused by the acts of individuals. This stage brings us to the birth of moral law. Its mental attitude is exemplified by the story of the three years' famine inflicted on the Israelites for Saul's treachery to the Gibeonites,^ and the three days' pestilence killing seventy thousand persons for David's sin in numbering the people.^ Development and separation would naturally bring out divergent characteristics in the tribes, partly due to local conditions and partly to priestly training, and among other things their ideas would differ as to woman's status. Woman, being physically the weaker, would be at the mercy of the male in ages when strength only prevailed, while her numerical equality with man would prevent her making any such successful combination against him as the weaker majority of males had made against the minority of strong men. Natural causes would, therefore, tend to place woman in a subordinate position, out of which she could only be lifted by extraneous means. Locality would have a considerable effect on her position. In pastoral countries she would be of Httle use outside the tent, while the long absences from home of the males, in charge of their flocks, would not only render her constant presence at the homestead the more requisite, but would necessitate ^ 2 Sam. xxi. 1. " 2 Sam. xxiv. 140 THE ALLIES measures to protect her, or her owner, from the intrusions of male strangers. Thus in pastoral countries woman would more and more drift into the position of a mere household drudge and bearer of children, and man would relatively gain in importance and in jealousy of all interference with his possessions and rights. This probability is thoroughly borne out by facts, races of pastoral origin invariably favouring the patriarchal system and giving a low status to their women. In agricultural districts, on the other hand, man, being the more powerful, would force woman to do all uncongenial work, such as tUUng the land and gathering in the crops ; and it would be her place to spend the day away from home, and his to guard the homestead. He may be seen to-day, as he was probably to be seen thousands of years ago, in the agricultural countries of Africa and elsewhere, lying under the shade of his hut, telling interminable stories, dreamily drawing patterns on the sand, and generally too lazy even to cook his own food, while throughout the day the woman toils in the sun. Yet, though this system entails certain hardships on the women, it assures them a position which they lack in pastoral and patriarchal countries. They have liberty and power which the men are too lazy to dispute ; they, as the workers, become the most important members of the household. In some countries, as in Dahomey, for example, they even share the place of the men as fighters, and among many African tribes succession is only in the female line. Few, if any, nations have arrived at civilisation without being brought in touch, either as conquerors or conquered, with both patriarchal and matriarchal influences ; and both England and Japan having been subjected to such opposing elements, their existing systems are naturally a blend of the two. It wiU be more convenient from this stage to deal LOVE AND WAR 141 with their development separately. In the glance at the religious evolution of Europe taken in the last chapter, our present belief was shown to be the result of the composite Chaldean faith of the Hebrews, perhaps modified by Egyp- tian and other influences, plus the teaching of Christ, and the second wave of Egyptian teaching on the Western world, which was approximately co-eval with His advent. In order to arrive at the causes which led up to European views on the subject of woman and man's relation with her, it will be necessary to examine these influences separately. The rehgion of a nation, unless it has been forced on them by conquest, is invariably the expression of its spirit, and no priesthood can attain great influence whose teaching is radically opposed to that spirit. It may, therefore, be taken for granted that the priests of a pastoral and patriarchal country would have a tendency to make the creative prin- ciple male, while those of an agricultural and matriarchal one would attach greater importance to the female one. This is borne out by observed facts, and practically all patriarchal races have a male supreme deity, while goddesses are more frequently worshipped by agricultural races.^ The Egyptian religion was the result of many con- quests and invasions, and a mingUng of patriarchal and matriarchal systems from Africa and Asia ; but in its later development, which had been accomphshed long before the beginning of the Christian era, the worship of the Ethiopian virgin goddess, Isis, either alone or in one of her many aspects, such as Mut and Hathor, had become an important item, gradually supplanting that of the male Amun, of the pastoral tribes, and with its increasing popularity the status of woman in general was naturally raised. Woman in Egypt was not only admitted into the priesthood as the equal of man, but was eligible to assume the reins of govern- 1 See note, page 111. 142 THE ALLIES ment, and was given a power, allowed a degree of indepen- dence, and was treated with a respect, unparalleled among Semitic races. The pastoral Hebrews, on the contrary, worshipping no God but the stern male Jehovah, and coming in touch with Egjrpt before the period when the worship of Isis had reached its height, were not submitted to influences tending to modify their primitive beliefs and customs. With them, as with the Mohammedans and many other pastoral races of to-day, women remained mere chattels, fit only to obey their lords and bear them children. Naturally, under such a system the exclusive right of a man to the women of his household would be as inalienable as that to his other possessions, and a woman once possessed by a man could only cease to be his property by his volun- tarily parting with her. The woman-thief would be classed like other robbers, and the woman who allowed herself to be stolen would be treated like the accomphce of any other kind of depredator. These natural results of patriarchal ideas were incorporated into the law, and as religious and social law among the Hebrews were one, they have been handed down to us as the will of God — modified, however, as will be seen, by other influences. At what period the worship of the Virgin Mary, which prevailed throughout Europe until the Reformation, was introduced into the Christian Church, is probably not accurately known ; but it certainly formed no part of the teaching of Christ, and is decidedly of Egyptian origin, the Virgin and Chfld being practically identical, except in name, with the Egyptian Isis and infant Horus, worshipped in Italy in the early centuries of our era. But whatever its origin, its effect in modifjdng the patriarchal system of the European nations, and the monotheism of the Hebrews which had been grafted on to the indigenous cults, was LOVE AND WAR 143 very great, and raised the status of woman to a point hither- to unknown in Europe. Besides the tendency to raise women to a higher level than that assigned to her by the purely patriarchal religions, the Egjrptian system had another important one in con- nection with her. It was essentially a magical one. The magic of Egypt was famous throughout the ancient world. Professors of that art have always found ceHbacy to be essential to its success— whether because continence tends to produce hysteria, and hence the visions which we still hear of from time to time in convents, or because incon- tinence was held to be a dissipation of force which might otherwise be directed to psychical purposes, does not matter. The celibacy of priests and priestesses became the rule, and the early Christians, already imbued with Egjrptian ideas, soon amalgamated it with their Master's warning against sensual excess of all kinds, applying it not only to the clergy, but to all who wished to follow them in a holy life. Partly, perhaps, as a protest against the sensual excesses of decadent Rome, and partly due to their increased leaning towards the Egyptian side of Christianity, without under- standing its origin, and without which they would have lost touch with the polytheistic inhabitants of Italy, the early fathers gradually promoted celibacy to the highest place among the virtues. On the other hand, the Hebraic influence in the new faith, with its rigid teaching of the rights of man over aU the women of his household, while modified itself by the glamour of Isis, must have had an effect on the views of men in general, and made them expect as a right that the bride of their choice should come to them intact. The combination of these two influences, added to the weakening of parental authority which must have been 144 THE ALLIES caused by Christ's teaching that a man should leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife, would naturally place chastity on the pedestal which the early fathers accorded to it, and on which, in a greater or lesser degree, their successors have maintained it to this day. Thus, while the Catholic Church holds that whole-hearted devotion to God can only be given at the price of complete abnegation of the procreative instinct, the Protestant one, while legalis- ing the marriage of its priests, circumscribes the act of procreation by rigid rules, and looks upon its unauthorised exercise as the lowest of all forms of sensual excess. Such manifestations of the self-preservatory instinct as greed and gluttony may be highly reprehensible, but in the eyes of the Church they do not lead to the perdition which awaits those led astray by the instinct of race-perpetuation. Although during the centuries which have passed since the beginning of our era human nature has undergone little real change, custom and the hereditary memory of cause and effect, which we call " instinct " in animals and " conscience " in human beings, enables us to control those tendencies which experience tells us cost more than they are worth. As it is chiefly against the procreative instinct that the thunders of the Church have been directed, it is naturally against sexual backslidings that our hereditary memory gives its loudest warnings, and even those of us who disregard its voice are rarely whoUy free, mentally, from its trammels. It is true that, except in cases where the procreative instinct leads to acts of personal violence, the secular law leaves it free play ; but, on the other hand, public opinion, always stronger than law,^ is on the side of conscience, more especially as regards the conduct of women ; and it is a ' The Japanese have a proverb, ' ' Government law is a seven days' law." LOVE AND WAR 145 curious fact that they themselves have unknowingly gone over to the side of their former oppressors, and bring to bear on any of their sisters who may have gone astray social punishment almost as severe as that meted out by patri- archal man to his female goods which allowed theniselves to be damaged. Although the most overpowering of all impulses, that which we call love or passion, according to our views, occasionally forces us to the choice of temporary partners, the moral penalties resulting to the woman and the legal ones to the children of such unions have the general effect of rendering them sterile ; while owing to class distinctions and financial reasons, the choice of legal partners for any individual is very limited. Thus nature and instinct, the only sure guides to successful parentage, are practically muzzled. Science tells us that sexual attraction towards a particular person who may seem wholly undesirable to others is the result of countless inherited memories or experiences, and is in no way dependent on those of the individual. Herbert Spencer says ^ : " The doctrine that aU the desires, all the sentiments, are generated by the experiences of the individual is so glaringly at variance with facts, that I carmot but wonder how any one should have entertained it. Not to dwell on the multiform passions displayed by the infant before there has been such an amount of experience as could possibly suffice for the ela- boration of them, I wiU simply point to the most powerful of passions — ^the amatory passion — as one which, when it first occurs, is absolutely antecedent to aU relative ex- perience whatever." Be that as it may, the sensation of love is assuredly wholly unconnected with cold reasoning, 1 Principles of Psychology, vol. i. page 494. Williams & Norgate, London, 1899. 10 146 THE ALLIES and can only be classed as an instinct similar to that which guides animals to the choice of proper foods. The Church, brought face to face with the variance be- tween its laws and those of nature, got over the difficulty by inventing a powerful rival to God, and boldly ascribed to the Devil all instincts which were contrary to its teach- ings. This is no place to discuss either whether it is right or wrong, or what may be the fate after death of a human being living in accordance with the laws of nature ; but for such a purely mundane object as the successful perpetuation of the race, there can be no doubt that nature is the surest guide. To take two examples at random of the practical results of following the opposing systems, statistics show that there are more illegitimate children born in Scotland than in any other part of the British Isles, and that Catholic Ireland, in which marriages are almost exclusively arranged by the priests, is the most moral. This, put in other words, means that the Scotch, being a very careful people, refuse to choose their wives for other than prudential reasons, but also refuse to disregard the promptings of nature ; while on the other hand, the power of the Irish priests has enabled them to impress on their flocks spiritual terrors acute enough even to over-ride instinct. No one can hesitate for a moment in deciding which of these two branches of the Celtic race is the most prosperous or energetic. Whether the sequence of cause and effect is that which I attribute to these two examples is correct or not, few will be prepared to advance the theory that the race instinct, which is even stronger in civihsed than in uncivihsed man, is a mere useless survival, like our appendices. As the necessity for a rapid increase in the population has become less, the production has automatically dimin- ished, the conditions of civilised life tending to make us LOVE AND WAR 147 not only more reluctant, but more incapable, of perpetuating, our species ; but if quantity is no longer required, quality is more urgently needed than ever. History is but a cata- logue of decayed civilisations, and decay has always been brought about by the same cause, the mastery of civilisation and luxury over nature, and consequent steriUty and decadence ; until the time comes when Nature takes her revenge and the nation which has slighted her has to give way to a more natural and robust one. Judging by the past, we can hardly dare to hope that we shall escape for ever from a similar fate ; but unless we deliberately pre- cipitate the crisis, it may be long delayed. The average Enghshman looks upon himself as superior to other races, especially in two respects, his morality and his love of sport. In how far his claim is justified depends chiefly on the meaning that may be attached to these two words. Without attempting to define them or to say any more on the subject of owe sexual relations, it may be con- ceded at once that he takes a pleasure in killing and plajdng games which are survivals of the combative or seK-pre- servative instinct, and this leads us to the manner in which this instinct fared during our evolution. As none of the religions from which ours sprung attached any sanctity to animal life, but, on the contrary, sacrificed animals to propitiate their deities, no religious restraint similar to that exercised over the procreative instinct has been applied to the self-preservation one. The secular law has only noticed it to the extent necessary to protect us against our feUow men ; it has thus from first to last had almost wholly free play, with the result that we can kUl to our heart's content, not only without any prickings of con- science, but with the full approval of public opinion. In- deed, although neither the law of the land nor that of the Church now bids us kill, our fellow countrymen practically 148 THE ALLIES do so, and look with contempt on a man who is averse to taking life, and to an Englishman all the virtues would count for little in the balance against the odium of such a reputa- tion as that of being " no sportsman." Yet this spirit is of purely modern growth, and is indeed due to degeneration. The best of " good sportsmen," ac- cording to modern English ideas, was the solitary primeval forest wanderer who spent his days and nights in tracking game for his own sustenance. As he gained in intelligence he collected into family groups, of which only one or two mem- bers were probably detailed as food providers, though the whole would be constantly on the alert for combined action against common enemies. A further stage of development woTild collect the famihes into tribes, each member of which would be expected to take up arms either for aggressive or defensive purposes, and all of whom would have too much serious fighting to do to dream of hunting any animal except for the purpose of eating it or using its skin for clothing. As the tribes amalgamated to form little kingdoms, similar to those of the Heptarchy, all almost constantly at war with a neighbour, much the same state of things would prevail ; and it was only when kingdoms became powerful enough to ensure long periods of peace that artificial means of satisfying the destructive instinct had to be invented. These were at first more of a communal than of an individual nature ; that is to say, that although they undoubtedly afforded pleasure to those who took part in them, their primary object was training in the art of war. Freedom from invasion and increasing luxury, however, gradually brought a change in our spirit ; and from a nation every male member of which was a skilful bowman, we have developed into one trusting for its safety to a small army of hired fighters. Now, in spite of the changed conditions, though it is no longer necessary for the majority of us to kill LOVE AND WAR 149 men or animals in self-defence, though our animal food is provided for us by the butcher and poulterer, and the poUce are efficient protectors of our property, our destructive in- stinct is as strong as ever. Yet, though untrammelled by law or public opinion, it is thwarted by the conditions of civilised life ; just as in Turkey, where the progenitive in- stinct is allowed free play by the law of Mohammed, modern conditions practically restrict it. There is nothing in his reUgious teaching, or the opinion of his countrymen, to pre- vent a pasha having four wives and an unUmited number of concubines ; but the fact that they would aU expect electric broughams and dresses from Paris is a powerful incentive to monogamy. So the chief restraint on an English gentleman, who wishes to revert to the mode of life of his paleolithic ancestors, is that caused by the absence ahke of wild animals and primeval forests. The result is that in both these cases unnatural means have been invented satisfying the instinct with the least possible amoimt of personal inconvenience. Having cited the Turk as an example, it is unnecessary to follow him any further ; but the Englishman takes such a pride in his sports and games that it may be well to remind him that every one of these, from pheasant shooting to cricket, from rabbit-coursing to bridge, is a perversion of the combative or self-preservation instinct which was once a necessity, but which has practically ceased to be one. The fact that they are perversions, however, does not necessarily imply that they are either harmful or useless in themselves, though we have a tendency to exaggerate the importance of them all. Football affords good training in pluck, endurance, and agUity to boys ; fox-hunting and deer- stalking cultivate an eye for country, and a habit of taking advantage of ground which cannot be so well taught in any other way. But indulgence in these is necessarily restricted 150 THE ALLIES to a very small class. Our habit of playing games under all conditions of climate conduces more than anything else to the health of EngHsh communities in dull tropical stations, and many a sohtary Englishman in distant outposts has been saved from physical and moral ruin solely by his love of sport. But to assert, as is often done, that our games and sports make us manlier, hardier, or better soldiers than other nations, is, in my opinion, sheer rubbish. There are no better or hardier soldiers in Europe than the Turks, nor in the world than the Japanese, both of whom are whoUy innocent of the sporting instinct ; but even admitting that our games and sports have the effect which is claimed for them, it must be remembered that the rank and file of our army is re- cruited from a class which chiefly satisfies its sporting in- stinct by watching rabbit-coursing and football matches, while the bulk of our officers are men whose financial position debars them from aU the more instructive forms of sport, unless they are fortunate enough to be stationed in India. England's success is due, not to her sons being sportsmen, which from force of circumstances they can rarely be, but to their latent barbarism, which stiU makes them wish to be so. " Try to make yotir bodies savage and your miads civi- lised," was General Nogi's advice to his men, and those who foUowed the accounts of the siege of Port Arthur must admit that the results of his advice were good. Our training is from first to last to produce the opposite effect. " Eat, drink, smoke, coddle your body as much as you like, but for God's sake never forget that you are a British sportsman," is the precept on which otir youth is reared. Although, from force of circumstances, we are not sports- men (whatever the majority of us may think), we have un- doubtedly the sporting or combative instinct, and in this lies our salvation, if we can only direct it into useful channels LOVE AND WAR 151 — ^in other words, arrest its degeneration into individualism. In order to learn how to do so we cannot do better than follow the evolution of the two great instincts in the Japanese, and see how the primitive and mere selfish desire of the in- dividual to save his life has been converted into a great national safeguard. Up to a certain stage it is probable that all primitive races evolved on approximately the same lines, and when the nomad Yamato ^ invaded Japan it is unlikely that they varied greatly from other pastoral and patriarchal tribes. Left undisturbed by outside influences for many centuries, the Yamato had the almost unique chance of evolving in strict accordance with their own spirit, and the results of this evolution, which have been but shghtly modified even up to the present day, are therefore of special interest and may be summed up in one word, " Shinto." This religion has been dealt with in another chapter, but its effects permeate every cranny of Japanese life and thought, and at the risk of repetition it will be necessary to dwell on those aspects of it which have a bearing on the subject of the present chapter. It was before all things a patriarchal religion, and its early rites bore abundant traces of the nomad character of its followers. Yet it had a peculiarity, as far as I know, unique among patriarchal cults, of including in its pantheon goddesses, of whom one, Ama-Terasu, the Sun Goddess and ancestress of Jimmu Tenno, the first emperor, was its most revered deity. The min gling of patriarchal and matriarchal systems which took place in Egypt is accounted for by the successive invasions and conquests by which that country was in- fluenced. But there is no record of the Japanese having been subjected to any such processes before the sixth cen- tury of our era, and, even had they been, it is almost certain 1 See page 110.J 152 THE ALLIES that any external teaching would have come from the Asiatic continent, in which patriarchalism held undisputed sway ; and, as happened later, any modification which the Shinto faith underwent would have had misogjoiist tend- encies. We can, therefore, only suppose that, as suggested in the chapter on " Rehgion," the Yamato must have gradually absorbed some of the matriarchal ideas of the conquered race. As the conception of goddesses gained strength, that respect for woman, which invariably accompanies the wor- ship of female deities, would naturally also grow, and it is to this that must be attributed the high position which, in spite of Buddhist and Chinese teaching, women have always held in Japan. Their status was, however, necessarily modified by the supreme position which the father must always hold in patriarchal communities, and by the fact that in early times war was the chief business of the upper classes. It was her function not only to bear warriors, but to train them. Dr. JNitobe writes on this subject ■'■ : " Why among so military a nation as the Romans were their matrons so highly venerated ? Was it not because they were malkona, mothers ? Not as fighters or law-givers, but as their mothers, did men bow down before them. So with us. While fathers and husbands were absent in field or camp, the government of the household was left entirely in the hands of mothers and wives. The education even of the young, even their defence, was entrusted to them. The warlike exercises of women . . . were primarily to enable them intelligently to direct and follow the education of their children." As far as we know, such magic and divination as is prac- tised in Japan is of Buddhist origin, and had no place in the ^ Bv^hido, page 141. LOVE AND WAR 153 Shinto faith. It therefore had no such tendencies to the glorification of celibacy as those which the Christian Church inherited from the magic-working priests of Egypt ; while on the contrary, the importance which it always attached to the perpetuation of the family, as necessary for the continual performance of the ancestral cult, caused sterility to be regarded as the gravest of misfortunes. " It was believed," Hearn teUs us,^ " that the prosperity of the family depended upon the exact fulfilment of the duties of the ancestral cult ; and ... to die without leaving a male heir, in the case of an elder son and successor, was a crime against the ancestors — the cult being thereby threatened with extinction." Yet, although one of the causes which led to our present views on chastity was absent in the Japanese evolution, another was equally powerful with them, as with us— namely, the rights of the patriarch over all members of his household. With the early Japanese, as with the Hebrews, they were his, to do as he wished with — to offer up as a sacrifice, as Abraham was prepared to offer Isaac, or to dispose of as he thought fit. One of the girls of a primitive Japanese household would have no more right to dispose of her virginity than would one of the youths to make away with his sword-arm, or an English soldier of to-day to put out his right eye. In Japan, as elsewhere, many sentiments have remained in force, while knowledge of their origin has been lost ; and with them, as with us, chastity has come to be prized for its own sake without regard to the causes which led to its glorification. There is, however, this important difference between Japanese and European views on this subject, that, while we regard its loss as a sin, as well as a disgrace, they only look upon it as a disgrace. The supreme sin to a Japanese, whether man or woman, is disloyalty, whether it be to father or husband, to the father or husband's lord, 1 Interpretation, page 68. 154 THE ALLIES or to the lord of all, the Emperor. The merit of every act is weighed, not by its personal effect on the doer, but by that which it may have on the family, the parish, or the nation. Loss of chastity may bring personal disgrace, which in the case of high-born maidens may only be wiped out in their own blood ; but it can rarely be the cause of any injury to the family or community, and, may, indeed, occasionally be turned to their advantage. Mrs. Hugh Eraser says ^ : " More than one story I have heard of a Samurai wife selling her hberty away for years to procure the price of weapons and armour where these were needed to vindicate the family honour. . . . Had she been asked to sell her soul for an honourable object it would have been considered base in her to withhold it " ; and as Miss Bacon says of the Japanese girl, " She must consider that nothing belonging to herself is of any importance compared with the good of her master, her family, or her country." In addition to the different value given to chastity by the Japanese and ourselves in consequence of our respective rehgious beMefs, it must be borne in mind that, while our patriarchal Hebrewism has been toned down by the matri- archal influence of Egjrpt and the individuahsm of Christ, which urged us to save our own souls, all early foreign influences exerted on the Japanese had the opposite effect of strengthening their patriarchal tendencies. To-day, as at the beginning of their history, the head of a family is, by custom, if not by law,^ supreme to do what he wills with its members. Not only does he beUeve that he has a perfect right to dispose of his daughters as he thinks fit, but they and their neighbours acknowledge this right, and a girl refusing to do her father's bidding would be in a position "^ A Diplomatist's Wife in Japan, page 314. 2 The sale or hiring out of girls was absolutely forbidden by the decree of October 2nd, 1872. LOVE AND WAR 155 similar to that of an English one who had lost her chastity ; that is to say, one who had lost her own self-respect and that of her associates. In sketching the influence of Shinto on the status of women I have skipped many centuries, because the peculiari- ties noted have not been affected by later ideas, and in the respects just mentioned the majority of the Japanese women of to-day are probably much the same as they were 1,400 years ago.^ Towards the end of the sixth century a.d. the influence of Buddhist priests from Korea threatened for a time almost to extinguish Shinto, and although that faith lingered dormant in the hearts of the people — and when it got a chance, at the revolution, sprung into renewed life — Buddhist teaching during many centuries had an undoubted effect in moulding the nation's thought and the position of women. Owning no lord but the Buddha, holding that the creative principle was exclusively masculine, looking upon Hfe and sensation as illusions and existence as an evil, the natural sequence of following its teachings in their entirety would be the extinction of the human race. Humanity, however, being constitutionally averse to extinction, has never seriously attempted even to understand them, much less to act up to them ; and the Japanese in particular, deeply imbued with the sentiment of race perpetuation, took but little notice of what Hearn calls the Higher Buddhism. They, however, accepted such Buddhist teachings as did not clash with their national belief, and more particularly those which could be put to any practical use. Among these the doctrine of Karma, or the law of eternal cause and effect by which aU human conditions are shown to be ^ Almost within the last few months a large and rapidly iacreasing class of independent young women has sprung up, who would probably wholly repudiate these ideas. 156 THE ALLIES but the results of previous acts, was accepted as a valuable aid to soldierlike resignation and fortitude. It also taught the women that any inconveniences attendant on their sex were but the results of errors in previous lives, which could best be rectified in future ones by cheerful acceptance of the present. Amongst other Buddhist literature the works of a certain Kaibara, and particularly his treatise on The Greater Learning for Women, seem to have attained great popularity. Re- peating as they did the Shinto teaching that obedience and cheerful submission were the greatest female virtues, they had the effect of intensifying woman's submission to man and at the same time of lowering her in his estimation. " The five worst maladies that afilict the female mind," wrote this misogynous old person,^ " are indocility, discon- tent, slander, jealousy, and silliness. Without any doubt, these five maladies infest seven or eight out of every ten women, and it is from these that the inferiority of women to men arises. A woman should cure them by self- inspection and self-reproach. The worst of them all, and the parent of the other four, is silliness. Woman's nature is passive (lit. shade). This passiveness, being of the nature of the night, is dark. Hence, as viewed from the standard of man's nature, the foolishness of woman fails to understand the duties that lie before her very eyes, perceives not the actions that will bring down blame upon her own head, and comprehends not even the things that will bring down calamities on the heads of her husband and children. Neither when she blames and accuses and curses innocent persons, nor when, in her jealousy of others, she thinks to set up herself alone, does she see that she is her own enemy, estranging others and incurring their hatred. Lamentable errors ! ' The translatioD is Professor Chamberlain's {Things Japanese, page 507). LOVE AND WAR 157 Again, in the education of her children, her blind affection induces an erroneous system. Such is the stupidity of her character that it is incumbent on her, in every particular, to distrust herself and to obey her husband." Then, with the modesty characteristic of the truly great, he concludes his treatise with the following remarks on his own composition : " Parents, teach the foregoing maxims to your daughters from their tenderest years ! Copy them out from time to time, that they may read and never forget them ! Better than the garments and divers vessels which the fathers of the present day so lavishly bestow upon their daughters, when giving them away in marriage, were it to teach them thoroughly these precepts which would guard them as a precious jewel throughout their Uves." Not content with inflicting on the daughters of Japan the precepts of Kaibara, the mischievous (or misog3Tious) Fates put it into the head of the Shogun lyeyasu to print the works of the great Chinese platitudinarian, Confucius. These, although known to Japanese scholars for some fifteen centuries, had never before been placed within reach of the people. Although there was nothing new in his teachings, they put into a concentrated and concrete form, ideas, aU based on patriarchahsm, which had hitherto only floated rather vaguely in the Japanese brain. Whatever their ethical value may have been in other directions, they cer- tainly did not tend to enhance the estimation in which woman was held or raise her status. Considering that woman in Japan has had to bear the weight of Buddhist misogjoiy for fourteen centuries, and of Confucianism for three, it speaks volumes for the strength of the respect for her which sprung from pure Shinto that throughout the centuries she remained a power in the land, and was never allowed to fall to the level of her sisters in China and other patriarchal countries. Not only have some 158 THE ALLIES of the most renowned rulers of Japan been women, but some of the best Japanese poetry and literature is from female pens. " I beUeve no parallel," says a writer in The Trans- actions of the Asiatic Society of Japan,^ "is to be found in the history of European letters to the remarkable fact that a very large proportion of the best writings of the best age of Japanese literature was the work of women." ^ In the old warlike days it was the duty of the wife to defend the castle should it be attacked in her husband's absence, and there are many stories of the skill and deter- mination with which they carried out their task. It is the duty of the wife in every household to make the daily offerings to her husband's departed ancestors at the household shrine, while among the lower and middle classes the calum- nies of Kaibara never seem to have carried much weight ; and in spite of her alleged stupidity, it was and still is the wife who chiefly directs the small tradesman's business. Women, too, were admitted into the priesthood, and, as mentioned elsewhere, the high priestess of Ise was a daughter of the Emperor ; and there are still priestesses in many temples — some children, and at others, suchasKitzuki, grown- up women, whose ofl&ce is hereditary and who are conse- quently allowed to marry. Speaking of the veneration in which the priestesses were held, Hearn says ' (with respect to the child priestesses) : " Even yet her touch is holy; the grain sown by her hand is blessed. . . . Even in these years of change, when she must go to the public school, she con- ' Vol. iii. part 2, page 10. Bikkyo Gakiun Press, Tokio. ^ Among others, Baron Suyematsu (Risen Sun, page 155 ; Archibald Constable) instances Murasaki, " authoress of the great Genji Monogatari ; Seishonagon, the authoress of the Mahura-no-sosM," etc. In the latter part of the Tokugawa regime there were many women well known for their Chinese culture, such as Kamei Shokin, Hara Saihin, Yemasaiko, Cho -Koran, and several lady poets. ^ Interpretation, page 159. LOVE AND WAR 159 tinues to represent all that is delightful in Japanese girlhood ; for her special home training keeps her reverent, innocent, dainty in all her Httle ways, and worthy to remain the pet of the gods." During the last few years, even during the last few months, a startling change has taken place in the position of Japanese girls, particularly those of the middle classes — ^partly due to the importation of Eiu-opean ideas, partly to a more liberal system of education, partly to the revival of Shinto and the consequent discredit of Buddhism, but chiefly to the dearth of men consequent on the late war. Women are now employed as ticket clerks at railway stations, in post and telephone offices, as typewriters and clerks at hotels and business houses, as teachers in schools. They may be seen directing and managing cheap shows of all sorts, from panoramas and cinematograph exhibitions to shooting galleries. They may be seen alone or in parties, in trains and tram-cars, or even lunching at European hotels. They are in evidence everywhere, thoroughly at home in their novel surroundings and keenly aMve to the fact that they can earn their own living. I asked a Japanese what he thought the result of this emancipation would be, and he unhesitatingly answered, " A great increase in the number of spinsters " ; and from those Englishmen and women whom I have met, who have had better opportunities than I have of talking with Japanese women, I have got the same opinion. " Japanese girls do not want to marry," is the story one hears on all sides ; and having read The Greater Learning for Women, I do not wonder at it. Yet, looking at the question from the Japanese standpoint, that the community is before the individual, I cannot help wondering whether the move- ment is not one in the wrong direction. If, as I beUeve, Japan owes her greatness to Shinto, it is to her women that she owes her gratitude as its interpreter to her children. 160 THE ALLIES Having quoted from the works of her enemy, the Buddhist Kaibara, and shown what she is not, I would fain show what she is ; and of all the men and women who have written of her charms and virtues, none have the trained touch by which she can alone be faithfully portrayed more perfected than Lafcadio Hearn. " The Japanese woman," he says,^ " realised at least the ideal of a Buddhist angel. A being working only for others, thinking only for others, happy only in making pleasure for others, a being incapable of unkindness, incapable of selfish- ness, incapable of acting contrary to her own inherited sense of right — and, in spite of this softness and gentleness, ready at any moment to lay down her life, to sacrifice everything at the caU of duty : such was the character of the Japanese woman. "Most strange may seem the combination in this child- soul of gentleness and force, tenderness and courage, yet the explanation is not far to seek. Stronger within her than wifely affection or parental affection, or even maternal affection — stronger than any womanly emotion, was the moral conviction born of her great faith. This religious quality of character can be found among ourselves only within the shadow of cloisters, where it is cultivated at the expense of all else ; and the Japanese woman has been therefore compared to a Sister of Charity. But she had to be very much more than a Sister of Charity, daughter-in- law and wife and mother, and to fulfil without reproach the multiform duties of her triple part. Rather might she be compared to the Greek type of noble woman — to Antigone, to Alcestis. With the Japanese woman, as formed by the ancient training, each act of life was an act of faith : her existence was a religion, her home a temple, her every word and thought ordered by the law of the cult of the dead. . . , 1 Interpretaiion, page 397. LOVE AND WAR 161 This wonderful type is not extinct, though surely doomed to disappear. A human creature so shaped for the service of gods and men that every beat of her heart is duty, that every drop of her blood is moral feeling, were not less out of place in the future world of competitive selfishness than an angel in hell." "Perhaps," he says elsewhere,^ " no such type of woman wUl appear again in this world for a hundred thousand years ; the conditions of industrial civilisation will not admit of her existence." 1 Interpretation, page 394. 11 CHAPTER VI Love and War (continued) Has the fulfilment of Hearn's prophecy already begun ? Is the process of extinction already in progress? — are questions which must cause all friends of Japan grave un- easiness, and, of the many difficult questions which await solution by the rulers of her destiny, there is none more difficult or pressing than that of the education of her women, for on it depends the future training of her sons. When the call to duty sounds again, as it sounded two years ago, will the new generation trained (or left untrained) by Anghcised or Americanised mothers answer it as their fathers did? If the mothers have been wholly changed, I am afraid the answer must be in the negative. But there is one point about the Japanese woman which even Hearn, in common with all who have written about her, has overlooked — as the visitor to Japan in March would overlook the glory of the cherry-blossoms — ^her wonderful intelligence. It was there in embryo when they wrote of her, but had not burst forth. Now it may be seen by all but the bhnd in fullest bloom, and, like the blossom, fills us with wonder at its brightness, but, unlike it, will not fall and wither with the first gust. Not only is it a force to be counted with by the men of Japan, but one to be counted on as the only salvation from the causes which have brought it into light. The women, even more than the men, fully realise the importance of the 162 LOVE AND WAR 163 step they have taken, and its possible consequences. The women, equally with the men, have love of their country at heart before all things, and it is to them that we must confide our trust that they will steer it safely past the rocks ahead. As I have said, it is chiefly in the middle class that this emancipation has developed. The agricultural peasantry are practically untouched by the changes which have taken place round them, and girls of the upper classes, although very weU educated, and possibly having more advanced ideas than their mothers, have had but little change made in their actual mode of hfe. It is, therefore, possible that in the near future an un-Japanese stratum will form between the top and bottom of society, and that a great commercial and industrial class will spring up, fulfilling one of Japan's needs — that of providing her with the sinews of war — and yet antagonistic to her general spirit. This is not given as a prophecy, but merely as a hint at one of the possibilities of the future. The future is closely veiled, and behind the veil are troubled waters ; but I believe that the wisdom, alike of men and women, which has saved Japan from the dangers of the past, will find means of averting those which are to come. If Buddhism was reactionary in its teaching concerning women, in all other matters its influence was progressive. It not only taught kindness, resignation, justice, and other civilising doctrines, but in its train came the art and learning of China. Without it the Japanese would have been as patriotic, as brave, perhaps as refined and courteous as they now are ; but without Buddhism and Chinese influence they would not have attained to the degree of civilisation and the proficiency in arts and handicrafts which alone fitted them to assimilate the commercial and destructive learning of Europe when it became a necessity to them. When 164 THE ALLIES Perry's guns rudely awakened them from their slumbers they might have imported our weapons by the fleetful, but would never have been our equals at handUng them, except for the centuries of intellectual training which the accessories of Buddhism had given them. It is a strange irony of fate which caused the nations who give themselves over to mafeking ^ on each birthday of the Prince of Peace, to force the arts of war on the peaceful islanders ; and which caused the emissaries of the Lord Buddha, the apostle of gentleness and the abhorrer of blood-shed, to be the ones who fitted the Japanese to be our apt pupils in destruction. In another and even more unexpected way has the teach- ing of Buddha fitted the Japanese for the task which we have forced on them. As Shinto taught them the supremacy of duty, so Buddhism impressed on them the sanctity of life. The origin of the Japanese race is such a mystery that in the present state of our knowledge it is useless to make any guesses at its condition before the Yamato in- vasion ; but we may safely assume that in the centuries immediately preceding our era they differed little from the other patriarchal communities, and that their time was chiefly taken up in intertribal wars and in hunting wild animals, partly for food and partly for defensive purposes. Even in these early days, however, the tribal spirit was so strong that they must long have passed the stage in which the solitary selfish hunter can exist, but they were un- doubtedly flesh-eaters,^ and therefore presumably hunters. 1 In case this word is not yet included in the dictionaries, I would define it as noisy rejoicings at an event of whose significance the rejoicers are ignorant. ■' Kaempfer says that they " abstain from killing and eating of those beasts which are serviceable to mankind, thinking it an act of cruelty and ungratefulness " (History of Japan, vol. ii. page 15). It is probably a survival of a similar idea that makes us averse to eating horse-flesh. LOVE AND WAR 165 With the advent of Buddhism, however, bearing the message of the sanctity of all life, a great change came about. It is true that animal food was never wholly given up, and that Buddhism was never powerful enough to stop war ; but the national diet became greatly modified, and, with the accept- ance of the doctrine of universal kindness, the kilHng of animals came to be looked on as a degrading occupation, and as such was relegated to the outcast Eta, with the necessary corollary that no self-respecting man would indulge in it for pleasure. Thus, under different religious influences, the two great primary instincts developed in exactly opposite directions in the Japanese and ourselves. While our religion left us practically unrestrained in the matter of taking life, it not only hedged in our procreative instinct by rigid rules, but taught us that salvation was best attained by forgoing it altogether. The combination of Shinto and Buddhism in Japan led to the belief that no act could be more pleasing and helpful to the revered dead than that which provided new generations to minister to their needs, and that next to the sin of failing to create life was that of wantonly destrojang it. These convictions, combined with the intensely communal feeling, which stamped out individualism, made all sport as we understand it an impossibility, and rediverted all survivals of the combative impulse into their true channel^— that of seK-preservation, with these peculiarities, that self had become so absorbed into the family or community as nearly to have lost its meaning, and that the instinct itself had almost become one of race-preservation. Thus, such contests as took place between individuals were only indulged in that the combatants might strengthen themselves for the service of the whole, while such sports as bear-hunting, which were encouraged by some of the Shoguns, were regarded merely 166 THE ALLIES in the light of mihtary training.^ The result is that to-day we find a nation of whom it may be contemptuously said, " They are no sportsmen " ; but who, having trained their bodies and their minds for generations for the common weal, are now fitted to bear the burden which the new order of things has cast on them. 1 have heard Japanese officers described as duU because they only talk military " shop." All " shop " is dull to those who are uninterested in its subject, and probably Japanese officers would also think dull an Englishman who could only talk cricket or polo " shop." Both are interesting to the man whose heart is in the subject ; but while fully admitting, as I have done elsewhere, the value of games under certain circumstances, I think it will hardly be denied that the soldier whose one great thought is to make himself the most perfect fighting machine possible, is more likely to be one of service to his country than one who looks upon military exercises as possibly inevitable, but nevertheless irksome, interruptions to his amusements. It must not be supposed from what has been said that the Japanese underrate the value of athletic exercises. Gymnastics and drill are practised in all the schools, both by boys and girls, the former indulging in some very rough games. ^ Every one who has strolled through the public parks will have noticed how largely base-ball enters into the life of the youths, and the difference between their system and ours lies more on the spirit than the practice, or rather in the essential difference between us, our individua- lism and their communism. An English boy or man plays games to avoid being called a duffer, in the hopes of attaining ^ Duck-hunting, mentioned by Professor Chamberlain, is, I believe, a modem invention, and confined to the Court. 2 See Hearn's Olimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, vol. ii. pages 241-2, and Lord Redesdale's The Garter Mission, pages 152-4, LOVE AND WAR 167 personal excellence, and because they amuse him. The Japanese does so because he knows that a strong and healthy man can be of more service to his fellows and his country than a weakKng ; and when he comes to a state of life in which brains are of more use than muscle, physical gymnastics give place to mental ones. In fact, as I have already said, the self-preservation in- stinct in Japan has been turned into one of race-preservation, and the whole combative spirit of the nation has been con- centrated on the defence of the country. The result is a nation in arms in the best sense of the term — not a mere collection of undisciplined rifle-men, but a real army, every member of which, having the interests of his fatherland at heart, does the utmost that is in his power to make himself an effective soldier. One of the arguments adduced against universal service, in England, is that it would tend to produce militarism, that men trained to the use of arms must always be yearning to exercise them, and that from a nation of shopkeepers we should be turned into one of swashbucklers. Having seen something of other races, and having failed to notice any specially warlike features in the Japanese peasant, the German merchant, the French shopman, the Swiss hotel- keeper, or the Dutch bargee, I never held this view.^ In his pamphlet on Social Democracy and the Armed Nation,"^ Mr. H. Quelch says : " Your rabid jingo is, as a rule, not the man who has to fight, willy-niUy, but the creature who is sure of getting his fighting done for him. ... It is safe to say that there is an infinitely stronger peace party in every country in which military service is compulsory, than * Baron Suyematsu, in The Risen Sun, pages 144-7, gives an interesting rhum& of the reasons which have led the Japanese to accept universal service. 2 Page 11. Twentieth Century Press, 1900. 168 THE ALLIES there is in this country with its voluntary system. . . . The more the evil consequences of war are brought home to the people in their every-day life, the more will they desire that it should be avoided. Every man would be liable, and the majority would certainly be in favour of peace and against war." Having read of Japan's deeds in Manchuria and some- thing of her Samurai and her long-drawn feudal wars, I, probably in common with many others who had never visited the country, imagined that at all events I should find a nation of warriors — men still intoxicated with victory, looking down on civilians, and possibly insolent to foreigners and eager again to cross swords with every newcomer. Never was a dream made of flimsier stuff than this. Instead of swagger I saw everjrwhere humility ; instead of lust for conquest everywhere an earnest prayer for peace ; instead of pugnacity a tendency on all occasions to turn the other cheek. I found men, with whose names the whole world was ringing a few months ago, blushing like schoolgirls at being noticed, or hiding behind their subordinates for fear they should be. After a dinner given by Admiral Ijuin and the Japanese Naval General Staff to the officers of Admiral Sir A. Moore's squadron, and to which a few landsmen were invited, we were shown a fine oil-painting by a Japanese artist of the battle of Tsu-Shima. We formed in a semi- circle in front of it, and men who had taken part in the battle (nearly all the Japanese present had) gave an in- tensely interesting description of its incidents, pointing to the various ships on the canvas in turn to illustrate the story. Happening to turn round, I saw in the back row, behind all his captains, hardly able to see the painting, but listening, with the air of a modest but intelligent subaltern, to a LOVE AND WAR 169 lecture on minor tactics, him whom Carlyle might well have chosen for his epithet, " Greatest sea-king of all." I cannot imagine any of the great men of Europe acting in like manner on such an occasion, any more than I can imagine a European general writing Marshal Oyama's famous final address to his troops^ : " That I, in spite of my defective ability, have been able to avoid any signal failure, must be primarily ascribed to the loyalty and fidelity of the officers and soldiers under my command." As the Tokio correspondent of The Times says, " Commanding officers do not generally make such admissions to their own sub- ordinates." Nor in the lower ranks is this modesty less noticeable. Whether Marshal Oyama's warning to them " to refrain from vaunting their achievements " was required or not, there is no doubt that they do refrain, to an extent which is rather tantalising to the stranger who would hear something of their experiences. Coolies, with the marks of war on their limbs or faces, may admit casually that they had been in the battle of Mukden, or the attack on 104-Metre Hill, and then turn the conversation. Men who have done deeds which in Europe would secure them an attentive audience for life, will, if pressed, half shyly own to them ; even fathers whose sons have died a hero's death will merely mention the fact that they died on the Yalu or at Port Arthur, generally accompanying the information with the curious little chuckle by which the Japanese mask emotion. Conan Doyle's Story of Waterloo could never be adapted into Japanese. The tendency to spin yarns on one's personal adventures on the smallest encouragement is an English or European one. A Japanese Corporal Brewster would pro- bably have merely said, " Oh, yes, I was at Waterloo ; as for the weather, it is fine." 1 From The Times, April 14th, 1906. 170 THE ALLIES Nor is this reticence due to secretiveness and fear of telling the foreigner what he had better not know. The past is history, and has been written in all the books and papers, and the things that I should have liked to learn might have been shouted from the housetops. Of their fears for the future, of the dangers ahead and how they could best be avoided, matters on which one might expect reticence before a stranger, many spoke to me freely, some men in responsible positions, others wholly irrespon- sible ; but among the remarks of all two earnest wishes were predominant ; that they might long be spared the horrors of war, and that if ever the call to arms sounded again the spirit of the nation might be found unchanged. This spirit, I have no hesitation in saying, is not a warlike one. During the Great Peace, as the Japanese call it — the period from the Shogunate of lyeyasu to the Meiji — which was practically devoted to agriculture and art, the fighting instinct of the middle ages had died away, and of all men of the earth the Japanese is probably the most peace-loving. Hearn tells us that in all his experiences he never came across a case of bullying or fighting in schools. Any one may walk through the great cities for weeks or months without seeing a brawl or quarrel. Foreigners who have had trouble with insolent or extortionate coolies (there are a few such even in Japan) all tell the same story, that a sharp word is sufficient to silence them. Litigation is almost unknown, practically all disputes being submitted to arbitration; while if by chance one can get an ex-soldier to talk of his sensations during the war, they will almost invariably prove to have been disagreeable from first to last. Yet these are the men who hurled themselves into the death-pits of Port Arthur, and who slew themselves on the Kinshu Mam rather than fall into the hands of the enemy. LOVE AND WAR 171 and fussed about their health like nervous old maids for fear they might be in hospital when the day of battle came and so lose the chance of dying for their Emperor, men who produced such types as Commander Yuasa and his com- panions, whose address to his men when they were attempt- ing to block the entrance to Port Arthur is a perfect example of the spirit to which Japan owes her place among the nations. " Let every man," he said, " set aside all thought of making a name for himself, but let us all work together for the attainment of our object. It is a mistaken idea of valour to court death needlessly. Death is not our object, but success, and we die in vain if we do not attain success. If I die, Lieutenant Yamamoto will take the command, and if he is killed you will take your orders from the chief warrant-officer . Let us keep at it till the last man, until Ave have carried out our mission." ^ The ready self-sacrifice of aU classes of Japanese during the late war has often been attributed to their intense patriotism and loyalty, and Jeremiahs are not wanting to point out that patriotism is only parochialism expanded, and loyalty an incident in evolution, and that with fuller inter- course with the world these feelings will wane. As for patriotism in the strictest sense of the term, it may be said that, except when aroused by external pressure, it has never been more than potential in Japan. The feudal system was unfavourable to its growth. Men owed allegiance to their immediate lords and were ready at any moment to lay down their lives for them. As Hearn says,^ " The retainer . . . did not feel equally bound to sacrifice himself for the military government, unless he happened to belong to the special mihtary following of the Shogun. His fatherland, his country, his world, extended only to the boundary of his 1 The translation is given in Feudal and Modern Japan, page 89. ^ Interpretation, page 327. 172 THE ALLIES chief's domain." Yet, as he points out elsewhere,^ within the limits of their islands the Japanese are great travellers, and old peasants, such as are still to be met with in England, who have never gone further from their native village than the nearest market- town, were probably very rare. Their country was so beautiful that even nature- worship, else- where a religion of fear, became one of love, and they knew that no invader had ever gained a footing on their soil. Under these conditions it is probable that at any period of their history the Japanese would have risen as one man to repel the foreigner, while up to the present time there is no doubt that intercourse with the outside world has tended to strengthen rather than weaken their pride of race and country. Loyalty, however, has been and still is one of their most marked characteristics ; loyalty, it may be, limited in extent formerly-, but nevertheless capable, at all times, of being concentrated on to a common focus ; and then, as now, a great force with which any enemy of the country and its beliefs must be prepared to count. Its power was fully recognised by the sixteenth-century Jesuits, who directed all their efforts to the conversion of those in authority, knowing that wheresoever they might lead, the people would follow ; and to this alone can be attributed the seemingly wonderful success of their mission. Kaempfer ^ says of the Christians confined in the prison at Nagasaki : " These poor people are very ignorant of the Christian Religion, knowing little more than the name of our Saviour and his beloved Mother, and yet they are so zealously attached to it, that they chuse rather to die miser- ably in gaol than by renouncing their faith ... to procure 1 Kohoro, page 27. Kaempfer also alludes to the " frequent journies which the natives undertake, oftener perhaps than any other nation " {History of Japan, page 330). 2 History of Jafan, vol. ii, page 85, LOVE AND WAR 173 their liberty." Hildreth,^ who procured his information chiefly from early Dutch sources, says that such knowledge " was all that the greater part of the Japanese converts had ever known." Yet, not only were they converted in tens of thousands, but, when the intrigues of the Jesuits made it necessary to exterminate Christianity, went to martyrdom in dozens. It is impossible to suppose that they had any real love of Christianity. As Knapp ^ points out, " the barrier of language was in itself enough to prevent a know- ledge of the tenets of a faith sufficient to awaken the least enthusiasm for it, much less to inspire a passion for martyr- dom in its behalf." The only explanation of their conduct lies in their loyalty to their chiefs. They had accepted the new religion,^ and it was the duty of their retainers to follow them through death and worse. A similar spirit was shown in the Satsuma Rebelhon of 1877, when men on both sides fought with a desperation hardly surpassed by the besiegers of Port Arthur ; and, according to the accounts given by those who witnessed it, the same fear of being kept in hospital and thus losing their chance of fighting for the cause, which was so marked in Manchuria, was noticeable at that period. Yet in the Satsuma Rebellion few of the men had much idea of what they were fighting for. Even under the command of foreigners the same spirit is shown. During the siege of the Legations at Pekin, the commander* of the Uttle Japanese detach- 1 Japan as it was and is, Boston, 1855. " Feudal and Modern Japan, page 183. ^ In a document which has been translated by Sir E. Satow and pub- lished in The Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, vol. viii. part 2, it seems probable that even the rulers at first mistook Christianity for a form of Buddhism. * Now the Japanese military attache in London. 174 THE ALLIES ment reported to Sir Claude Macdonald that he could not hold a certain barrier any longer, and asked whether he should charge the enemy. To have done so would have meant the certain annihilation of himself and his men, and death by torture for those who did not fall in the charge ; yet the question was asked as calmly as if it was one of parade. For the time being Sir Claude Macdonald was his chief, in whose hands alone were life and death. It is true that with the break-up of the feudal system this loyalty became focussed on the person of the Emperor, but I do not think that Professor Chamberlain is justified in beheving that it is merely a passing sentiment. " For our own part," he says,^ " we cannot but feel surprise at the way in which, like sheep jumping over a fence, one writer after another has enlarged on certain traits as characteristic of the Japanese nation, which history shows to be characteristic merely of the stage through which the nation is now passing. Their modern fervour of loyalty is a good case in point : Europe manifested exactly the same symptom on her emer- gence from feudalism." English patriotism has waned, chiefly because with us selfishness has come to overpower nearly all other senti- ments, and loyalty is one of the few which it has not yet conquered. M. Boutmy ^ said of us, " The sentiment of personal fidelity to a man and his posterity, which their Germanic ancestors felt for their chiefs, has only passed more or less into their profound loyalty to the race and blood of their princes, as evidenced in their extraordinary attachment to the dynasty " ; and, in another place, "EngUsh royalty is not only the image of authority, but the author and symbol of national unity." Of aU the songs which our men used to sing over their camp-fires in South Africa, there was none ^ Things Jwpanese, page 263. ^ The English People, page 188. T. Pisker Unwin, London. LOVE AND WAR 175 more popular than the one which had for its refrain, " To die like a soldier, a soldier of the Queen." As the men sang it, one could not help feeKng that the words expressed their real feelings. Any one who visited the hospitals at Bloemfontein, at the time when men were djdng by the hundred of enteric fever, knew that the greatest dread of the sick men was that of being buried without the cover of a Union Jack. They had most of them formed part of burial-parties themselves, and knew that the demand for flags was greater than the supply. " I suppose I shall be buried like a dog, without even a Union Jack to cover me," was a remark that might be constantly heard. They were ready and wiUing to die for their Queen and their country for only the small meed of thanks which the emblem of both, over their bodies, would have implied. If individuahstic England, long emerged from the chivakic stage, averse to aU disciphne and restraint, and democratic in her institutions, can foster such a spirit, it must surely be long before loyalty wanes in the Japanese, to whom individuaHsm is unknown, whose god is duty, and whose Emperor is at once High Priest and Ruler, the direct descen- dant of a Une already counted old at the dawn of history. The Japanese Government, however, is far too wise to leave a matter so important to chance, and has taken aU possible precautions to nip in the bud any growths of disintegration that may have crept in with industriaHsm, modern education, and contact with Europeans and Americans. Professor Chamberlain says ^ : " It is extraordinary into what minutiae the Government has gone in its determination to foster the mihtary spirit and raise the army to the highest point of perfection. Even books of war-songs have been officially composed and included in the course of instruction. * Things Japanese, page 46. 176 THE ALLIES . . . What cannot fail to elicit our admiration is the manner in which the company drill, imposed on all government schools and adopted in most private schools as weU, has been responded to by the scholars. Even little mites of boys bear the flag stoutly, march miles in the blazing sun, and altogether carry themselves so as to show that an enemy attempting to land on these shores must count, not only with every able-bodied man, but with every child throughout the empire." The custom of bowing to the Emperor's picture, too, was introduced in 1891, and is now compulsory in all schools and public offices on certain festivals. Most important, however, is the " spiritual " or moral training of the rank and file of the army, and concerning which I must make some rather copious extracts from Baron Suyematsu's book. The Risen Sun. He says,^ " The part of our mihtary instruction which we caU ' spiritual education,' to which the greatest attention is paid, and which reaUy is an elevated ethical teaching, imbues the ' men ' with fine moral senti- ments, especially on the lines of patriotism and loyalty ; and these sentiments are not only of great use to them while in actual service, but also after they have left the ranks. This branch of military instruction does not seem to exist in other countries in the same wayas it does in Japan, but, with us, it cannot fail to be beneficial to the country, for these sentiments are carried back to every corner of the land by the ' men ' after a few years' active service." In another chapter ^ Baron Suyematsu gives some extracts from The Educational Imperial Bescript of 1890, a special injunction to the nation issued by the Emperor himself. " The issue of such an injunction," Baron Suyematsu says, " was altogether exceptional, and was ascribable to the exceptional nature of the circumstances. After the 1 Page 146. = Page 120. LOVE AND WAR 177 declaration, in the preliminary part of the Rescript, that the notions of loyalty and filial piety universally entertained were based on the traditions left by the Imperial ancestors and the national characteristics of the Japanese through untold generations, it proceeds : " ' It is our desire that you, our subjects, be filial to your parents, and well-disposed to your brothers and sisters. Let husband and wife dwell harmoniously together ; let friends be mutually trustworthy. Impose upon yourselves self-restraint and rectitude of behaviour. Extend to the multitude philanthropy. Advance learning and regulate your pursuits, developing the intellectual faculties and perfecting the virtuous and useful elements. Further, seek to enhance the public good and enlighten the world by deeds of social benefit. Treasure always the fundamental con- stitution and respect the national laws. In any emergency exert yourselves in the pubhc service, and exhibit voluntarily your bravery in the cause of order. And by every means assist and promote the prosperity of the Imperial regime, which is lasting as the heavens and the earth. Thus you will not only be our loyal subjects and good citizens, but will manifest the highest and best traditions of your ancestors.' " This moral precept the Emperor declared in his own name, as well as for his successors, that he would zealously observe in common with his loyal subjects. Throughout all grades of the educational system in Japan this pre- cept forms the fundamental basis of the moral and ethical teachings." Based on this rescript a Departmental Ordinance by the Minister of Education was issued in 1890, laying down, among other things, the number of hours per week which were to be devoted in schools to moral teaching. " It then goes on to direct," to quote Baron Suyematsu again, " that at first, matters which are easy and simple to emulate, 12 178 THE ALLIES relating to filial piety, brotherly kindness, friendship, frugality, truthfulness, self-restraint, bravery, and such-like virtues, should be taught, gradually advancing to the subject of such simple topics as those of one's duties as regards the State and society, and thus elevating the sentiments and strengthening the ideas of the young, and fostering in their minds an enterprising and courageous spirit, as well as a due respect for public virtues, coupled with the loftiest admiration of patriotism and loyalty." ^ In addition to the general education rescript, another injunction, especially addressed to the Army and Navy, was issued by the Emperor in 1882. In this, after sketching the military organisation in former times, from those of universal service in which the army was led personally by the Emperor, the Empress, or Princes of the imperial blood, to those in which a distinct military class was formed, the Emperor explains how military service for all was re- introduced, and proceeds thus : " Know that We are the Grand Marshal of you the warriors. We rely upon you as the arms and legs, and you should regard your Sovereign as your head and neck, and thus only can our mutual sympathy be deepened. Whether or not We shall be able to protect Our State, thereby responding to the blessing of supreme heaven, and deserve and repay the deep benefactions conferred by Our illustrious ancestors, depends upon whether or not you, the warriors, discharge yoiu" mission. Should the prestige of our Empire decay, you should share the pain with Us. Should the martial spirit of the Empire be raised and give forth its lustre. We would share the fame with you. If you all cling to your duty, and, becoming of one mind with Us, exert your strength for the protection of the State, the people of our Empire will enjoy everlastingly the ' The Risen Sun, page 124. LOVE AND WAR 179 happiness of peace, and the glory of Our Empire might even be augmented and become the light of the world. As We entertain so much hope of you, Our warriors. We have some instructions to give you." Baron Suyematsu explains that " the rescript goes on to elucidate these instructions under five headings : (1) that soldiers should make it their function to exert themselves to the utmost of their loyalty and patriotism ; (2) that they should strictly observe decorum ; (3) that they should prize courage and bravery; (4) that they should treasure faith and confidence ; and (5) that they should practise frugality. All these headings are followed by full and adequate exposi- tion given to each clause separately. ... In the concluding paragraph it is enjoined that these five instructions are the very essence of the soldier's life and his rules of conduct, and it goes on to say that ' sincerity ' is highly prized, and it is earnestly enjoined upon every one to adhere to these precepts with ' one sincere mind.' " Officers and rank and file, one and aU, are expected to learn this rescript almost by heart. Officers endeavour constantly to imbue the rank and file with its spirit and tone, and the first thing the new recruits have to do is to study it side by side with their technical training." Of the results of this training on the Army and Navy all who followed the accounts of the late war know full well ; but it is perhaps not generally known to what extent the general rescript was taken to heart by the civil population. Of the effects of " the imperial order to acquire Western knowledge, to learn Western languages, to imitate Western ways," Hearn says,^ " Only those who have lived in Japan during or before the early nineties are qualified to speak of the loyal eagerness that made self-destruction by over-study a common form of death — the passionate obedience that * Interpreiation, page 455. 180 THE ALLIES impelled even children to ruin their health in the effort to master tasks too diilicult for their little minds. . . . What tragedies I might relate even of the higher educational life of the universities ! of fine brains giving way under pressure of work beyond the capacity of the average European student — of triumphs won in the teeth of death — of strange farewells from pupils at the time of the dreaded examinations, as when one said to me, ' Sir, I am very much afraid that my paper is bad, because I came out of the hospital to make it ; there is something the matter with my heart.' (His diploma was placed in his hands scarcely an hour before he died.) " No superficial observation could discern the silent energies masked by the resignation of the people to change, the unconscious heroism informing this mass of forty million souls, the compressed force ready to expand at Imperial bidding, either for construction or destruction. . . . The veritable strength of Japan still lies in the moral nature of her common people — her farmers and fishers, artizans and labourers. . . . All the unconscious heroism of the race is in these, and all its splendid courage — a courage that does not mean indifference to life, but the desire to sacrifice life at the bidding of the Imperial Master who raises the ranks of the dead."^ As an illustration of the last sentence Hearn gives in a footnote a translation published by The Japan Times of March 31st, 1904, of Admiral Togo's reply to a congratulatory message from the Emperor : " The warm message which Your Imperial Majesty condescended to grant us with regard to the second attempt to seal Port Arthur, has not only overwhelmed us with gratitude, but may also infiuence the patriotic manes of the departed heroes to hover long over the battle-field and give unseen protection to the Imperial forces." ^ ' Interpretation, page 506. ' Ibid., page 507. LOVE AND WAR 181 As an instance alike of the spirit of loyalty and of the light in which education is regarded by the Japanese, I must repeat a story which I heard on the best authority. Within the last few months an officer perfected a warlike invention of which an American expert in the temporary employ of the Japanese Government happened to hear, and which so impressed him that he offered the inventor 100,000 dollars for it. This offer the officer indignantly refused, saying, " I was educated by my Government and to them I owe everything. Anything that my brain can produce is theirs." I beheve the spirit which prompted this reply is one which permeates the whole nation. That under the temptation of commerce and competition the whole nation will remain true to its ideal is perhaps too much to expect, and, as I hinted with regard to the influence of the " new woman," it is possible that, as in England, a section will grow up alien in interests to the bulk of their fellow countrymen ; but even these must be influenced to a certain extent by heredity. All will have been imbued at school with the teaching of the Emperor's rescript, and while Shinto remains the national faith it seems hardly possible that any serious deterioration in loyalty can take place. Hearn says of it^ : " The secret hving force of Shinto to-day . . . means something much more profound than tradition or worship or ceremonialism. For Shinto signifies character in the higher sense — courage, courtesy, honotu", and above all things loyalty. The spirit of Shinto is the spirit of filial piety, the zest of duty, the readiness to surrender life for a principle without a thought of wherefore. It is religion, but religion transformed into hereditary moral impulse — religion transmuted into ethereal instinct." 1 CfUm/paea of Unfamiliar Ja/pan, page 388. 182 THE ALLIES From the fact that during the concluding years of the last decade the number of Shinto templesincreasedbymore than three thousand, it may be inferred that, despite social and educational changes, there has been no falling off in adherents of the ancient faith. CHAPTER VII What the Allies may teach each other The development of European commerce, law, and me- chanical proficiency was only brought about by centuries of strife and labour, and, when the time came for Japan to avail herself of them, she was able to benefit by the result of our experience without having to follow the tedious and painful methods by which we gained it. She was also able to note the results of our evolutionary processes in different countries and chose only those which were most suited to her needs. Starting afresh in these matters, she was hampered by no traditions such as must bind aU reformers in European countries, but was able to take or reject as she pleased. Thus her military organisation is based on that of Germany, she has taken England as her naval example, her constitution is founded on that of Prussia, and her law on the Code Napoleon. In industrial and commercial matters she has picked the brains of the European world, carefully winnowing the result and rejecting all the chaff. As Europe had been developing in one direction, so Japan, during her long seclusion, had been perfecting herseK in another, attaining to a degree of civilisation which Captain Brinkley describes as in ^ " many phases . . . superior to the civilisation of the West. ... In her social conven- tionalisms, in her refinements of Hfe, in her altruistic ethics, in many of her canons of domestic conduct, in her codes of ^ Japan, its History, Arts, and Literature, vol. i. page 11. T. C. & E. C. Jack, 1903. 183 184 THE ALLIES polite etiquette, in her applications of art, she could have given to Europe lessons as useful as those she had to learn from it." A civilisation of which Hearn says ^ : " Old Japan came nearer to the achievement of the highest moral ideal than our far more evolved societies can hope to do for many a hundred years." Like that of Europe, Japan's evolution had only been wrought by centuries of strife, struggle, and of stern un- bending discipline ; but as she, without the pains of labour, was able to adopt the European child and make it her own, so may we, if we will, take to oiirselves the fruits of her travail, choosing, as she did with ours, only those which will best flourish in our soil. To those who would urge that racial differences must ever make it impossible for us to assimilate Japanese modes of thought I can only say, " Read the books of the prophets." There is not one, even among those who love Japan most, who have not pointed out heights to which she could never climb, and, as each of these in turn has been scaled, another prophet has arisen to find a fresh one. Hearn tells us ^ that " in the study, for example, of Western music. Western art. Western literature, time would seem to have been simply wasted." Percival LowelP devotes several pages to proving that the Asiatic origin of the Japanese must debar them from acquiring the scientific spirit. Yet there are to-day thousands of Japanese who can talk on any of these subjects, looking at them from a thoroughly European standpoint ; hundreds who are good musicians, while in all branches of science they seem likely to surpass their teachers. It is true that with few exceptions they have not made much pro- gress in European art, but, as I have said above, through- * Interpretation, page 505. ^ Kohoro, page 10. ^ The Soul of the Far East, page 111. Kegan Paul, French & Co. WHAT THEY MAY TEACH EACH OTHER 185 out they have only picked the best, and it is difficult to see what the most artistic nation in the world is Ukely to gain in this direction from Europe. Japan has been able to assimilate everything that she has thought it worth her while to take, and we are equally capable of absorbing all that is best in her if we want to. No miracle has been worked in Japan, and in aU the changes which she has under- gone in the last fifty years no particle has been added to the brains of her people, who are the same to-day as they were in the pre-Meiji era, but who, having proved the facts that certain subjects were worth studying, have studied them, and that certain constitutional changes would be to their advantage, have made them. While, however, they have adopted our laws, our con- stitution, our military system, our commercial habits, our educational methods, and, to a great extent, our dress and mode of Ufe, there is one matter in which they have refused to accept our teaching. The religion of Japan is stiU untouched, and let us hope, for her sake, will always remain so. Among a certain class of young men scepticism may be fashionable ; " but even among these," Hearn says,^ " no word of disrespect concerning the reUgion of the home is ever heard " ; and in another place ^ : " Critics of Japan have pronounced this hasty judgment and have pro- fessed themselves unable to reconcile the facts of her scientific progress, and the success of her advanced edu- cational system, with the continuance of her ancestor- worship. How can the beliefs of Shinto co-exist with the knowledge of modern science ? How can men who win distinction as scientific speciaMsts stiU respect the household shrine, or do reverence before the Shinto parish temple ? Can all this mean more than the ordered conservation of forms after the departure of faith ? Is it not certain that, 1 Interpretaiion, page 614. ^ Kokoro, pages 266-79. 186 THE ALLIES with the further progress of education, Shinto, even as ceremoniaUsm, must cease to exist ? " Those who put such questions appear to forget that similar questions might be asked about the continuance of our Western faith, and similar doubts expressed as to the possibility of its survival for another century. Really, the doctrines of Shinto are not in the least degree more irreconcilable with modern science than are the doctrines of orthodox Christianity. Examined with perfect im- partiality, I would venture to say they are less irreconcilable in more respects than one. The conflict lies with our human ideas of justice ; and, hke the Buddhist doctrine of karma, they offer some very striking analogies with the scientific facts of heredity— analogies which prove Shinto to contain an element of truth as profound as any single element of truth in any of the world's great religions. . . . One of the surprises of our future will certainly be a return to beliefs and ideas long ago abandoned upon the mere as- sumption that they contained no truth — beliefs still called barbarous, pagan, mediaeval, by those who condemn them out of traditional habit. Year after year the researches of science afford us new proof that the savage, the bar- barian, the idolater, the monk, each and all have arrived, by different paths, as near to some one point of eternal truth as any thinker of the nineteenth century." Among the many missions sent by the Government to inquire as to European systems was one to report on religion. Knapp ^ says, it " reported against the adoption of the Western religion on the ground that, judging from the moral condition of the West, Christianity was not there so potent an influence for right living as were in Japan the religions which had so long held sway among the island people." ' Feudal and Modern Japan, page 186. WHAT THEY MAY TEACH EACH OTHER 187 Had the commission reported favourably on Christianity, and had the adoption of that faith been recommended by the Government, there is no doubt that the loyalty of the people would have made them eager to accept it ; as three hundred years before they had accepted it at the bidding of their chiefs, and within a few years the whole population might have been nominally Christian. Whether their Christianity would have been more than nominal would have depended on the attitude which the missionaries took with regard to ancestor-worship. Buddhism only got a foothold in Japan by the convenient deafness of its missionaries, who estabMshed the fiction that Shinto prayers to the dead were really for them ; and the only period during which Christianity made any real progress in China was during the seventeenth century, when the Jesuit mission- aries allowed their converts to practise ancestral rites. From the moment of the withdrawal of this permission by Pope Clement XI. the cause of Christianity in China began to faU, and the same thing would happen in Japan. Love of, and veneration for, those to whom they owe their lives are too deeply rooted in the Japanese character to be destroyed by any arguments, or promise of mere personal bliss in the hereafter, and if any form of Christianity became accepted in Japan it must be one which does not interfere with this national instinct. Yet, as the ancestral cult is practically the mainspring of aU Japanese action, it is one which we must at all events sympathetically tolerate if we would put ourselves in touch with her lines of thought, and it is worth considering how far this is possible. Christianity in Europe is not the force that Shinto is in Japan. We talk more of our rehgion, it is true, than they do of theirs, and even try to force it on others who do not want it ; we build bigger churches and attend their services more than the Japanese, and we look 188 THE ALLIES down on all who do not share our religious views ; and, re- gardless of facts, assume that Christianity, civihsation, and morality are synonymous, and, having done these things, we put our religion aside and let it trouble us no more. I have no wish here to discuss its merits, but would simply point out that by the bulk of the community its precepts are ignored. It is a belief, but not an instinct, and as such has no overpowering influence on our actions ; while, even as a belief, its varieties lead to such extremes that, except in name, the nations of Europe, even the people of the British Isles, can hardly be said to be of one faith. A man who accepts the Godhead of Christ may interpret such of His teachings as have been handed down to us in almost any manner he chooses and still claim to be a Christian. It is probable that 90 per cent, of the Japanese would be wilHng to accept that primary dogma, if the same tolerance was accorded to them, and if its truth was demonstrated to them. " There is little hope for the alien ecclesiastical corporations and traditional creeds in the Land of the Rising Sun," says the author of The Mikado's Empire,^ " but there is bright promise of Christian Bushido." Both in Europe and America believers in ghosts and spirits must number tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of men and women, who believe that the spirits of the departed are stiU in touch with the living. Whether such a belief is fallacious or not is of no matter in the present argument, its only interest lying in the fact that persons of European extraction do hold such a belief, and are therefore in sym- pathy with the basis of Shinto. Our European progenitors were aU ancestor-worshippers, and in some Catholic countries the peasants believe that the dead are permitted to return 1 Rev. W. E. Griffis, page 717. WHAT THEY MAY TEACH EACH OTHER 189 to earth on All Souls' night ; while the canonisation of the most deserving dead (which corresponds to the post- humous promotion common in Japan) and the prayers for the dead authorised by the CathoHc Church are both sympathetic to the Shinto idea. There is nothing, therefore, essentially " Far Eastern " (to use the favourite formula of those who would fix a great gulf between England and Japan) in the idea that death does not necessarily cut off the dead from aU touch with the living ; while, to such as even admit the possibility of any connection between them, it would seem but natural that they should so order their conduct as not to offend those they still love. Those among us who put flowers on the graves of those they loved, and who decorate Nelson's monument on the anni- versary of his great service, should have some fellow feehng which the countrymen of his Japanese successor, who vary from them only in degree, and place daily offerings on the ancestral shrines.^ Materialists and advanced scientists may smile at what ' In a footnote to his remarks on the survival of ancestor -worship in Europe, Herbert Spencer quotes the following translation from Rocholz (DeiUscher Glaube und Branch, i. pages 323-4) : " Roman Catholic peasants do not forget all the year round to care for the welfare of the souls of their dead. The crusts of the table are collected throughout the week, and on Saturday night are thrown into the hearth-fire, that they may serve as food for the souls during the following holy day. Any soup which drops on the table ... is left to the poor souls. When a woman prepares the dough she casts behind her a handful of flour, and throws a piece of dough into the furnace ; when she bakes little cakes she puts some fat into the pan and the first cake into the fire. Wood-cutters put little pieces of bread which have become too dry upon the tree-trunks : all for the poor souls. . . . When the time of All Souls is approaching, the same care for the deceased is shown more vividly. In every house a light is kept burning all night ; the lamp is no longer filled with oil, but with fat ; a door, or at least a window, remains open. Such is the custom of the peasants of the Tyrol, Old Bavaria, Upper Palatinate, and German Bohemia " {Principles of Sociology, vol. i. page 297). 190 THE ALLIES they may think a futile discussion on the fate of something which does not exist ; but they, having no faith to upset, should be as ready to accept Shinto morality as any other, if they believed it to be for the good of humanity — and if they can sympathise with the results of Shinto it is of little moment what they may think of its behefs. Besides the pleasure, or pain, which those who believe in their continual presence think the dead can feel at the acts of the living, the question must necessarily arise among such believers as to the influence of the dead over the living. The Japanese have decided that it is great, and therefore, in their dealings with them, they have a twofold end in view — those of promoting the happiness of their ancestors and of seeking their aid and protection. How far this view can be justified must depend to a great extent on the mental attitude of the inquirer, and it is not worth arguing out a question which can never receive an answer acceptable to men of all schools of thought. But it may be said in passing that the phenomenon of thought is known to be accompanied by vibration of the grey matter of the brain. To those who believe this motion to be spontaneous, or, in other words, that it is the only source of thought, there is nothing more to be said ; but those who believe it to be an effect rather than a cause cannot hold that thought is self-induced, and must suppose that the vibrations of the grey matter are sympathetic, like those of the Marconi receiver, and are but echoes of other vibrations of whose origin we are ignorant. The ultra-scientific view on this point is unimportant, for the reason already given, that the scientist denies all personal continuity of life and there- fore cannot discuss a question based on the supposition of its permanence ; but to the ultra-religious, who beheve that all evil impvdses are due to whispers of the DevU, the point should be of interest ; it being quite as conceivable that WHAT THEY MAY TEACH EACH OTHER 191 vibration should be set up in the human brain by influences which have once been human, and therefore presumably in tune with it, than by a non-human one of a totally different order of beings. A friend of mine once said to me that nothing would induce him to live in a house which I then occupied, and which happened to have been formerly the mortuary of St. George's Hospital. On my asking him if he would be afraid of the ghosts, he said, " No, not of the ghosts, but of the influences." I have never had occasion to discuss this question with any one else, but it is probable that his view is shared by many Europeans. I hope, however, that they have not aU the rather low opinion of the majority of the dear departed which he seemed to have. Whether the dead can hear, whether there are any living dead to hear, are questions which need not be discussed here. I have merely tried to show that there is nothing necessarily repugnant, to the European mind, in a belief in such possibilities. The question of how far educated Japanese believe in supernatural agencies was discussed in a most interesting letter from its Tokio correspondent, in The Times of April 14th, 1906. After alluding to Admiral Togo's visit, with three thousand men of his fleet, to the Imperial Shrine at Ise, he says : " That these divine spirits preside over the destinies of the land they love is no idle formula of per- functory faith with the Japanese. When the Emperor speaks of being able to ' raise his face ' before his ancestors, and when his generals attribute victory to his virtues, sovereign and subject alike are swayed by a sentiment precisely analogous to that which inspires the Christian soldier as he invokes the ' Lord of Hosts,' or the ' God of Battles.' It has not yet become a custom with Christ's followers that three thousand representatives of a conquering 192 THE ALLIES fleet should march to Westminster Abbey or St. Peter's^ to thank Heaven for blessing their armies, but if such a rite were inaugurated it would surely be counted a due display of pious gratitude, though, when performed by Japanese, it receives from Christians the epithet of idolatrous ancestor-worship . ' ' A memorial service, which was almost a thanksgiving one, was held in St. Paul's about two years before his letter was written. In the summer of 1904 a tablet to the memory of the officers and men of the Coldstream Guards, who had died in South Africa, was unveiled at St. Paul's Cathedral. The ceremony was attended by the whole regiment, and a large proportion of those present had served in the war. The service was a special one, and struck me as being exactly what such a one should be — one of thanksgiving. There were no lamentations over deaths, but only rejoicings that those whom we had come to honour had died so well. As I had already read a good deal about Shinto beUefs, I was immensely struck with the very Japanese tone of the whole ; but it was not until the memorial was unveiled, and I was able to study it, that I realised that I was taking part in a service which would have been in no way out of place in a Shinto temple. The tablet ^ represents two Coldstreamers dying on the South African veldt in the arms of a comrade. Above is a group of former Coldstreamers, in the distinctive uniforms of the times of the Crimea, Peninsular, and earlier wars, watching with satisfaction the conduct of their successors ; while in the back- ground rides General Monk, the first colonel of the regiment. Although this bas-relief was not designed by a clergyman * A misprint for St. Paul's ? — H. B. C. ^ See frontispiece. WHAT THEY MAY TEACH EACH OTHER 193 of the Church of England, it was accepted by the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's as not inappropriate for a place in the Cathedral. To those who can accept it as embodying a poetical, but nevertheless reHgious, idea, there should be no obstacle to sympathising with the teachings of Shinto, that the dead live and watch the doings of those they love ; while, if we accept that behef , we can hardly reject its coroUary, that it is the duty of the hving to promote their happiness. That in the spirit of Shinto prayers there is nothing to which the most orthodox Christian could object is shown by the concluding sentence of one written by Hirata, the great expounder of Shinto thought, as an example of what they should be. The translation is by Sir Ernest Satow, and runs as follows : "I pray with awe that they wiU deign to correct the unwiUing faults which, heard and seen by them, I have committed ; and that, blessing and favouring me according to the powers which they severally wield, they will cause me to foUow the divine example and to perform good works in the way." ^ Just as it is possible for Japan and England to benefit by the other's civilisations without having to undergo the tedious processes which produced it, — so it is possible to imbibe some of the results of Shinto without accepting all its doctrines ; indeed, many of these are fast falling into discredit, in Japan itself, without in any way interfering with its spirit. It cannot, however, be ignored that the marvellous rapidity with which the Japanese acquired European teaching was chiefly due to the habit in which we are least advanced, that of discipline. With discipHned minds and discipUned bodies, and spurred on by the know- ledge that it was the Emperor's wish that they should learn, the nation was able to control and change the chaimel of 1 I.e. Shint, " The Way of the Gods." 13 194 THE ALLIES its thoughts in a way that would be almost impossible to the present generation of Englishmen. Absorbed in the worship of our fetish of individualism (I believe we call it " liberty "), we have come to look upon discipline as a sign of servitude, and the first impulse of the average Englishman on being told to go to the right is to turn about and hurry off to the left. That we can be discipUned, without any disastrous moral results, is shown by our soldiers and sailors ; but early training in the opposite direction makes the process a very painful one for them, and perfection is only arrived at after much pain and punishment. From our earliest days we are taught to disobey — not deliberately at first, it is true, but through the ignorance and antipathetic attitude of our instructors, who, mistaking fussiness for care, pedantry for wisdom, and dogma for morality, spend their time in saying " Don't " to all the things of which, could they but think, they would know nature is crying " You must." " Jane, go and see what Master Johnny is doing, and tell him not to," or words to that effect, was one of the happiest hits that ever appeared in Punch. The result is that, from the day when an English child first begins to toddle in the nursery, its whole mind is directed to circumventing its keeper ; and when, with this habit firmly formed, it goes to school as a boy, it is only to have it strengthened. The schoolmaster is, from first to last, the enemy, the man who makes irksome rules and teaches apparently useless lessons. The English boy is never led to understand that he must work for an end, but simply that if he does not know his lesson he will be punished. To rehgion, or rather that part of it which consists in attending religious services, he is treated ad nauseam ; but out of chapel his religious exercises are chiefly hmited to WHAT THEY MAY TEACH EACH OTHER 195 Bible history and geography, while such moral teaching as may incidentally be given him in sermons is generally aimed against the natural exercise of the procreative in- stinct. Yet his teachers, who have been boys themselves, must know perfectly well that it is in unnatural directions that he is most prone to go astray. Sermons on the text of Onan or the Cities of the Plain may have been preached, but I have never heard one, or come across any one who has. Urged to take part in games, sometimes more than is good for his health, during the week, he is allowed — indeed, to a certain extent, compelled — to work on the day which his rehgion has set apart for rest ; but he is, however, strictly forbidden to play on it. Yet, if masters reaUy believe that Sunday games lead to damnation, one would think they would take some steps to avoid the certainty of their pupils indulging in them from the day they leave school ; and would take some more effective measures to form character than those of mere prohibition. At school, even more than at home, the boy's brain is turned to the all-absorbing task of getting the better of the enemy ; for at home he had only to think of how best to do that which was forbidden, while at school he has the further task of planning contrivances to avoid that which the masters bid. The result is that, during all his boyhood and youth, he can rarely make a friend of an older man, and arrives at manhood but one of a crowd of irresponsible young hooligans. If he is lucky enough to go into the army or navy straight from school, he has discipline knocked into him by painful processes before it is too late ; but if, instead, he goes to a university, it rarely becomes his. This picture may seem exaggerated to some, but it is drawn from my own experi- ence. I was, I admit, a bad boy, but no worse than eight hundred out of my nine hundred companions. One of the crimes which, if discovered, was sure to entail 196 THE ALLIES a " swishing," was that of attending Windsor Fair, and it was, therefore, one which every boy of proper spirit felt himself called upon to commit. The more active and sport- ing of the masters also attended it, and were given some fine healthy exercise up and down Windsor hill and the " hundred steps." Except in the matter of discipline, it was a useful experience for aU of us — for them in the rdle of pursuers and for us in that of pursued. There may be Enghsh officers to-day who owe their position to the early lessons in the art of taking cover which they learnt on such occasions. But it was not only to the chance of exercising the self-preservatory instincts that Windsor Pair owed its attractions. Vague rumours were current in the school of sights pertaining to the other instinct which might be seen by those whose eyes were sharp. PuU of these ideas, I remember, in company with other inquirers, being attracted by the voice of a showman in Bachelor's Acre loudly in- viting us to "Walk up, come and see 'er, come and see 'er nakid," and then adding, with a touch of true genius, " No women or children admitted." The last sentence was alone enough to clinch the matter, and naturally we paid our entrance fee and went in in a body. " She " was a monkey, and, if I remember aright, something got broken before we left ; but such morals as we had remained in the status quo ante. The whole incident is illustrative of the difference be- tween the EngMsh and Japanese systems of education. The fact that discovery would entail a flogging would seem to the Japanese boy no inducement to perform a particular act, while the idea of a Japanese master taking deMght in hunting his pupils is inconceivable. If he believed that it was against their interests that they should do a particular thing, he would probably trust to his warning against it as WHAT THEY MAY TEACH EACH OTHER 197 sufficient to prevent them ; but if he thought that any further steps were necessary, they would certainly take a preTontive and not a sporting form. Equally inconceivable is the idea of a Japanese boy paying one sen of his pocket-money to see anything naked, or of the most optimistic of Japanese showmen imagining that such an exhibition would be remunerative. There are many causes, which it would be out of place to deal with here, to account for the admittedly greater efficiency of our navy than of our army ; but, among them, I believe one of the most important to be that naval officers are taken away from school young, and that, while their minds are still impressionable, their education is undertaken by men who are not mere schoolmasters, but officers with the same interests and aims as their pupils. Could we afford the money to educate the officers of our army with their battalions, instead of at schools, it would, I am con- fident, add enormously to their efficiency. I know that the various " anteroom court-martial " ^ scandals' are supposed to prove the contrary, and have been chosen as texts for sermons by the advocates of taking officers from the universities. In my opinion they are due, not to the youth, but to the age, both of the victims and judges, who, all brought up together, probably at the same public school, have suddenly been put into the position of men without men's training. Boys of fourteen could be treated as children — as drummer-boys now are — and by the time they arrived at the age for becoming full-blown officers would have got a sense of discipline and a knowledge of the de- cencies of life. Of girls' education, between the ages of say ten and eigh- teen, I do not know so much, but certainly most of those whom I have had the privilege of knowing have impressed 1 Known to journalists as " ragging." , 198 THE ALLIES me with the idea that, of all forms of female sport, that of governess-dodging was the most popular ; and what I know of the mental attitude of governesses inclines me to give my sympathy whoUy to the pupils. I have omitted all mention of the mothers in this sketch of our education, because, as far as I know, if they take any part in it, it is that of Echo to the governess's cry of " Don't." Quotations which I have made elsewhere show the great share which Japanese mothers have in the education of their children. Indeed, it may be said that, from the time the latter are born until at six years old they go to school, they are rarely out of their mother's sight, or out of the sound of her voice. I hope I have also shown that these mothers are jfitted by example and intelligence to produce the best effects on their offspring. The progressive teaching of the child at school has also been pointed out ; how by gradually increasing discipline and firmness he is led by almost im- perceptible steps to a full knowledge of his duties as a man — aided, as Baron Suyematsu has shown, by constant moral training based on the Emperor's educational rescript. In addition to these aids is a curious one, mentioned by Hearn, which must have an enormous bearing on the in- fluence of the teacher over the pupil — namely, the customary relationship between them, based on the fact that in feudal times the former was never paid, but gave his services for love, and that even now this custom is far from being ex- tinct. In order to account for the difference in behavioiu' of the Japanese pupils to their foreign and native teachers, he makes statements so interesting that I must quote them in some length. After admitting that the difference may, to some extent, be due to race feeling, he continues ^ : " In feudal times the teacher taught without salary : he was expected to devote aU his time, thought, and strength ^ Interpretation, page 474. WHAT THEY MAY TEACH EACH OTHER 199 to his profession . . . the instructor trusting wholly to the gratitude of parents and pupils. Pubhc sentiment bound them to him with a bond that could never be broken. . . . The tie between teacher and pupil was in force second only to the tie between parent and child.^ The teacher sacrificed everything for his pupil ; the pupil was ready at aU times to die for his teacher. Even now," he continues, " nearly all the higher educational work accomplished in Japan repre- sents, though aided by Government, the results of personal sacrifice.^ " From the summit of society to the base this sacrificial spirit rules. That a large part of the private income of their Imperial Majesties has, for many years, been devoted to pubhc education is well known ; but that every person of rank or wealth or high position educates students at his private expense is not generally known." Thus, after explaining how, in former times, the Daimyo spent the bulk of their incomes on their retainers, and that their descendants are now pajdng for the education of the descendants of their former retainers, he shows how the same spirit pervades aU classes of society, and continues : "As for what the teachers do — that requires special mention. . . . All teachers earning more than the bare necessaries give aid of some sort. Among the instructors and professors of the higher educa- tional establishments, the helping of students seems to be thought of as a matter of course — so much a matter of course that we might suspect a new ' tyranny of custom,' especially in view of the smaUness of official salaries. But no tyranny of custom would explain the pleasure of sacrifice and the strange persistence of feudal ideaUsm which are revealed 1 " Thy father and thy mother are like heaven and earth ; thy teacher and thy lord are like the sun and moon " (Moral maxim quoted by Chamberlain, Things Japanese, page 335). — H. E. C. 2 The italics are Hearn's. 200 THE ALLIES by some extraordinary facts. For example, a certain university professor is known to have supported and edu- cated a large number of students by dividing among them, during many years, nearly the whole of his salary. He lodged, clothed, boarded, and educated them, bought their books, and paid their fees — reserving for himself only the cost of his Hving, and reducing even that cost by living upon hot sweet potatoes. (Fancy a foreign professor in Japan ^ putting himself upon a diet of bread and water for the pur- pose of educating gratuitously a number of poor young men !)" After mentioning other cases of the same sort Hearn continues : " Now it should be evident that while Japanese students are accustomed to witness self-denial of this sort on the part of native professors, they cannot be much im- pressed by any manifestation of interest or sympathy on the part of the foreign professor, who, though receiving a higher salary than his Japanese colleagues, has no reason and small inchnation to imitate their example." In addition to the purely educational aids to the formation of character and inculcation of respect for authority which the Japanese system affords, potent though they be, there is another even more powerful — that of custom. From its earliest youth a Japanese child hves among object-lessons in discipline, respect, self-restraint, unselfishness, and all those refinements of civihsation which tend not only to oil the wheels of hfe, but to make each individual a useful member of the community. He sees in his famUy circle a definite order of precedence — grandfather, father, grand- mother, mother, uncles and aunts, brothers and sisters, according to their ages and sexes, aU accorded a fixed place and treated with due respect by those below them. He sees no angry looks, hears no harsh words, no quarrels or com- 1 Or an English one in England. — H. E. C. WHAT THEY MAY TEACH EACH OTHER 201 plaints, and soon learns, by example, that orders have to be obeyed; yet so seldom are they given that their very rarity adds to their importance. He will also see that the last arrived little brother or sister is helped at meals even before grandpapa, and learns from this that even family discipline and respect for elders gives place to his people's instinct to put the weak before the strong. Beyond all things he will learn that the aim of life is not personal ex- cellence, personal comfort, or personal salvation, but the benefit of the community. If there was any chance, which there is not, of Enghsh schoolmasters giving their services free, nothing would be gaiaed by their sacrifice. English boys would not appreciate it, and the schoolmaster can no more change his thoughts than the leopard his spots. We must take them as they are, and make such use of them as we can ; and this use is not to be despised. In spite of aU the faults of the system, England owes much of her success to her public schools. They suit our temperament, and it would be an evil day on which they were done away with ; but it is to the boys rather than the masters that they owe their good quahties. It is to the pubhc opinion of her boys that England owes her habit of " playing the game " under aU circumstances, her love of justice, her dislike of " sneaking," her tendency to take people and races as she finds them, and not as she has been told they are. To them, even, she owes any little sense of discipline and patriotism that she is blessed with. It must be admitted that it is also to her public- school boys that she owes her habit of never working if she can possibly play, and of assuming that she is invincible. These and other faults could be corrected if there were any one to correct them. Any one who has had experience of young English officers put into responsible positions knows 202 THE ALLIES that there is no better stuff made ; and I am confident that the British boy, properly trained, would be more than the equal, mentally and physically, of any in the world. But to train him he must have a trainer, and as we can neither change the schoolmaster nor abolish him, it remains only to leave him to his Latin and Greek and add some other training to his. This influence ought, of course, to begin, as it does in Japan, in the nursery ; but if the English schoolmaster is hopeless, the English mother is even more so, while the nurse is positively mischievous — the one lacks time, and the other brains and civilisation. Now, in spite of the indictment of Kaibara, the moralist, on the female peasantry of Japan, that they are " low and aggravating girls, have had no proper education ; they are stupid, obstinate, and vulgar in their speech," I beUeve that it would be possible to travel about Japan for a year without meeting half a dozen women who answered to this description. Whatever faults the Japanese women may, in the future, be discovered to have, vulgarity will never be one of them. Refinement and cleanHness of mind and body have become part of their nature ; and of aU women in the world to train up a young child in the way a lady or gentleman should be trained, I know of none so suitable as the Japanese. I travelled on a steamer with one a few months ago. She was in charge of a little German boy of two or three. He had inherited all the remarkable perseverance of his countrymen, and spent the forty-six days that I was with him in attempt- ing to shame the steam foghorn into sUence and to induce a toy railway engine, which he towed by a string, to travel sideways. For six solid weeks that woman followed him round and round the deck, picking up the engine at every yard and putting it on its wheels, always smihng, always apparently happy, always thinking of his comfort. This WHAT THEY MAY TEACH EACH OTHER 203 woman was not an Indian or Chinese nurse with nothing else to do, but an educated Japanese, and had she been without a charge would have spent her days in reading and talking to her equals. I have seen plenty of Japanese women of a lower class than hers on board ship, and have rarely seen them idle for a moment ; and never in the half-comatose condition which comes so easily to the races of India. She had plenty of other things to do, but they were not what she was engaged for. Even if we do not see the way to having Japanese nurses in our houses, I see no reason why we should not have Japanese professors in our schools. We have already professors of Jiu-jitsu to teach our policemen and soldiers how to defend themselves ; why should we not have pro- fessors of morality to teach our sons how to serve their country ? European professors have long been employed in Japan to teach those things in which we excel, and which have enabled her to keep her place in the world ; there is no good reason why the obUgation should remain aU on one side, or why Japan should not give us some of the knowledge which we so greatly need if we would continue to hold ours. For the sake of their influence with their pupils these should be men who have done something which appeals to boys — killed a man, taken part in a Harakiri, or at least been wounded in battle. What, however, we want more than any foreign in- structors are men of our own race to take their place — men of the professions into which their pupils intend to go, who, like the Japanese, will teach, not for the love of teaching, but for the sake of the results. To a certain extent young men going into the Army get this training at Sandhurst, but in most cases it begins too late, after their characters are formed. The Navy alone has the system nearly in perfection. 204 THE ALLIES Apart from differences of method, the aims of the Japanese and English systems are wholly opposite. We train for egoistic, the Japanese for collective, action. It is our object to make a man capable of standing alone and able to work out his own success and salvation ; it is that of the Japanese to produce one who wiU be of the greatest use to the community at large, and incidentally the most • agreeable companion to his immediate neighbours. Of the comparative merits of the two systems much has been written. Baron Suyematsu says ^ : " The idea of individualism is nevertheless regarded as subservient to principles of state, as, I believe, it ever ought to be." Hearn, on the other hand, urges that it is only by becoming individualistic that Japan can hope to hold her own in a world of competition. Possibly, from a purely commercial point of view, he is right, and Cain-like individuals, with their hand against every man, push their own com- mercial undertakings and incidentally those of their country further than those who are hampered by the thought of others. He, however, goes further than this, and, not content with proving the industrial and commercial advan- tages of individualism, states that the commercial spirit of Japan proves her to be in a less advanced stage of evolu- tion than individualistic Europe. Yet collective is surely an advance on purely egoistic action. It is only the most primitive savages who are lacking in race or tribal spirit. Primitive man was a solitary wanderer, killing his game and eating it where it lay ; and it was only as he advanced in intel- Hgence that he formed first families, then tribes and nations. It is because the savage ancestors of the dog hunted in disciplined packs, each member of which worked for the common good, obedient to the signal of their chief, that ^ The Risen Sun, page 128. WHAT THEY MAY TEACH EACH OTHER 205 he has been able, in the companionship of man, to attain an intelligence almost human. Can bees and ants, with their marvellous social organisation, the perfection of communisn, be considered less highly evolved than the egoistic cock- roach ? Is the solitary tiger in a more advanced stage of development than the gregarious elephant ? We are apt to form judgments on unproved assumptions. We say, " We are the most advanced race that the world has ever seen, and we are individuahstic ; therefore non-individual- istic races must be less advanced." In his Capital of the Tycoon ^ Sir Rutherford Alcock gravely put forward an almost similar argument to prove that Japanese cultivation was not civilisation. " Christianity," he wrote, " has afforded a standard wanting to the most cultivated and civilised of ancient nations ; and by that standard we are bound to weigh aU civilisation and its various elements, law, politics, education, the condition of women, the mutual relations of classes, the security of property, the prevention of crime, its arts, its science, and its commerce, its institutions, pohtical, social, and ecclesiastical — and pronounce judgment honestly according to the issue." Although it happens that in most of these respects Japan is more Christian than most so-called Christian countries, I fail to see why we are bound to weigh all civihsations by the standard of Christianity. We may accept the doctrine of the Athanasian Creed, that aU who do not believe in it will perish everlastingly, but civilisation is an affair of this world, not of the next ; and we are bound to judge it, not by its probable results on post-mortem conditions, but by its effect on the general happiness, prosperity, refinement, and kindliness of the people. Judged by this standard, the direction of humanity, in general, during the past few 1 Vol. ii. page 254. 206 THE ALLIES centuries, has been retrograde. Even Japan is less civi- lised to-day than she was in the pre-Meiji period, and old Japan was as far in advance of modern Europe as England now is of the Egypt of Ismail Pasha or the Morocco of to-day. CHAPTER VIII What the Allies may teach each other (continued) With the introduction of European ideas and European industrial systems, poverty, unknown before, has crept into Japan, together with oppression of the poor by rich and greedy manufacturers, discontent, crime, and a host of undreamt-of evils. It is true that the disease has not yet got any great hold. There are prisons not yet occupied, districts in which real want is stiU unknown ; and in general the old spirit of kindliness and mutual friendliness between employer and employed still prevails. Manufacturing centres have, however, sprung up as bad as any in Europe, and in some respects worse, as factories are not so well regulated as with us. " The new combinations of capital," says Hearn,-^ "have actually reestablished servitude, under harsher forms than ever was imagined under the feudal era ; the misery of the women and children subjected to that servitude is a public scandal, and proves strange possibilities of cruelty on the part of a people once renowned for kindness — kindness even to animals." In this paragraph I think Hearn forgets the lesson which his works never cease to teach, that the community comes before the individual. It is necessary for Japan's national existence that she should have money, and to get it she must have commerce and factories. If the factory hands suffer, it is deplorable, but ^ Ivierpretation, page 494. 207 208 THE ALLIES if their suffering is for the public good it must be endured. I may be wrong, but that is how I interpret the apparent callousness of the Government to misery which must be patent to it. The Japanese are still kind to animals, because they can afford to be so ; they cannot work animals to death in the service of the state (though we did it in South Africa), and with regard to them can give their natural instincts of kindliness full play. At any rate, whatever may be the explanation, the fact remains that, with the introduction of Christian civilisation, which is the same thing as individualism, misery, hitherto unknown, has entered Japan, as it long ago entered and got a foothold in Europe. We may prate as much as we will about the superiority of our civilisation to all ancient ones, and quote, as Sir Rutherford Alcock does, the gladiatorial fights of the Romans in proof of our assertion ; but when we come to analyse it we find that it has produced nothing but enormously increased luxury for the few and correspon- dingly increased misery for the many. We are, indeed, more mawkish than our forefathers, and do not like to see blood ; and we have come to regard the present (because it is- ours) as so important that our con- tempt for the past is only equalled by our disregard for the future. A people who will sacrifice themselves by tens of thousands, that future generations may have peace, we say are " barbarous," and account for their conduct by the assumption that they have less highly strung nerves. Writing of the difference between old and new Japan, Hearn says ^ : " Old Japan had never developed a wealthy and powerful middle class. . . . Her social organisation made industrial oppression impossible : the commercial classes were kept at the bottom of society — under the feet even of those who, in more highly evolved communities, 1 Interpretation, page 488. WHAT THEY MAY TEACH EACH OTHER 209 are most at the mercy of money-power. But now those commercial classes, set free and highly privileged, are silently and swiftly ousting the aristocratic ruling class from power — are becoming supremely important. And under the new order of things, forms of social misery, never before known in the history of the race, are being developed. Some idea of this misery may be obtained from the fact that the number of poor people in Tokyo unable to pay their annual resident tax is upwards of 50,000 ; yet the amount of the tax is only about 20 sen, or fivepence English money. Prior to the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a minority there was never any such want in any part of Japan." This description would apply almost equally well to the consequences of civilisation in European countries. We have a self-comforting way of dismissing the misery of the masses from our minds by the assurance that it is the inevitable result of increased population ; but Japan has changed the condition of her life too recently for this to have had any great effect. The difference in the population of England of to-day and that of her happy feudalism is enormous, and may account, to some extent, for the misery of the masses ; but during the three or four decades during which Japan has taken to industrialism, her population has not increased to any extraordinary extent, and yet it exhibits all the phenomena but too well known in Europe. It is urged, I know, by the adherents of the modern system, that the peasantry of feudal times, though fed and clothed and saved from actual misery, were in such a state of abject servitude as to be little better than beasts. Although many instances, especially in Japan, might be cited to prove the contrary, we may, for the sake of argu- ment, accept this view, and still ask, how have industrialism and individualism advanced the human race ? Was the 14 210 THE ALLIES peasant, serf, or whatever we may choose to call him, happy in his beliefs, in his inherited loyalty, his clean and healthy surroundings, in the knowledge that his children would be cared for, in a less favourable condition for moral and intellectual progress than the modern factory hand, even the modern bank clerk, or the modern inhabitants of "Darkest England" — the first two, condemned to spend the daylight hours in, at the best, monotonous routine, the last herded together under conditions of insanitation, indecency, and filth which would have made a Heliogabalus blush 1 Living always on the brink of starvation, from which they and their children can only be saved by crime, what chance have they of developing the higher attributes of man, the evolution of which is, after all, the whole end and aim of progress. Admitting that under a selfish and heartless lord serfs may have been cruelly treated in feudal Europe, are our " sweaters " so tender-hearted that we must look upon the old system with horror ? While in Japan the force of public opinion was such that cases of personal oppression must have been very rare. Hearn tells us ■^ : " At no time in Japanese history ... do the peasants appear to have been left without resource against excessive oppression. . . . They were suffered to frame their own village-laws, to estimate the possible amount of their tax payments, and to make protest — through official channels — against unmerciful exaction. . . . There were, however, wicked Daimyo, who treated their farmers with extreme cruelty, and found ways to prevent complaints or protests from reaching the higher authorities. The almost in- variable result of such tyranny was revolt ; and the tyrant was then made responsible for the disorder, and punished." ^ Interpretation, page 433. WHAT THEY MAY TEACH EACH OTHER 211 Knapp/ after describing the friendly relation which existed between the peasants and ruhng classes in feudal Japan, continues : " The result was a distinct gain for some of the highest virtues of civilisation, and the picture pre- sented reveals the peasantry of Mediaeval Japan in a con- dition as much superior to that which existed among the masses in Mediaeval Europe as it is possible for the imagina- tion to conceive." Nor was it only pubhc opinion which favoured the weak. In order to avoid the possibility of small land- owners being absorbed by their rich neighbours, the law absolutely forbade them to alienate their property. If a farm was sold. Dr. Simmons ^ says " the offender was imprisoned or banished ; the buyer was fined and his land confiscated, and in case of his death his son suffered instead. If there had been a witness of the sale he was fined. The nanushi (mayor) of the village was ordered to resign his office " ; wMle in aU cases of dispute the judges " were instructed directly, or given to understand, that the principle on which their judgment was to be based, in any conflict between the rich and poor, was to give the latter the full benefit of the doubt." The above extracts are enough to show that if even the peasantry in feudal England were in a better condition than they are under the modern system, those of Japan were in a more favourable one still ; and it is a question whether our condemnation of feudalism is not based more on our limited knowledge of its workings in Europe than on its intrinsic qualities. To those who would study it under almost ideal conditions I would recommend a perusal of Dr. Simmons's paper, from which I have quoted, in The Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, and Knapp's '■ Feudal and Modern Japan, page 98. 2 Transactions Asiatic Society of Ja-pan, vol. xix. part 1, page 37. 212 THE ALLIES chapter on " The People under Feudalism," in his Fevdal and Modern Japan, which is chiefly based on Dr. Simmons's paper. It may be said that we have gone too far on the road of individuahsm to turn back, and that in the twentieth century it is useless to discuss the advantages of the feudal system : but as there are two sides to every question, there must be at least two parties to every conflict ; and in that between capital and labour, between luxury and starvation, the numbers of the combatants are very unequal. As I have hinted elsewhere, the birth of moral law came from the combination of the minority of weaklings against their strong oppressors. May not its re-birth arise from the same cause ? WiU the masses suffer want and misery for ever, that the few may Hve in luxury ? I believe not. History teaches us that all civilisations have been over- thrown by the inroad of robust barbarians. In the old sense this can probably never happen again. Practically the only barbarians left are those of Africa — tribes not only constitutionally unsuited for the invasion of Europe, but, for the most part, in too low a stage of evolution for con- certed action. The next upheaval wiU probably be from within. It may be many years before it comes, or it may be that circumstances may bring it about with unexpected suddenness. Japan and England, being islands, are both subject to the same danger, in case of war, of having their food supply cut off. Japan at present is rather more self-supporting than we are ; but as her population increases and industrialism supplants agriculture, the conditions wiU become more and more equal. Assuming even a temporary cessation of our supply, owing to a disaster to our fleets, and a consequent great rise in the price of food, is it possible to conceive that the millions of London, Manchester, and Birmingham, WHAT THEY MAY TEACH EACH OTHER 213 already on the brink of starvation, and thus thrown into its gulf, will placidly die of hunger in the midst of a few odd thousands living in luxury ? Practically unhindered by the army, which would be fully occupied by the actual or expected invaders, they would sweep the land like a flight of locusts, leaving behind them nothing but devastation ; and having learnt their power, would never relinquish it, except perhaps under the guns of the invader ; order and government would be overthrown. I am old enough to remember the day when the mob forced its way into Hyde Park. It had been forbidden to hold a meeting there, and merely formed up against the railings, orderly and good-tempered ; then the ten-foot railing of inch and a half iron bars began to sway gently backwards and forwards, the swing getting longer and longer ; then it fell to the ground and the people stepped over it ; that was all. I shall never forget the impression it made on me of the power of a mass of men, and whenever I think of it I shudder at the thought of what that mob might do, mad with hunger and flushed with success and the lust of blood. We know what mobs have done in France, and it may be said that France has recovered from the shock. Possibly she has, and the new France may be better than the old ; but it is not the same. England, after the great up- heaval, would no longer be the England that we know and love enough to hope that she will do, not only that which is best for herself, but for humanity at large. She has had a large share in shaping the later history of the world in the past, and, if she will do her duty to herself, may continue to do it to others in the future. The uprising which might wreck England is equally pos- sible in Japan. Her army is, indeed, larger than ours, and her discipline greater ; but when hunger grips the masses of 214 THE ALLIES Tokio, Osaka, and the great manufacturing centres, when a moneyed middle class of oppressors has wholly supplanted the old feudal lords, whom the people at once feared and loved, and when industrialism has left no room for Shinto, the death-kneU of the twenty-four-century-old dynasty may sound. It may be thought that this long disquisition on the evils of modern civilisation has little to do with the heading of this chapter, but it is in this respect that England and Japan may help each other most. England has money, and if she wiU learn from Japan how to spend it profitably, their allied fleets and armies could dominate the world ; and, in the latter golden age of peace which they could inaugurate, they could learn each others' arts and sciences, not under the stress of competition, nor in fear of invasion, but for the love of progress for its own sake. The people of Japan must suffer hardships for a few years more, to fit their country for the task which has been thrust on them ; but if Japan cannot learn from any country how to avoid them altogether, she may learn from England how best to mitigate them. With her more frugal population, her still more equal distribution of wealth, and with the hereditary habit of her aristocracy of caring for the poor, her people should never reach the depths of misery which, in spite of all benevolent legislation, they have reached with us ; but if she lets her manufacturers get whoUy the upper hand, the fate of her people may be worse than that of ours,^ and their vengeance, when their day comes, even more terrible. In minor matters we have still much to learn from our ally, if manners, grace, unselfishness, content, sobriety, sanitation, and cleanliness can be called minor ; but these are 1 See Huxley's essay on " The Struggle for Existence in Human Society" (Collected Essays, vol. ix. pages 218-9). Maomillan & Co. WHAT THEY MAY TEACH EACH OTHER 215 the results of early education, and will only be taught by mothers, when they have learnt their lesson from Japan. This brings us to that most difficult question, the status of woman. The great change which has taken place in Japanese feeling in this respect within the last few years may be gathered from the fact that in his Things Japanese, of which a revised edition was pubhshed at the end of 1904, Professor Chamberlain thinks the treatise of the morahst Kaibara, on the duty of woman, worth reproducing in full, "as it so faithfully sums up the ideas hitherto prevalent in Japan concerning the relations between the sexes." Yet regarding this same treatise, the Japanese newspaper Tomiuri, in an article pubhshed last July on the reac- tionary tendencies of certain memoranda by the Minister of Education, speaks contemptuously of " some educators reviving out of waste-paper baskets the moral principles formulated by such an old-school savant as Kaibara." That it is a question which the Japaness recognise to be a burning one may be gathered from the space its dis- cussion occupies in the vernacular Press ; and it is one on which the Japanese asked my opinion more than any other, and on which I was least able to express one. Even from the comparatively unimportant social point of view it is a source of difficulty. " It we talk we are thought forward by our own people," a Japanese girl said to me ; " and, if we cannot talk well, we are thought stupid by yours. What are we to do ? " I gave the obvious answer to this question, but to the more serious ones I had to admit my helplessness. As a wife, mother, and teacher of her children the Japanese woman was, and is, nearly perfect ; but as a member of society (except in these respects) she was wasted. For some unexplained reason she seems to be a more highly 216 THE ALLIES evolved human being than the males of her race.^ Her intelligence is of the highest order, and I believe there are no intellectual heights to which she is not capable of rising. Yet, under the old system, except as instructress of her children, her talents were not utilised. Will her capacity as a mother and teacher be reduced under the new one ? Old-fashioned Japanese hold that it will, and to this the progressives retort by asking whether these quahties are not even now things of the past. " Setting aside the ques- tion whether they could perform equally well the work now assigned to men exclusively," the Yomiuri says in the article above quoted, " have they the qualifications for being ' good wives and wise mothers,' which standard is so much advertised by the conservative educators ? . . . We have entered on a totally new order of things," it continues, " and what is wanted now is that our women should be of a new type just as much as our men." It is my impression that the women have taken the matter into their own hands, and that the solution of the difficulty wiU rest with them. Determined to earn their living independently, and taking the line of least resistance, the modern emancipated Japanese women are taking largely to education, and numbers of them are now em- ployed both in private and Government schools. This is as it should be, and in this direction they have drifted naturally into their proper places ; but schools and col- leges cannot absorb them all, and, as I have mentioned elsewhere, the younger generation is showing a marked disinclination to marriage. I believe that the best which the best friend of Japan can say to them is : " Avoid extremes ; try, as you have done in all else, to combine '^ Many writers have noticed this. Heme says, " How frequently has it been asserted that, as a moral being, the Japanese woman does not seem to belong to the same race as the Japanese man ! " WHAT THEY MAY TEACH EACH OTHER 217 the best of our system with the best of yours. Because your old. dependence is a thing of the past, do not accept the independence of America as your only alternative." " I wish England was as near as America is," a Japanese lady said to me, discussing this subject ; " we get so few of your ideas in comparison." I believe she was right, and that, as far as the status of women is concerned, we have hit off a happy mean.^ Nevertheless, there is much that the Englishwoman might learn from her Japanese sister, if only in the arts of deport- ment, control of voice and feature, and that of dressing beautifully on a few pounds a year. Some indulgent man said that changes in fashion were only expressions of the continual striving after perfection ; if this be true, Japanese women seem to have arrived at perfection in dress long ago, and confine their strivings to experiments with their hair. These may waste a certain amount of time, but, on the other ^ For her information and that of others among her country- women who may think like her, I give an extract from a letter, by Mrs. St. Loe Strachey, in The Times of October 28th, 1906 : " Intelligent and successful motherhood is of aU professions the most necessary to the well-being of the nation. It is also the most exacting of aU professions (it may certainly be scheduled as a ' dangerous trade'), and it calls for infinite daily and hourly self-sacrifice. Yet, except in a few special schools, from the beginning to the end of their education, not one serious word is taught on the subject to the girls who are to be the mothers of the next generation. Even our schools of domestic economy, excellent though they are, do not consciously teach the ideal of motherhood. They aim at making the girls good housewives, but never teach plainly that the girl who wishes to do her duty as a ' citizen ' must fit herseK physically and mentally to be a good mother. There is no reason why the curriculum of girls' education should be altered, because there is no kind of mental training which wiU be wasted in the education of a person whose function in hfe is to be in her turn an educator. What should be changed are the ideals and objects of women's education. They should be clearly taught that the highest service which women can perform for the state is to help in the care and bringing up of children — either their own or those of their neighbour.'' 218 THE ALLIES hand, the conviction that a perfect dress has been arrived at frees a very large sum of money, which can be devoted to other purposes. A Japanese official who had spent many years in Europe told me he had read a great deal in English about " the simple life." " But here," he said, " we need not write about it, because it is everywhere." This is literally true. Clean- liness and beauty are to be seen on all sides. From highest to lowest the wants of the Japanese are extraordinarily few — food and furniture are alike simple, and superfluous clothing reduced to a minimum. The result is they are not only extraordinarily free but extraordinarily healthy ; they never coddle themselves, wear air-tight clothing, or shut them- selves in stuffy rooms. A shower came on one day just as I was leaving a shop, and the proprietor said to me, " You had better wait till it is over; not being a Japanese, you will catch cold." We passed the time while I was waiting by discussing this subject, and he told me that a German had been in his shop lately who had walked across Siberia, sleeping out all the way, in all weathers, without a tent and without having had a day's sickness ; and from this he argued that we might all do the same if we chose. I do not think he was right, but I am sure we might train our children to do so. We pity the tramp whom we see sleeping on a bench in the park while we are shivering in our great-coats. He is to be pitied because, probably, he has not enough to eat ; not because he is without a house, in which he would feel suffocated. A Japanese lady or gentleman can travel for a year (if they have not to wear European clothes) with an amount of luggage that would not suffice an English lady's maid or valet for a night ; though, as Baron Suyematsu says,^ the introduction of European customs has forced them to have ' The Risen Sun, page 143. WHAT THEY MAY TEACH EACH OTHER 219 everything in duplicate. " We have to furnish a room to receive foreigners, and another for our compatriots ; we have to carry about, when travelling, a pair of European boots and a pair of Japanese clogs. Our women have to buy ornamental hairpins as well as European brooches. In fact, we have to possess everything ia double sets — foreign and native." Hearn says ^ : " The Japanese man of the people — the skilled labourer able to underbid without effort any Western artisan in the same line of industry — remains happily inde- pendent of both shoemakers and tailors. His feet are good to look at, his body is healthy, and his heart is free. If he desire to travel a thousand miles, he can get ready for his journey in five minutes. His whole outfit need not cost seventy-five cents, and all his baggage can be put into a handkerchief. . . . You may reply that any Savage can do the same thing. Yes, but any civilised man cannot ; and the Japanese has been a highly civilised man for at least a thousand years. Hence his present capacity to threaten Western manufacturers." After explaining that in spite of his meagre lug- gage — " combs, toothpicks, razors, tooth-brushes " — but thanks to his daily hot bath he is never unpleasant, Hearn continues : " Ability to live without furniture, without impedimenta, with the least possible amount of neat clothing, shows more than the advantage held by this Japanese race ia the struggle of life ; it shows also the real character of some weaknesses in our civihsation. It forces reflection upon the useless multiplicity of our daily wants. We must have meat and bread and butter ; glass windows and fire ; hats, white shirts, and woollen underwear ; boots and shoes ; trunks, bags, and boxes ; bedsteads, mattresses, sheets, and blankets, — all of which a Japanese ' Kokoro, page 29. 220 THE ALLIES can do without, and is really better off without. Think for a moment how important an article of Occidental attire is the simple costly item of white shirts ! Yet even the linen shirt, the so-called ' badge of a gentleman,' is in itself a use- less garment. It gives neither warmth nor comfort. It represents in our fashions the survival of something once a luxurious class distinction, but to-day meaningless and useless as the buttons sewn on the outside of coat-sleeve. ." Without going so far as to suggest that we should give away our coats and trousers, and take to kimono, it is worth while to study how the Japanese can get the same amount of comfort and a greater amount of health in a climate which in winter is nearly as cold as ours, at a fraction of the cost ; and to think (using the lowest motive) of the amount of amusement we could get, with the money we saved on the single item of clothes. Perhaps it is too late for us to get any practical advantage from such a study, but it might at aU events help our children to get more out of life than we have done. Judging from what one sees in the streets, one might jump at the conclusion that Japanese men have taken largely to European clothing ; but practically they have not done so more than they are obliged to. Officials and employes in Government offices have to dress in European style, and many of those whose business brings them much in contact with us have done the same for their work ; but nearly all wear their own dress at home — with the result, as Baron Suyematsu has told us, of requiring a double wardrobe. As his remarks on this subject were written while he was in Europe, he perhaps did not quite realise the happy reaction which has taken place as to woman's dress. Outside the court it is now very rare to see a Japanese lady in any but her native dress. Even at a garden-party given by Admiral Togo, at which wives and daughters of high officials were WHAT THEY MAY TEACH EACH OTHER 221 present in large numbers, I only noticed two ia European clothes ; while among the middle and lower classes I do not remember seeing a single woman dressed as a European. In the matter of food, however, European ideas are creep- ing in rapidly. This may be partly due to the revival of Shinto and consequent discredit of Buddhism, but is, I be- lieve, chiefly attributable to the simple fact that they hke our food better than their own. Japanese girls, I am told, are all studying French cookery, and, judging from the dinners which I have eaten, turned out by Japanese cooks, I should say with great success. It is noticeable at aU the European hotels how many Japanese, both men and women, come in for meals, but I was particularly struck by a restaurant at which I dined at Kyoto. This was divided into two parts — a European side with tables, chairs, and a European bill of fare, and a Japanese one with mats and little stools for the food, and, of course, Japanese dishes. It was by no means a high-class estabUshment, and its patrons were mostly of the lower middle class ; but, whUe the Japanese side was almost empty, the European one was so crowded that we had to wait fuUy half an hour before we could get a table. What effect a reversion^ to meat diet will have on the physique of the people will be discovered in time ; but in the meanwhile, if it is taken to largely, it must add enormously to the expense of living. As an example of the difference of cost, I saw at Nagoya a notice of hotel charges, at the end of which was a note : "If Japanese instead of European food is taken, 80 per cent, reduction wiU be made." There is one other interesting point in connection with the introduction of European customs — that the use of chairs or benches by school children is increasing their stature. I am 1 They were meat-eaters before the introduction of Buddhism. 222 THE ALLIES told that the old habit of sitting on the calves had a tendency to shorten the muscles, and that the younger generation, who are all seated European fashion at school — i.e. from six to thirteen — are about one and a half inches above the old average height. Those educated in this way are now unable to squat on their calves, and if they sit on the ground have to do so Turkish fashion, with their legs crossed. Of personal cleanUness and Japanese baths more than enough has been written already, and on this subject I shall content myself with quoting and endorsing Professor Chamberlain's assertion that " a Japanese crowd is the sweetest in the world." ^ General cleanliness and beauty are, however, to be found everywhere, from the meanest hovel upwards, while ostentation and display may be looked for in vain from one end of the land to the other. " The European way of arranging a room," says Mr. Okakura-Yoshisaburo,^ " is, generally speaking, rather re- volting to our taste. We take care not to show anything but what is absolutely necessary to make a room look agreeable, keeping all other things behind the scenes. Thus we secure to every object of art that we allow in our presence a fair opportunity of being appreciated. This is not usually the case in a European dwelling. I have very often felt less crowded in a museum or in a bazaar than in your drawing- rooms. ' You know so well how to expose to view what you have,' I have frequently had occasion to say to myself ; ' but you have still much to learn from us how to hide, for ex- position is, after all, a very poor means of showing.' " The arrangement of Japanese rooms has been described too often to need any mention by me, but I may allude to an example of Japanese restraint, in, another direction, but due to the same spirit, which greatly struck me. At the luncheon 1 Things Japanese, page 61. ^ The Japanese Spirit, page 127. WHAT THEY MAY TEACH EACH OTHER 223 given by the Minister of War to Admiral Sir Arthur Moore's squadron, the band of the Military School of Music played, having been brought specially to Tokio for the purpose. We lunched in a marquee in the Arsenal Garden overlooking the beautiful lake. I may venture to say that ninety-nine Europeans out of a hundred, if they had brought a band from a considerable distance to play on a particular occasion, would have let their guests have the most of it, and put it as close to the dining- table as they could. General Teroutsi put his band on the opposite side of the lake. I am not a musician, but I am told the music was excellent, and I can answer for its being enjoyable. We could hear each other speak without shouting, and we could also hear the music, which, as far as my experience goes, one can rarely do with European bands, played as they generally are. While on the subject of art it is interesting to note that, as far as my Hmited experience goes (I may be generalising from insufficient data), the rising generation of Japanese has lost the sense of colour. I noticed instances of this in several cases, but particularly with regard to the Imperial Palace at Kyoto. This building contains one of the finest ceilings in the world, painted in tones that are a delight to the eye ; but among them are one or two which were re- painted a few years ago in tints that would shock a mole. Yet the Japanese, to whom I pointed them out, could see no difference between the new and the old, and were much surprised to find on inquiry that the ones I had noticed were of later date than the others. The chief points of Japanese culture are so well summed up by Mr. C. Pfoundes,^ that before concluding this part of the subject I must quote his remarks : " Right valiantly have the Japanese grappled with great problems. Heroic 1 Bdigious Systems of the World, article on " The Religions of Japan," page 97. 224 THE ALLIES efforts have been made in the present and the past to solve the social and political questions that agitate ourselves. These astute and aesthetic people are far more alive to mental culture and its great ethical value than we can claim to be, much though it may cost our self-conceit to admit it. They know more of us than we know of them ; and could we but bring ourselves to see our own social condition as these Easterns see it, the lesson would be worth our while. . . . " These are some of the practical lessons : " Toleration ; respect for the feelings of others ; re- cognition of every one's right to think for themselves ; outward conformity to that which is held in public venera- tion. " Unprejudiced, dispassionate inquiry into aU things physical and psychological ; no bhnd faith, but desire for knowledge as a basis, rather than leaning on the judgment of others probably no more capable of judgment. " Sturdy independence of thought, within the limits of non-interference with the freedom and rights of others. " Refraining from forcing dogmatic opinion unwelcome, merely as a personal selfish desire to acquire merit, or from aggressively self-assertive conceit. " Absence of that over-eager desire of personal salvation, even if gained at the expense of others, so common amongst the smug, self-righteous of our own land and age. " Recognition of responsibihties and duties, and that there is loyalty due to the inferior by the superior, reciprocal, not one-sided, as with us. " Refusal to believe in much that is forced upon us by a professional, mercenary, religious class, tainted with sus- picion of being put forward to support their otherwise untenable claims. " Knowledge that much of the observance of reUgions we WHAT THEY MAY TEACH EACH OTHER 225 know of is but the survival of ancient rites, some having an origin that would horrify the orthodox if explained. " A high sense of the dignity of humanity, and that each one should feel this and act accordingly. " Charity to the deserving ; kindness and gentleness to the feeble ; protection to the oppressed ; justice to all. " Unselfish purity in aU things — in thought, speech, deed." If we can learn much from Japan, there are still some things that we can teach her, if she wUl. Science she has made her own ; art was hers long before it dawned in England. In war she has already won her spurs. If her parliamentary system is not wholly satisfactory, she must leave it to its natural development, and can gain nothing by trying further to copy that of other countries. If her law is not wholly suited to her people, it is a necessity of her treaties, and she will have to abide by it for the present ; but there is one task in which she is only now taking her first steps — ^learning, and I am afraid painfully learning, the ABC; that of dealing with subject races. We have not only had more experience in this than any other nation, but I believe our natural tendencies particularly fit us for it. Americans and Germans who visit our distant possessions say we are fools, and worse, and, that if they only had such and su^h a place for a few months, one would see the difference in the behaviour of the natives. From all I have heard of Dar-es-Salaam and Manilla, I can fully believe the latter part of this statement. Yet somehow we manage to hold on : order is kept with very little show of force, mutinies and native revolts are rare, and men of all nationalities, Europeans as well as those of neighbouring races, flock into our outposts and make themselves at home. I believe the secret of our success lies in two things — we 15 226 THE ALLIES are not over-civilised, and a large percentage of our officials are aristocrats. A distinguished French colonial official once said to me, " England's success is due to the Law of Primogeniture," and to a great extent he was right. We are represented all over the world by younger sons of great houses — men who have been brought up from their infancy not only to command, but to be on such terms of intimacy with their dependents as was common in old Japan, but is rare now outside England ; an intimacy which never degenerates into familiarity on the part of the retainer, or condescension on that of the master's son. " Won't you sit down ? " said a daughter of the house to an old housekeeper who was almost a mother to her, and who had been standing for a long time talking. " No, Miss Mary," was the answer, " I hopes I knows my place." This answer was a lesson to that young woman, and she never again attempted to forget hers. With men brought up in this school there is no necessity to surround themselves with a chevaux de frise of dignity. They know their place, and, instinctively, those they have to deal with also learn it. These boys, too, brought up at pubhc schools, have been taught by their fellows to look upon fairness as the highest of the virtues and meanness as the lowest of the vices. The result is, that even those who do not like us have to admit that, if they can find nothing else worth having in English colonies or possessions, they can always be sure of justice. Except as regards the last item I do not know how far these remarks apply to India. It is a peculiar country, held under peculiar conditions, by strong mihtary force. I know little of it myself except by its effects on those who have been trained in it ; and one of these is that it makes them for ever incapable of understanding Arabs. To me the people of the Indian plains are, like their elephants, WHAT THEY MAY TEACH EACH OTHER 227 I anachronous survivals, with whom we can be no more in sympathy than with the inhabitants of another planet. I may be wholly wrong in this impression, but from what residents in India have told me I gather that at all events it is impossible to unbend to the Hindoo in the way it is possible and natural to do so to the Arab, the Sudani, or the Zulu. Our savagedom, our love of sport and games and combat, though it links us with the robuster races of the Indian hills, has no such effect on the plain men ; but with almost aU the other races with whom we are thrown in contact, is a strong bond of sympathy. Why may English and Su- danese soldiers be seen walking about arm-in-arm, and treating each other as equals ? Can one imagine an English soldier and a Bengah Sepoy, or a German soldier and any conceivable " native," being on such terms ? The English- man and the Sudani are so because they are kindred spirits ; when you see them they are probably on the way to the canteen, and each knows that the dearest wish in the heart of the other is to be in a good rough-and-tumble fight. They are both great, rollicking, bloodthirsty boys. Neither of them may be as fitted for modern warfare as the duty- worshipping Japanese, who dishkes fighting, but who will perhaps do things that both of them would shrink from, because they are right. " 'E's a poor, benighted 'eathen, but a first-class fighting man," Rudyard Kipling makes the English soldier say of Fuzziwuzzi, and probably Fuzziwuzzi returns the compUment. Be that as it may, this spirit is a great aid tc the govern- ment of our many outposts, and it is one in which the Japanese are lacking. I would not have them modify General Nogi's teaching and say, " Make both your bodies and your minds savage." The Japanese have reached a stage of civilisation from which it is to be hoped, for the sake 228 THE ALLIES of humanity, they will not recede, and they must pay the price of it ; and, failing the bond of sympathy which our barbarism gives us with subject races, cultivate, to the utmost, that old spirit of friendliness with inferiors which was once so markedly theirs. I have no personal knowledge of the Japanese as colonisers, but if half of what we hear is true, it is in this respect that they are least admirable. Even some of their best friends admit that, in Korea for instance, their officials are over- bearing and untactful, and we hear no better accounts from Formosa. The writer of a leading article in the Times ^ says : " Independent foreign observers, and even, we be- lieve, some highly placed Japanese statesmen themselves, do not speak with unlimited praise of the conduct of the Japanese military authorities in South Manchuria. They say that the action of these authorities has often been needlessly high-handed and oppressive, and that it has not only given rise to discontent amongst the people, but has made an unfortunate impression upon foreign opinion." Possibly some of these reports are made in Shanghai, and I should be inclined to reject them altogether, did I not know from personal experience how extremely objection- able a lower or middle-class Japanese can become when contaminated by European influence. To any one who had been lucky enough only to pass quickly through Yoko- hama, and had spent his time in the interior, meeting everywhere perfect manners and perfect refinement, an hour in one of the hotels of the ports would come as a shock ; he would wonder whether he was not having a nightmare. Probably the Japanese port hotel " boy," or clerk, is far better mannered than his American representative ; but he is certainly ruder than Englishmen of the same class, and 1 September 21st, 1906. WHAT THEY MAY TEACH EACH OTHER 229 compared to the majority of his countrymen is a boorish lout. I admit it is the fault of his teachers, the tourists (chiefly American, though some of the EngUsh are fairly bad) ; but it is nevertheless painful to see the ease with which he has degenerated. We have all heard of the black university graduate throwing off his clothes and executing a war-dance as soon as he touched his native strand, and did not feel particularly surprised ; but that contact with a few hundred strange and objectionable globe-trotters should be sufficient to knock all tha refinement out of as many Japanese youths is, to say the least of it, a sad example of the tendency of human nature to decadence. There is another point in connection with these tourists which is worth considering. They all tell the same story of the arrogance and conceit of the Japanese. It is, I believe, the experience of most Englishmen that these defects are wholly absent, and certainly it is mine that a more modest, courteous, refined race it would be impossible to find. Yet we can hardly conceive that all the German and American tourists have clubbed together to concoct the same story, and a possible explanation of the difference of view may be found in the assumption that the Japanese treat us as equals and the others as inferiors. If this be so, knowing the opinions of the Americans and Europeans who have been treated thus, it may be imagined that the Japanese are not very popular with Koreans and such-like. Whether these reports be baseless or based on facts, it can do the Japanese no harm to know that they are circulated, and if they would be forearmed in these matters of peace, as they were in those of war, they will do well to encourage the old friendly feudal spirit, and, taking a hint from us, send to their possessions and protectorates men of their best and oldest blood. Increase of population must force 230 THE ALLIES expansion on Japan as it has forced it on us. We are a colonial power, not because we wish it, but because we must ; and the same will happen to Japan. How far she will succeed in the task which wiU be imposed on her will depend, to a great extent, on her attitude to her subject races. Like many other time-honoured institutions, feudalism in Japan had to go ; by no other means than those taken could the threatened danger have been averted, but that danger is now practically past. A magnificent army and navy have been created, and the new system firmly estab- lished ; all that is wanted now is money to maintain its efficiency. To obtain this, great sacrifices are being made. How far they are necessary it is for Japanese statesmen to decide, but they undoubtedly constitute a grave danger — - one almost as great as that which they are intended to avert. I have aUuded to this subject elsewhere, but must return to it, as it is another in which Japan might possibly, with advantage, take a hint from England. A German diplomatist told me, a short time age, that in his opinion England was the most aristocratic country in the world — " because," as he said, " you have been wise enough to keep your aristocracy up to date, and in touch with the people." In Japan a great middle class is growing up, alien in feeling alike to the classes above and below it, stronger than either, and still clamouring for more power. " The commercial class," says Griffis,-^ " once so despised, is not only rising to honour, but is rapidly becoming the preponderant element in the social fabric, in the political councils, and in the decision of great national questions." Yet just before I left Japan I saw a letter in one of the news- papers, from a Japanese merchant, complaining that his class did not receive sufficient official recognition. In England, too, we have this class with the same charac- ' Mikado's Empire, page 650. WHAT THEY MAY TEACH EACH OTHER 231 teristics ; but by the simple device of continually cutting off its head and tacking it on to the tail of the class above, we not only keep the aristocracy up to date, as my friend said, but remove the sting of the plutocracy. The demo- cratic tradesman of to-day is the fine old crusted aristocrat of to-morrow. The mere fact of making him a peer has not only changed his views, but changed other people's views about him. We may say it is due to snobbishness, or any other of the hard names which we like to apply to ourselves ; but the fact remains that it works well, and, within a few weeks of his creation, not only to the new peer, but to his brother peers and the masses below him, he is a member of the old aristocracy, whose traditions he rapidly assimilates and acts up to. The Japanese peerage is either very old or very new. It is partly formed of the Kuge, the old nobility, who vegetated with their hermit emperors at Kyoto during so many centuries, and were never in touch with the people ; and partly of a batch of creations made at the restoration, which included feudal lords, but by no means a large proportion of them. It is not easy to decide which was the old aris- tocracy, as the Daimyo and the Kuge mutually despised each other, the former looking upon the latter as effeminate weaklings, and the latter regarding the former as swash- buckling upstarts ; but it may be said that the Kuge un- doubtedly formed the ancient peerage, while the Daimyo were the feudal lords, large landowners, with thousands of retainers, and the real rulers of the people, corresponding, in everything but title, to our feudal Barons. As with us it is the descendants of the Barons, plus some later importa- tions, who form our aristocracy and still maintain our feudal spirit, so it is the descendants of the Daimyo in Japan who, as the active aristocracy, are still in touch with and respected by the people. 232 THE ALLIES For a foreigner to attempt any detailed scheme for utilising this influence would be both futile and presump- tuous ; but I believe that through them Japan may best avoid the evils of her middle class, and I merely throw out the hint of how we blend the old and the new. I may say this, however, that our country houses have done much, perhaps more than anything, to keep England as she is. Unfor- tunately, with the overthrow of the feudal system these practically ceased in Japan, thus leaving a wide gulf between the upper and lower classes into which, if it is not reclosed, the middle class will flow. In conclusion, there is one other lesson which Japan may learn, if not directly from England, from one who was born a British subject and who loved her and understood her better than any other European. Maybe she has learnt it already, but it cannot be repeated too often. Hearn writes, in his Interpretation^: "I believe that the time is far away at which Japan can venture to abandon the policy of caution that has served her so well. I believe that the day on which she adopts a Western creed her immemorial dynasty is doomed ; and I cannot help fearing that, whenever she yields to foreign capital the right to hold so much as one rood of her soil, she signs away her birthright beyond hope of recovery." ^ 1 Pages 616-7. ^ This subject is enlarged on in a letter from Herbert Spencer to Baron Kaneko Kentaro, published in The Times of January 18tb, 1904, and given by Hearn as an appendix to his Interpretation. CHAPTER IX The Yellow Peril and the Teuton Terror The phrase " Yellow Peril," originally coined as a pre- paration for the German occupation of Kiau-Chau, was in its inception a warning to Europe against an imaginary- tendency to aggression on the part of the Chinese ; but during the war between Japan and Russia it was revived by the friends of the latter country, with a new meaning, and made to apply to Japan alone — it being asserted that if she was allowed to beat Russia she would organise the nations of Asia against Europe and drive her from that continent. Its latest development, offspring of certain fertile brains in Shanghai clubs, assigns to Japan a less ambitious role, merely attributing to her the intention of stirring up anti-foreign riots in China. The statement is that Japan is in want of money (which is probably true), and that "Boxer" risings, etc., will enable her to get it (which is doubtful). The argument seems to be that if there are serious anti-European disturbances in China, Japan's geographical position will enable her to be first in the field, either to put them down or encourage them as suits her game best. If she takes the former course she will pose to the nations of Europe as their saviour, and demand, and get, substantial pecuniary compensation for her trouble. If, on the other hand, she sides with China, she will share the spoils with her, and then establish a footing in the country which she will never relinquish. The further 233 234 THE ALLIES results of this move the prophets (or such of them as I have met) leave to the imagination. The Yellow Peril bogey has been laid so often, by more competent exorcists than I, that, but for its remarkable power of rising again in new shapes, I should be reluctant to repeat the process. As, however, some few months ago it seemed to be as healthy as ever in certain regions of the East which I visited, I feel constrained to go over much old ground, and possibly a little that is new, in the hope, if not of finally disposing of him, at all events of weakening him a little. As the first and last phases of the cry were based on the possibility of China's awakening, as it is called, it will be most convenient to deal with that subject first, before discussing Japan's possible share in it. There is no country in the world about which it is so difiicult to arrive at the truth as China. No two European residents take the same views, either about the character of the people or the probable future of the country ; but, among a mass of contradictory evidence, certain facts seem to be well established regarding the former. The Chinese ethical system, like that of Japan, was founded on ancestor-worship and codified by Confucius ; but there is this marked difference in its present development in the two countries — that, whereas in Japan the rule of filial piety has been expanded to embrace the state and its father, the Emperor; in China it is still confined within its boundaries and does not extend beyond the family. The result is that loyalty to the throne, which has become almost a religion in Japan, is practically non-existent in China. Although an autocrat for the time being, the Emperor of China is looked upon by his subjects much more in the light in which that most absolute of all autocrats, the President of the United States, is looked upon by his feUow citizens, than THE YELLOW PERIL AND TEUTON TERROR 235 that in which the Japanese look upon their Emperor, or we on our King ; the chief difference being that the American President is actually chosen at certain intervals by his countrymen, while the Emperor of China is supposed to be the chosen of the gods. But whenever he has acted in a manner displeasing to his people they have always regarded this as a proof that he had ceased to enjoy the divine approval, and in the course of their history have frequently not only removed him on that assumption, but have changed the dynasty. Nor have they patriotism in the sense in which it is known to us and to the Japanese. They are, indeed, as Professor Chamberlain says,^ " inalienably wedded to every detail of their ancestral civilisation," but " care nothing for China as a political unit, an abstraction, an ideal to die for if need be." China, indeed, is so vast, so heterogeneous, that in some respects it can be compared more to a continent than a country. She has not even a permanent name for herself, being known to her inhabitants only by the names of her dynasties. Nor has she one spoken language. It is true that those who speak the Mandarin dialect can understand each other, as Europeans who speak Latin can communicate ; but the people of Canton and Pekin can no more talk to- gether than those of Rome and Madrid, and take even less interest in each other's affairs. " That belongey Canton side, no my pidgin," the Cantonese said when told of the Japanese victories in 1894. History teaches that during no period of her long career has China been an aggressive nation, or ever given to expansion. That colossal work, the Great Wall, is in itself a proof of her aspiration to live in peace within her own boundaries, and it is not to herself but to the outer barbarians that she owes her expansion. It is a curious fact, pointed ' Things Japanese, page 261. 236 THE ALLIES out by Baron Suyematsu/ that one savage race after another has hurled itself agamst her, always with the same result, that of becoming civilised by contact with her and merely adding to the circumference of her empire. Like raindrops pouring into a pool, they have ruffled its surface for a time, but to be assimilated with its placid waters. China has rarely gone out to meet such attacks, but with a confidence which has been justified, has calmly awaited them within her borders ; and though often conquered, has never been changed. Although these conquering races have been warlike and energetic ones, and in the early years of their contact with China have undertaken ag- gressive expeditions, such as those of the Mongols under Genghis Khan, they have all in time become imbued with the non-aggressive spirit of the conquered, and those Mongols who still retain a warlike spirit are now Russian subjects. There is no instance of China as a nation having shown any thirst for conquest or expansion. One of the results of this spirit of concentration has been the degradation of the military class. Having but one ambition, that of living her own life and promoting her own learning, arts, and industries, it is the scholar, the merchant, and the farmer who have been, and still are, honoured, while the soldier is looked upon as a hired slaughterer and an outcast. It is the same spirit which flourished in the hermit court of the Mikados in pre-Meiji days, when the retired and scholarly Kuge looked down on the Shogun and Daimyo as mere military upstarts. An example of this spirit is given by Professor Chamberlain, who tells us that ^ " when Herr von Mohl, a high Prussian official, came over to help in the reorganisation of the Court on German lines, even a step apparently so natural as the appointment of aides-de-camp to his Imperial Majesty met 1 The Risen Sun, page 270. * Things Japanese, page 45. THE YELLOW PERIL AND TEUTON TERROR 237 with stout opposition. For the old Court life of Japan, its personnel, its ceremonial, and all its habits, were based on those of China, where, as is well-known, the soldiery- have ever been regarded as a sort of pariah class — desper- adoes, ne'er-do-weels, ranking nowhere because leading a life deemed barbarous and degrading; fellows, in fact, whom it would be desecration to place near the person of the heaven-descended monarch." But while in old Japan these sentiments were confined to a small and exclusive class, they are shared by the whole people in China. The Chinese Government, alive to the dangers which such a spirit may bring on their country, has, indeed, lately tried to counteract it by all means in its power ; but it is very deep-rooted, and the growth of tens of centuries cannot be exterminated in a generation. Owing to the intense loyalty of the people, great and sudden changes can be made in Japan at the Emperor's bidding ; but there is no such loyalty in China, and if change comes it will not be by order, but because the people themselves have changed. Those who know them better than I do must judge whether such a change is possible. " The civilisation of any race," said Professor Petrie,^ " is not a system which can be changed at wUl. Every civilisation is the growing product of a very complex set of conditions. To attempt to alter such a system, apart from its conditions, is impossible. No change is legitimate or beneficial to the real character of a people except what flows from conviction and the natural growth of the mind." I happened to travel out to Japan with some of the Chinese Commission lately sent to Europe and America to inquire into our methods. They were all members of ^ Address to British Association, quoted in Feuded and Modern Japan, page 11. 238 THE ALLIES the " Young China '-' party, and men who were, I believe, honestly anxious to put her defences on a proper footing. Some of them were very go-ahead young men, and even expressed the opinion that England was rather too old- fashioned to suit them. They were pleased with their country's progress, and, belonging to the small school of advanced thinkers, had faith in her awakening : but not from one of them did I gather that they had any hopes for her army until officers could be found who would take a pride in their profession ; while, characteristically enough, these very men who were so anxious for this pride in others, could not conceal their personal abhorrence of the pro- fession of arms. Nor is this to be wondered at : trained for centuries in the teachings of Confucius and those of Buddhism, the one consecrating labour and love of the land, and the other abhorring bloodshed, the soldier's pro- fession is one with which they can have no sympathy. If to China's negative objections, alike to fighting and expansion, we add her positive contempt for the rest of the world, it wiU be seen that the last thing she is likely to do of her own accord is to force herself into it. Content in the sense of her own superiority, she would hold aloof from it altogether if she could. Were it possible, she would build a greater Great Wall round the limits of her empire, and exclude every foreigner from her soil. Apart from the question of whether China wishes, or can ever wish, to become a conquering and colonising power, is the further one of whether it wiU ever be possible for her to do so. On this point I cannot do better than quote Captain Brinkley, than whom there is no better authority. He says,^ " China stands in the Far East an imposing figure with her gigantic expanse of territory, her immense popu- ' Ja/pan, its History, Arts, and lAterature, voL i. page 5. THE YELLOW PERIL AND TEUTON TERROR 239 lation, and her vast wealth of undeveloped resources. Such elements seem capable of being moulded into a world- moving force, and their potentialities have even appalled some leaders of European thought. But if history teaches us anything, it teaches that there is only one grand climac- teric in the career of a nation. Beyond the summit, descent is inevitable. The continuity of the downward grade is never broken by a second eminence. As it fares with a man, or with a tree, so it fares with a nation's growth or decay. China long ago reached the zenith of her great- ness, and has been sinking steadily to lower levels ever since. She was never an isolated state, husbanding her resources in seclusion and waiting to be galvanised into new life by contact with rival countries. Her very name, the "Middle Kingdom,"^ indicates the relation in which she stood to the rest of the world. Whatever other states had to give she received as a tribute to her own ineffable superiority, not as an incentive to emulation or exer- tion. That frame of mind became at last an instinct. It destroyed her appetite for assimilation, and con- demned her to succumb to any civilisation she could not despise." It may be urged that fifty years ago Japan was even more anxious to exclude foreigners than China is now : that she, who now ranks high among the great Powers, was, within the memory of many living men, even more ignorant of modern warfare than twentieth-century China. It may also be said that her patriotism is of comparatively modern date, and that in early feudal times, when the ownership of the country "was divided among a number of semi-inde- pendent clans, it practically did not exist. From such facts it may be inferred that what has happened in Japan may 1 Baron Suyematsu points out that this is merely a fanciful name, hke the " Flowery Land " {Eisen Sun, page 271). H. E. C. 240 THE ALLIES happen in China, and that the four hundred millions of that country, armed, trained, and imbued with a patriotic or aggressive spirit, will be a menace at which the world may weU tremble. But in weighing aU these forebodings the essential difference between Japan and China must be borne in mind. China is essentially a conservative and Japan a progres- sive country, and national characteristics do not change : " Emotional Ufe, which is older than intellectual life and deeper, can no more be altered suddenly by a change of milieu than the surface of a mirror can be changed by passing reflections." ^ In spite of all the alterations in her habits of life, the spirit of Japan is the same to-day as it was when, as a natural expression of itself, it evolved Shinto. That, the essence of Japanese character, remains untouched. Yet she has always welcomed instructors from abroad. " Her whole career has been a continuous effort of assimila- tion, her invariable attitude that of modest studentship. One advantage only she claimed over other states. It was the divine origin of her rulers and the consequent guardianship extended to her by the gods. But her deities were not supposed to contribute anything to her material civilisation. Their most beneficent function was tutelary. Hence her people never classed themselves above other nations in a progressive sense. They were always ready to accept and adopt every good thing that a foreign country had to offer, whether of philosophy, of art, of technique, of administration, or of legislation. That is the fact which stands out in doubly leaded capitals on the pages of Japan's history. From the very earliest hours of her national career the stranger was welcomed within her gates. Whoever brought her any product of foreign learning, genius, or ' Heam, Kolcaro, page 11. THE YELLOW PERIL AND TEUTON TERROR 241 industry, whether from China, from Korea, or from the South Seas, was received with acclaim." ^ China, on the other hand, has always despised foreign learning ; but she has learnt one lesson from Japan, that if the foreigner is to be successfully fought it must be with his own weapons. It is to Japan that she naturally turns, not only as her nearest neighbour, but one whose language she can most easily learn, to obtain from her some of her newly gained knowledge. With this end in view, she is sending her students, by thousands at a time, to learn European ways at the Tokio university, and en- gaging Japanese professors by the hundred to teach in her schools ; not because she values our knowledge or because she hopes to become like the other nations, but because she knows that it is only by the acquisition of such knowledge she can hope to free herself from us, and live her own life in peace. She is like a clever boy (and though old she is very clever), who works hard at his lessons, not because he cares for the knowledge which he is imbibing, but because he knows that the harder he works the sooner will he pass his examinations, and be able to devote himself to more congenial studies. Having dealt with the question of whether China is likely to awake herself and become a menace to the world, we can pass on to the fear that Japan will revivify and reorganise her, and, having turned her into a great and efficient fighting machine, let her loose on the nations of the West. Apart from the question of whether she can or will be so organised, which has already been discussed, the further one of what effect such an awakening would be likely to have on Japan is worth consideration. Should Japan succeed in the scheme, imputed to her by the Yellow Perilists, of enabling China to create a powerful Army and Navy, and imbue her with a ' Captain Brinkley, Japan, its History, Arts, and Literature, vol. i. page 6. 16 242 THE ALLIES spirit of conquest, it is obviously Japan who would be the first victim of the monster she has created. As China's nearest neighbour she would certainly be her earhest prey. Manchuria and Korea would pass again into the hands of their ancient mistress ; and then the history of 1281 would be repeated, with this difference, that probably even the gods of Ise, who overwhelmed the invincible Armada of Kublai Khan,^ would be powerless against China's modern ironclads ; and for the first time in her long history Japan would know what the presence of an invader meant. Promoters of the Yellow Peril scare are in the habit of replying to such arguments that the natural sympathy be- tween China and Japan would be sufficient to prevent any such possibilities. This sympathy, however, exists only in the imaginations either of those whose cause it suits, or of those whose ignorance leads them to suppose that, because China and Japan have both been called " Par Eastern," they are therefore necessarily alike. As a matter of fact China now regards Japan as a traitor to Asia ; and, while ready to make use of her knowledge, despises her for having thrown in her lot with that of the " outer barbarian." While, if there is one thing on which Japan prides herself, it is her liberal and progressive spirit, the very antithesis of that of China. Nor have the relations between the two nations ever been friendly. Japan, it is true, in the past availed herself of Chinese learning, as China is now avaihng herself of that of Japan, but in much the same spirit. The two countries were never sympathetic, China in her fancied superiority to all the nations of the earth looking down on Japan, and holding that so small a neighbour should ^ Kublai Khan was a grandson of Genghis Khan, the Mongol conqueror, and his ancestors had not been long enough in China for him to have acquired the non-aggressive spirit of the country. THE YELLOW PERIL AND TEUTON TERROR 243 pay her proper respect ; and Japan, proud alike of her dynasty and her national spirit, resenting hotly China's claim to superiority. So strong was this feeling on the side of Japan that twice in history it made her forget her two most marked characteristics, hospitality and politeness. On one of these it caused the Japanese Government to behead the members of a mission sent by the Mongolian Emperor to demand Japan's stibmission ^ ; and on another, " We read in an ancient chronicle that when a letter not altogether courteous was sent to the Emperor of Japan by the Emperor of China, the Emperor of Japan wrote an answer commencing with these words : ' The Emperor of the land where the sun rises addresses himself to the Emperor of the land where the sun sets.' " ^ Kaempfer ^ mentions that, in spite of the precautions which were taken by the Japanese authorities to prevent the Dutch communicating with the people or learning anything of the country, they were invariably treated with a respect which was never accorded to the Chinese. " The Chinese," he says, " are not allow'd the favour of being admitted into the presence of the Emperor, as the Dutch are once a year." And again,* " they are not treated with so much civility as we are." In his description of his journey to the capital he says,^ " We have nearly the same honours and civility done us by the Lords of the several Provinces we pass thro', which they show only to travelling Princes and their retinues." While in another place he says ^ that the " young boys, who are childish all over the world, would run after us, caU us names, and crack some malicious jests or other, levell'd at the Chinese, whom they take us to be."j 1 The Risen Sun, page 287. ^ Ibid, page 286. ^ The History of Japan, vol. ii. page 253. * Ibid, page 254. s Ibid, page 350. ° Ibid, page 357. 244 THE ALLIES Nor is it likely that China, puffed with her own conceit, has forgiven, or ever will forgive, her small and despised neighbour for having shamed her before the world and in her own eyes in 1894. As her nearest neighbour, and from the fact that the Japanese use the Chinese character in their writing, communication is comparatively easy between the two countries, and it is to Japan that China naturally turns to teach her the hated, but necessary, European ways. But if she ever learns her lesson weU, she wUl turn her back on her Japanese instructors as contemptuously as on her European ones. Even the Chinese students who are flocking to Tokio are wholly unable to assimilate themselves to their Japanese f eUows ; they live their own Chinese life apart from them, and mix with them as little as they can. This life is whoUy repugnant to Japanese feeling, and does not even include the daily bath, the outward expression of Japanese cleanliness of mind ; and it must be said, that if the Chinese students wish to keep to themselves, the Japanese appear to be very weU contented that they should do so. As a small instance of the difference in ideas between the two races, it may be mentioned that the Chinese students refuse to smoke Japanese cigarettes, which, of course, have names stamped on the paper in Chinese characters, looking upon it as a profanation to burn their sacred letters. Only the other day an incident occurred illustrative of the difference between the two races. I quote the account of it given in The Times ^ by its Peking correspondent : " Prince Fushimi, the first Japanese prince to visit Peking officially, arrived to-day on a visit to the Chinese Court. . . . The Prince will be received by the Emperor on Saturday, but wUl not be entertained at lunch, as would a Chinese 1 October 12th, 1906. THE YELLOW PERIL AND TEUTON TERROR 245 prince of similar rank visiting the Emperor of Japan in Tokio. " This incident illustrates the hopeless difficulty of pre- vailing upon the Chinese Court to conform to the cere- monials of courtesy practised by more enlightened nations. By the protocol, the disregard of the conditions of which one is weary of recording, it is provided that when inviting representatives of the Powers to a banquet the Emperor of China should be present in person, but on one excuse or another the Emperor never has been present. When Duke Tsai-tse was in Japan the Emperor in person entertained him at lunch. Accordingly, when the arrangements for the visit of Prince Fushimi were being discussed, the Japanese Minister desired that the Emperor of China should extend him equal honour ; but the Wai-wni-pu, consistent in its policy of refusal on the ground that there was no precedent, firmly declined to memorialise the Throne in such a sense, and the Japanese Legation, having on hand questions more serious than those of court ceremonial, gave way." " China wiU be the Turkey of the East," a Japanese official said to me : meaning, I imagine, that not only would she be a constant source of uneasiness, but would have the same relation to her Asiatic neighbours that Turkey has to her European ones, in that while she had to be treated as an equal, she would always remain in a totally different stage of development. I believe the Japanese to be very fully alive to the troubles which China may bring on their country, and I also believe that they have made up their minds as to the best way of avoiding or minimising them ; but whether I am right in this surmise or not, I have no hesitation in saying that they would regard the creation of a great, united, and reorganised China as the greatest misfortune that could happen to Japan. 246 THE ALLIES The third manifestation of the Yellow Peril bugbear now remains to be considered. It is, I admit, an ingenious con- ception — there are some clever people in Shanghai ; but on examination it wiU be found to have no more substance than its predecessors. In the event of anti-foreign riots in China, it is true that Japan's geographical position might enable her to be first in the field ; but the other Powers have not withdrawn their ships from the China seas, and it is highly improbable that she would long be left alone in her search for salvage. "Where the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered to- gether." How to keep away the eagles is a problem which is exercising all the intelligence and ingenuity of Japanese statesmen, and to deliberately manufacture a carcase, as a bait for them, would seem, on the face of it, to be as utterly contrary to her interests as any act that one can imagine. Of all dangers that threaten Japan there is none more menacing than that of a Power, which might be in alliance with Russia, obtaining a foothold and forming a naval base in China, and of all means of furthering such an undesirable result there could be none more helpful than that of bringing about a state of affairs in China which would necessitate European intervention. Therefore, from the point of view of self-interest — the only one by which the policy of nations can be guided — it would seem that of aU nations Japan is the one least likely to encourage Chinese risings, and so invite possible intervention of the Powers. It may be said that the Anglo-Japanese treaty ensures the integrity of China, and that, while that holds, Japan is left free to work her wiU without fear of the consequences which I have indicated ; but circumstances may be stronger than treaties, and the repetition of such an incident as the siege of the Legations, or a serious " Boxer " rising, could hardly fail to bring about European intervention. J'j/ suis, THE YELLOW PERIL AND TEUTON TERROR 247 fy reste, is a motto which the Powers are very apt to put into practice. Apart, however, from the reasons given above, which show that it is not Japan's interest to cause any disturbance in the equilibrium of China, she has at present got her hands far too full to want even the smallest amount of extra work. After General Rennenkampf's pubhshed aimouncement on the war of revenge against Japan, it would be criminal on the part of Japanese statesmen to allow themselves to dream of any long-continued peace ; and they must know that Russia is not likely to repeat her mistake of the past, or enter into the conflict before she is fuUy prepared. To be equally ready, Japan must direct her every energy towards arming for the coming struggle. She must husband her resources to the utmost, and do aU in her power to promote her com- mercial prosperity. Whatever her aspirations may be for the future, they are for the present concentrated on the encouragement of home industries and foreign commerce, and even the smallest of " little wars " would be a disturbing element which she can ill afford to tolerate, much less to invite. Judging from 1900, when her contingent joined those of the aUied European forces in China, she would in- deed be hopeful if she imagined that she would get any pecuniary compensation for her trouble at all proportionate to the losses which her action would entail. As to the other alternative in this theory, that she might side with China and get compensation in territory or money for her pains, I think the temper of the Powers, who are not too well pleased with the Anglo-Japanese Alhance, which guarantees the integrity of China, may be taken as a surety that Japan wiU not indulge any action in contra- vention of its terms, and therefore likely to bring about a rupture between her and her ally. Her statesmen must know that any such rupture would be regarded as a godsend 248 THE ALLIES by nations with whose ambitions the alliance interferes, and could hardly fail to be taken advantage of to the injury of their country. That there may be further anti-foreign risings in China is very probable, and many residents believe that one is even now imminent ; but that, as is suggested in Shanghai, they wUl be due to Japanese intrigues, is, as I hope I have shown, inconceivable. Nor does it require any such intrigues to bring them about. The source of trouble provided by Europe herself is more than sufficient. China may despise the material civilisation of Europe, and the Chinese Govern- ment may be patiently awaiting the good time to come when it will be able to dispense with its foreign teachers ; but among the ruling classes there is, I believe, no hatred of Europeans — they are necessary evils, and as such must be endured with true Buddhist resignation. Foreign diplomatists may in Chinese eyes be tiresome people, given to making inconvenient demands, but it is only on the rare occasions when they send for their warships to enforce them that they become actively mischievous. On the whole, official relations are marked by mutual tolerance, possibly tempered by contempt. The relations, however, of the people and the missionaries are very different. Unhampered by international courtesies or diplomatic etiquette, they are free to give expression to the feelings which instinct and education have made natural to them. The whole thought of the European, on the one hand, concentrated on his Master's injunction to preach the gospel to the heathen ; and that of the people, on the other, on the preservation of that which they hold most sacred, and which it is the avowed object of the foreigners to destroy. It is not in my province to discuss how far the missionaries may, or may not, correctly interpret the teachings of Christ, THE YELLOW PERIL AND TEUTON TERROR 249 but of the material effects of their ministrations there can be no doubt. What the extreme orthodox point of view may be I do not know, but looking at it from the ordinary Christian one, it can hardly be held that the results of missionary enterprise in China are sufficient to justify the hatred and bloodshed which it has brought about. Lafcadio Hearn, who knew and sympathised with the thought of followers of the ancestral cult better perhaps than any European, wrote on this subject ^ : " For the Chinese peasant, in especial, attacks upon his religion are intolerable. His cult remains the most precious of his possessions, and his supreme guide in all matters of social right and wrong. The East has been tolerant of aU creeds which do not assault the foundations of its societies ; and if Western missions had been wise enough to leave those foundations alone, to deal with the ancestor-cult as Buddhism did, and to show the same spirit of tolerance in other directions — the introduction of Christianity upon a very extensive scale should have proved a matter of no diffi- culty. . . . " To-day it is probably impossible to undo what the sterile labour of intolerance has already done. The hatred of Western reUgion in China and adjacent countries is undoubtedly due to the needless and implacable attacks which have been made upon the ancestor cult. . . . From old time these attacks upon the domestic faith of docile and peaceful communities have provoked massacres ; and, if persisted in, they wiU continue to provoke massacres while the people have strength left to strike. ... It has been weU said that no man can estimate the force of a religious conviction until he has tried to oppose it. Probably no man can imagine the wicked side of convention upon ■^ Interpretaiion, pages 518-9, 523. 250 THE ALLIES the subject of missions until the masked batteries of its malevolence have been trained against him. " Yet the question of mission-policy cannot be answered either by secret slander or by public abuse of the person raising it. To-day it has become a question that concerns the peace of the world, the future of commerce, and the interests of civilisation. The integrity of China depends upon it ; and the present war is not foreign to it.^ . . . Whatever the religion of ancestors may have been thousands of years ago, to-day throughout the Far East it is the religion of family affection and duty ; and by inhumanely ignoring this fact. Western zealots can scarcely fail to provoke a few more ' Boxer ' uprisings. The real power to force upon the world a peril from China (now that the chance seems lost to Russia) should not be suffered to rest with those who demand religious tolerance for the purpose of preaching intolerance. Never will the East turn Christian while dogmatism requires the convert to deny his ancient obliga- tion to the family, the community, and the government, and further insists that he prove his zeal for an alien creed by destroying the tablets of his ancestors, and outraging the memory of those who gave him life." " It may well be doubted," ^ remarks Knapp, " indeed, whether the addition of any number of hospitals, asylums, colleges, and churches could compensate for the evil results of the denunciation by the missionaries of that ancestral worship which lies at the foundation of Japanese morality " — and, it may be added, equally at that of the Chinese. Discussing the causes which led to the expulsion of Spanish and Portuguese missionaries in the seventeenth century, Kaempfer says ' : "The new converted Christians 1 This was written in 1904. 2 Feudal and Modern Japan, page 191. ^ The History of Japan, page 160, THE YELLOW PERIL AND TEUTON TERROR 251 told their countrymen, that so long as they continu'd Heathens, they had nothing to expect but eternal damna- tion ; and not only this, but they carried their zeal for their newly embrac'd doctrine, and their hatred against the Pagan worship, and its Bonzes or Priests, so far, as to pull down their Temples and Idols. And it was fear'dthat both church and state would be thereby thrown into still greater confusion, were not the growing evil timely remedied." I may say in connection with this subject, that I have seen Japanese show more depth of feeling, and even passion, on this question of interference by missionaries with their ancestor cult, than on any other. Long habit has made them very seK-contained and reticent, while their natural poKteness makes them reluctant to indulge in any dis- paraging remarks to foreigners on European institutions. Yet I have seen even the most progressive young Japanese — ■ men who would change and Europeanise everything, who would forget aU Japan's past as quickly as possible, and freely express their views that their country wants " waking up " — actually lose their tempers when discussing this subject. Germain to the assertion that Japan is stirring up anti- foreign feeling in China is another which is worth noting — namely, that she has subsidised the Chinese Press and is using it to influence the inhabitants against us. It is a curious coincidence that this discovery was made by Germans at Shanghai shortly after it became known that the Chinese Press was being subsidised by Russia, with a view to incite anti-Japanese feehng. All is fair in love and war, and it may be that the story of Japanese intrigues has been set about by some European Power, which is trying to play the same game herseK and is stirring up anti-European feeUngs, that she may pose as a saviour and incidentally get something for her trouble. 252 THE ALLIES As to any possibility of aggressive action on the part of Japan herself, the need of breathing time for preparation and recuperation, alluded to above, is sufficient to guarantee that, for many years to come, she will be too fully occupied with her own affairs to interfere with those of other nations ; while the development of Manchuria and Korea are tasks more than ample to keep employed any surplus civil popu- lation that she may have. It may also be pointed out that, while the danger of another great war is hanging over her, it is her interest to keep the greatest possible number of her able-bodied male population at home or within reach, and it does not seem likely that for the present she will en- courage emigration to any great extent. That increase of population will eventually force her to expand cannot be doubted, but even if in, say, fifty years' time this necessity should arise, there is no reason to suppose that her expansion will be of an aggressive nature. Germans have spread all over the world — a glance at the German clubs at Singapore, Hong Kong, and Shanghai will enable any one who visits those ports to guess at their numbers in the Far East — and are Uving peacefully and unmolested under foreign flags. They have needed no warships or armies to escort them there, and are not looked upon as a source of danger by the Power whose hospitality they have accepted. There is no reason to suppose that the Japanese, should they ever be forced to spread, will effect their expansion in a less peaceful manner. The supposed aggressiveness of Japan was so firmly believed in, in some quarters, before her war Avith Russia, that the figures given and remarks made by the Tokio correspondent in The Times of September 18th, 1906, are of great interest. He says : " It has been confidently affirmed, especially by Russian writers, that from a date long antecedent to the rupture of negotiations the Japanese THE YELLOW PERIL AND TEUTON TERROR 253 were determined to fight, and that the first blow was struck by them, not when the resources of diplomacy had proved powerless to preserve peace, but when the point of armed readiness to strike had been reached. A conclusive refutation of that assertion is furnished by the financial statement.^ Not a shilling more than the normal annual appropriations was spent on either of the combatant services until October, 1903, and the outlay in that month amounted to a paltry £1,700, devoted to naval equipment and exer- cises. In November, £2,800 was paid out for similar pur- poses, and in December a somewhat heavy outlay of £1,500,000 was incurred, chiefly for the purchase of the two armoured cruisers Nisshin and Kasuga. It is thus a very close approximation to the truth to say that, so far as the navy is concerned, virtually no warlike preparations were made before the commencement of 1904 — that is, up to within one month of the outbreak of hostilities. In the case of the army not so much as 1 sen was paid out until January, 1904. These arithmetical facts dispose finally of the pretence that from an early period Japan had resolved to fight, and that she waited only until her prepara- tions were complete." As Japan was maligned in the past, she is maligned in the present, and on no better foundation of fact. That if she is attacked she will fight as she fought in 1904, with a machine made perfect in peace-time, cannot be doubted by any one who knows her ; but to suppose that she will be the aggressor is to blind oneself to the teaching of history. Among other international crimes imputed to Japan by her enemies is that of being the instigator of the unrest which has shown itself lately among various native races. It is alleged that she is stirring them up against the white 1 Beport on the War Finance, published by the Department of Finance, Japan, 1906.— H. E. C. 254 THE ALLIES man, who, by her machinations, will eventually be swept off the face of the earth. This unrest has shown itself chiefly in British possessions and spheres of influence, and it is difficult to see what Japan would gain by weakening the Power with whom she has so recently allied herself, and which is pledged to help her to keep intruders from her neighbourhood; while against any other country her utmost endeavours in this direction would be useless — it is impossible to imagine that any native rising, say in German East Africa or New Guinea, in Cochin China or Madagas- car, would hamper either Germany or Prance sufficiently to make an appreciable difference in their power for offence or defence, in case of war with Japan. That she should ever be mad enough to place herself at the head of a heterogeneous rabble of Asiatics, all impelled by con- flicting interests and in varying stages of evolution, is unthinkable. Coming as it did, however, almost simultaneously with Japan's victories over Russia, it is probable that the unrest of which we have lately heard so much may be partly due to them, though certainly not to any intention on her part. Ignorant of the true status of the combatants, and that the civilisation of Japan is older and more advanced than that of Russia — not knowing that a large percentage of the Russian army was composed of Asiatics ; barbarous and semicivilised races, led astray by words, as we are, only knew that an Asiatic Power had defeated an European one. Probably the majority of them believed the Japanese to be black like themselves, and knowing no Europeans but the English, pictured to themselves the Russian armies com- posed of men of the only European type they were acquainted with. They argued that what one non- European race has done another can do, and sharpening THE YELLOW PERIL AND TEUTON TERROR 255 their assegais and furbishing up their flint-locks, have imagined themselves peers of the scientific soldiers of Japan. " If there be any ' Yellow Peril,' " Professor Chamberlain truly says, " it must surely consist in Europe's own good qualities being surpassed by a higher grade of those same qualities in her new rivals." In this sense it may be ad- mitted that there is a perU — not in the prophetic one given to it by statesmen for political ends, but in the one actually realised now by merchants in the East. " What are we to do ? " asks the Russian Novoe Vremya,^ with reference to the terms of the proposed Russo-Japanese commercial treaty, " if these Japanese get permission to run their ships on the Amur ? We cannot compete with them. They will undersell us. Their superior business capacity will enable them to drive us out of our own Far Eastern market. Their merchandise will oust ours from the Amur region, and even from the Maritime Province. If this privilege " {i.e. the opening of the Amur, etc., to international commerce) " is granted, there will not be a Russian steamer on the Amur in two years' time." Even more than Russia, Germany is beginning to feel the strain of Japan's " superior business capacity." She has practically but one rival in the world — Japan. After patiently building up her trade for a quarter of a century, she finds it slipping out of her hands. " We shall do no more good," the German merchants say with truth, "till dese peoples are put in their place." Japan can produce better and cheaper than she can, and can underbid her, both as a producer and as a carrier. Her great steamship company — the Nippon Yusen Kaisha — is now one of the leading ones of the world, practically commanding not only the local traffic, but running regular services to Europe, 1 Quoted in The Times of September 21st. 1906. 256 THE ALLIES Australia, and North and South America ; while other companies give promise of almost equal prosperity. Japan- ese banks are being started in many foreign towns ; and by studying in mining, engineering, manufacturing, and com- mercial centres in Europe and America, the Japanese are educating a body of specialists ready to impart their knowledge to their countrymen and make them fitted to compete with, and beat, other trading nations on their own ground. Germany seems likely to suffer the most unpleasant form of death, that of being hoist with her own petard. Through cheap production and energy she has risen, and through the cheaper production and greater energy of her rival she stands to fall. But she has not fallen yet, and is straining every nerve, not only to hold but to strengthen her position. On aU sides we see signs of German expansion and of colonial enterprise — ^partly, it may be, from purely commercial reasons, but equally so from political, if not actually aggressive ones. Her avowed intention of having a fleet equal to that of the greatest naval Power, can hardly be attributed to a mere desire to promote peaceful commerce. Her acquisition of such districts as Damaraland, Tongoland, German East Africa, or New Guinea, do not seem compatible with purely commercial aims. Her interest in Morocco may be as purely commercial as we are assured by the German Press that the establishment of a German bank at Teheran is, but the position of Dar-el-baida (Casa-Blanca) on the Moorish Atlantic coast, for which she fought so stoutly at Algeciras, is of even more value strategically than com- mercially ; and as a naval base and coaling station, on the flank of our route round the Cape of Good Hope, would be a serious menace to us in the event of war with her. By means of the Euphrates Valley Railway she will extend THE YELLOW PERIL AND TEUTON TERROR 257 her influence in Asia Minor, and — to quote an article in The Pall Mall Gazette ^ — " The railway will be the skeleton upon which this Teutonic giant in Asia will gradually be built up. It IS proposed to settle compact bodies of German colonists at certain suitable spots on or near the railway, and thence to endeavour to obtain local self-government. In spite of the difficulty of securing freehold tenure of land, owing to the claim of the Sultan to feudal lordship over aU territory he rules, the continued ascendency of Germany at Constantinople may be expected to overcome even this diflBculty. " This inevitably portends the eventual genesis and formation of a highly organised modern and protectionist state throughout the territory known as Turkey in Asia, stretching from the Mediterranean and Black Seas to the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. Such a state would control the communications between Europe and Asia, Egypt woTild be at its mercy, just as in times past the valley of the Nile was overrun by the Ottomans and the mighty empires of Western Asia before it. It would be a deadly menace to the existence of British India, and would entail the maintenance of a larger Indian army and the burden of a large and costly war-fleet in Indian waters. Our position both in Egypt and India would automatically be turned. " It must not be forgotten also that the threatened dis- solution of Persia is already marked by a vigorous assertion of German influence in that country, and this blustering, energetic race is preparing to dispute our position in the Persian Gulf as strenuously as in due time they mean to assail the Monroe doctrine in South America. If the future is with the noisiest and most assertive, then may we well reconcile ourselves to an automatic extinction." It is little wonder that German merchants hate Japan » September 2l8t, 1906. 17 258 THE ALLIES with a holy hatred, and it is possible that this feeling is shared by certain sections of the English trading com- munities : therefore, the question as to what effect Japan's commercial awakening is likely to have upon us is one of the greatest interest. That Japanese enterprise may to a certain extent, hit our commerce is possible, unless we can prove ourselves the better men; but we are a nation df carriers and importers rather than of producers, and Ger- many is our great rival ; indeed, in the matter of production she may be counted rather as the victor than the rival. Her energy, her business-like habits, and her power of cheap production have given her a predominance in the markets of the world which we can hardly hope to regain ; and it would matter little to us from this point of view if her mantle fell on Japan. If, indeed, articles "made in Ger- many " should cease to flood the English market, it might tend to revive home iadustries. On October 4th, 1906, The Times published the ofl&cial German summary of the character of the trade between this country and Germany in 1905, from which it appears that while we export to Germany hardly anything but raw material, her chief exports to us are finished goods. Com- menting on this in a leading article. The Times says : "In other words, we stand to-day, in our trade with Germany, in the position of an industrially undeveloped country trading with another country on a far higher level of in- dustrial efficiency. Have we," it asks, " really sunk to a level of industrial capacity so far lower than that of the Germans that we are only fit nowadays to act as their hewers of wood and drawers of water, and to supply them with a market for the finished goods which we are incapable of making ourselves ? " The article then goes on to discuss Tariff Reform, with which I have nothing to do ; but what- ever explanation we may hke to give to the statistics, they \ i THE YELLOW PERIL AND TEUTON TERROR 259 themselves are irrefutable, and show that England has lost her place as a manufacturing country. Even, however, if we lose commercially by the new rdle of carrier which Japan is assuming, we cannot fail to gain strategically by the growth of her mercantile marine, so long as we remain her friend ; and that is a matter which rests with us. Even those who have been most confident in the friendli- ness of Germany for England must have had their faith rudely shaken by the publication of Prince Hohenlohe's Memoirs,^ of which The Times says, in a leading article of October 12th, 1906 : " The statements which are now published ... do not include much that will surprise well-informed students of European affairs. To them this publication will afford not so much revelations of what they did not know before, as demonstrations, which are practically superfluous, that inferences which they have long drawn, and of the truth of which they have long been quite confident, are, in fact, correct. Observers of this kind have never been duped as to the true trend of German ambitions, or the real character of the intrigues by which German aims are often promoted. They have repeatedly recorded their convictions upon these points and the reason- ing by which those convictions had been attained. All that the memoirs can do for them is to afford them the artistic and scientific gratification of obtaining direct proof of the conclusions which they have reached from circum- stantial evidence." "^ The carrying power of the German mercantile marine in case of war has been touched on in another chapter, and, whatever her intentions may be, there is no doubt of her ability to carry half a million men to our shores. That the possibility of an invasion of England has been seriously 1 Prince Hohenlohe's Memoirs, William Heinemann, 1906. 260 THE ALLIES considered by the German General Staff, and that they believe in its practicability, is accepted by all competent authorities ; while it would be idle to ignore the efforts Grermany is making to bring her war fleet up to a strength equal to ours, or to pretend that she can be doing so for merely defensive purposes. With such a menace at our gates every ton that our ally adds to her mercantile marine is a gain to us, and every mile that her great commercial feelers advance westward brings us closer together. What I have said elsewhere of our united armies and navies applies equally to our com- mercial fleets. A combination of the great Japanese and English steamship companies could starve out all com- petitors, and if we but agree to act in concord for our common interests, our only rival would be forced to turn her undoubted talents into other channels. There is another aspect of this much discussed point — one for which statesmen and merchants care but little, and yet one that may bring about a greater revolution than any the world has seen for nearly two thousand years. Possibly Professor Chamberlain may have had this in his mind when he wrote the passage quoted above,^ for since the time of the earliest travellers it has been admitted of the Japanese (to quote Kaempfer) that " in the practice of virtue, in purity of life . . . they far outdo the Christians." Knapp, at any rate, puts his thoughts on this subject plainly.^ " The motive," he says, " relied upon to recruit the invading hosts of Western propagandists has been the cry of the great civilising work before them in the East, and the ethical triumphs there to be won by the inculcation of the distinctively Christian virtues. But the passing of the wave of war has vividly revealed to the Western world the exist- ence of an obstinately ' heathen ' people in the East, who, * See page 255. " Feuded and Modern Japan, pages 365-6. THE YELLOW PERIL AND TEUTON TERROR 261 without the aid of Western teaching, have developed to the highest degree precisely the distinctive virtues which Western Orthodoxy had arrogated to itself as its exclusive possession. . . . The question will inevitably recur as to the merits of the religion which has borne such ethical fruit, and attention be given to the essential elements of the beliefs producing such strikingly beneficent results. In other words, the religious philosophy of the West is likely henceforward to be profoundly influenced by the light cast upon it by the Risen Sun of the East, even to the extent of leading the minds of the common people to ask whether better answers to the leading questions of religious thought are not still, as of old, to be found in the contemplative Orient rather than the strenuous and thoughtless Occident." From all sides we hear the same cry of religious decline in Europe and America : clergymen complain that they cannot fill their churches, laymen retaliate that it is the fault of the clergy ; whole nations, such as France, have practically renounced religion ; even Spain is chafing at the yoke. Scientists are avowedly agnostic, and even pro- fessedly strict Christians cannot, under the conditions of modem Hfe, live up to the teachings of their creed. Yet, that in the midst of all this seeming indifference and unbelief, the craving for religion is as strong as ever, is shown by the enthusiasm with which religious " revivals " are attended, and by the multitude of strange sects that con- tinually spring up — some to wither again in a night, others to obtain a fairly firm foothold. Spiritualism, Theosophy, Christian Science are perhaps the most popular among the upper classes, but among the masses their name is legion. On the other hand, science is rapidly taking a more tolerant attitude towards the more ancient forms of belief. The transmutation of metals, the universal solvent, the ethers of the alchemists, are no longer laughed at, while the scien- 262 THE ALLIES tist, who a few years ago would have crushed all arguments based on the assumption of spirit with the authoritative assertion that nothing could exist but matter, is now beginning to doubt whether matter exists at all. Even in medicine we are returning to old schools of thought and the animal remedies of Rome and the middle ages, and Organo- therapy ^ is now a recognised branch of medicine. When Europe, as religious in feeling as ever, is blindly groping for some faith that will satisfy her craving, and when science, at last relaxing its dogmatism, is again on speaking terms with the past ; is it a mere coincidence that, simultaneously with these phenomena at home, an old and unique civilisation should burst on us from the other side of the world ; a civilisation which independently evolved all the virtues which we have been accustomed to look upon as exclusively Christian, and whose people surpassed Christians in the exercise of them ; a civilisation which for a time we affected to despise, because it lacked our powers of destruction, but from which we are now attempting to learn the very arts which it borrowed from us ? Is it possible that, if we have to look up to Japan in all else, we shall continue to look down upon her in all those respects to which she owes her greatness ? If we were as satisfied with ourselves as we pretend to be, perhaps we should continue to do so ; but we are not satisfied with ourselves. Like a thirsty traveller in the desert, we may suck a pebble to cool our tongues, but when we are offered water we cannot refuse to drink. Maybe we have groped in the dark so long that at first our dazzled eyes will fail to realise the light ; * Among the preparations used are cerebrin (brain substance), didyxnin (testicular substance), lymphatic gland, mamos (mammary gland), varium (ovarian substance), ox -bile, pig -bile, pineal gland, pituitary gland, prostate gland, spinal cord substance, spleen substance, supra-renal gland, thymus gland, and thyroid gland. THE YELLOW PERIL AND TEUTON TERROR 263 but, when they do, they will recognise that it has come from its wonted direction, whether in periods of days or millen- niums — the East. That Europe will ever adopt Shinto as a creed is unthink- able ; even in Japan, as Knapp says,^ " Its theological traditions are openly and hopelessly discredited " ; but, as Hearn remarks,^ " Far underlying all the surface crop of quaint superstitions and artless myths and fantastic magic there thrills a mighty spiritual force, the whole soul of a race with all its impulses and powers and intuitions. He who would know what Shinto is must learn to know that mysterious soul in which the sense of beauty, and the power of art, and the fire of heroism and magnetism of loyalty, and the emotion of faith have become inherent, immanent, unconscious, instinctive." This mysterious soul we shall know when we know Japan, and as the two Island Empires draw closer and closer, and the " two eyes " see ^ together, some of her spirit may flow into our thirsty souls. Religion must soon follow in the steps of science and admit that the reign of dogma is past. Of dogma Japan has none to give us, but only of that spirit which " lives not in books, nor in rites, nor in commandments, but in the national heart, of which it is the highest emotional religious expression, immortal and ever young." * When we have absorbed that, the Yellow Peril wiU have become an accom- plished fact ; but it wiU have overthrown, not the princi- palities and powers of this world, but the Kingdom of HeU, created by mediaeval priestcraft as an ally in its great war with Nature. " Shinto theology," says Dr. Nitobe,® " has no place for * Feudal and Modern Japan, page 160. ^ Olimpses of Unfamiliar Ja/pan, page 219. ^ See Preface. * Heam. ' Bushido, pge 11 264 THE ALLIES the dogma of original sin. On the contrary, it believes in the innate goodness and God-like purity of the human soul, adoring it as the adytum from which divine oracles are proclaimed. Everybody has observed that the Shinto shrines are conspicuously devoid of objects and instruments of worship, and that a plain mirror hung in the sanctuary forms the essential part of its furnishing. The presence of this article is easy to explain : it typifies the human heart, which, when perfectly placid and clear, reflects the very image of the Deity. When you stand, therefore, in front of the shrine to worship, you see your own image reflected on its shining surface, and the act of worship is tantamount to the old Delphic injunction, ' Know Thyself.' " I should say that, even more tjrpical of the Shinto spirit than these mirrors, are the three little images of monkeys,^ known as Koshin, which are to be seen in many temples, and reduced copies of which are popular as charms. The three monkeys hold their hands, respectively, over their eyes, ears, and mouth, and symbolise the teaching that humanity, even in its most degraded stage, may remain pure, if it refuses to see, hear, or speak evil. '■ Kaempfer says that these are of Buddhist origin ; but even if this be so, it is but another instance of the national instinct only to accept that which is in accord with the spirit of Japan. APPENDIX CORRESPONDENCE RESPECTING THE STOPPAGE OF TRADE BY THE JAPANESE AUTHORITIES Presented to the House of Lords by command of Her Majesty, 1860 No. 1 Consul- General Alcock to Lord J. Russell {received January 29th, 1860) (Extract) Yeddo, November 2Srd, 1859. I HAVE the honour to inclose a copy of a despatch which I have recently addressed to the Acting Consul at Kanagawa for general circulation. In it I have passed in review all the leading circum- stances which have led to what must be considered a very deplor- able state of affairs. Insecurity of hfe, and the almost total stoppage of a trade not without promise at this port, are the first of the untoward conditions to which I have aUuded. And if, on the other hand, there has been throughout much to complain of in the Japanese authorities and officials, a bad system, or no system, of administration, and little desire to facilitate a trade which they beheve must impoverish them, not the less that they see it begins with a run upon their gold currency ; there has, on the other, been much cause for dissatisfaction given by foreigners. The purchase and shipment of their gold coins they look upon as neither more nor less than an act of lawless spoliation, and an abuse of Treaty pro- visions, intended only to secure a fair exchange of produce. Set at defiance by foreign dealers, and over-reached by their own subjects at the instigation of the former, it can hardly be wondered at that they should have watched the conduct of both with indignation, 265 266 APPENDIX and been further embittered by their consciousness of their helpless- ness to put a stop to it by the adoption of their usual summary and strong-handed measures. The burning of the Tycoon's Palace has given them a temporary rehef from their perplexities, and been made to furnish a plea for so many extravagant things — all tending to the suspension of Treaties and total stoppage of trade here — that I cannot help thinking the fire, if not invented for the purpose, has been at least regarded as a very fortunate incident. They have certainly succeeded for the moment ; although they cannot hope to maintain as a permanence a state of things in direct violation of Treaty provisions. Under plea of labour and expenses to be incurred consequent on the destruction by fire of the Tycoon's Castle, they have stopped the further issue of silver itzebous, in- terdicted the sale of copper, and further, laid restrictions upon the sale of all Japanese produce in request by foreigners ; thus striking, in both directions, at the root of all commerce. They have even hinted that until the Palace is rebuilt there is no remedy. With more or less pressure, and delays inevitable, they will be brought, no doubt, to abandon the specific restrictions on which the finger of the foreign Diplomatic Agents can be laid ; but to prevent action in some other direction, leading to the same end, is indeed a hopeless enterprise. The foreigners, subjects of the various Treaty Powers, at Kanagawa, have done their best to justify the policy and confirm the fears of the Japanese authorities, as to the course foreign trade would take, and its results. Nothing could well have been worse than the conduct of the body generally ; and the acts of many indivi- duals are altogether disgraceful, as I think will be evident to your Lordship on perusal of the inclosed despatch and documents attached. There is, unfortunately, a great deal of misconduct which no law can touch, and many acts of the most mischievous tendency not easily brought under the clauses of a legal enactment. Even when specifically denounced with pains and penalties attached, it is often in these countries very difficult to obtain such evidence as will bring the offence home to the parties implicated, in a way to insure legal conviction. Japanese, both authorities and people, will complain, but not appear in fitting time and place to give evidence ; and yet their complaints of injury, which must thus go unredressed, may have been perfectly well founded. Hence much of the impunity and hcense which have hitherto marked the conduct of such persons. Of course, no action of the British authorities APPENDIX 267 could impose any check on the misdoings of Americans, Dutch, and others ; and these alone would suffice, if all else were amended, to fatally damage the foreign position. All the Consular Agents, except our own, are themselves traders, unsalaried, and mixed up with the practices objected to in others — an evil long and deplor- ably fruitful of mischief in China. Public opinion, with its salutary restraining power, is wholly wanting, unfortunately, also, in a small community of some twenty commercial men of all classes and divers nations, who believe that in this distant corner of the world they are safe from exposure. It may still, however, be brought to bear upon them with effect, I hope, even here, by invoking the pubhc opinion of the larger communities in China. I have accordingly written to Mr. Bruce to request he will secure the insertion of my despatch, with the Acting Consul's Circular, officially, or otherwise, as he may see fit, in The North China Herald. In this, and in all the steps I purpose to take, with the view of putting a stop, so far as it may be possible, to proceedings so ill-judged and discreditable as to render all efiorts at improvement with the authorities here vain and hopeless, I have the entire concurrence of my colleagues, the American Minister and the French Consul-General. The position in which we are all placed, it will be seen, is one full of difficulty and embarrassment. With a Government distrustful and inimical, ready to adopt any expedients for rendering Treaties inoperative ; a vicious system of foreign Consular Agencies, from which grievous abuses are inseparable ; and foreign traders, among whom are many as wanting in discretion as they are deficient in still more essential quaUties, it is hard to steer a satisfactory course, and almost impossible to make any headway. I can only trust that Her Majesty's Government, fully informed of all the facts, will see reason to approve of the steps I have taken throughout. Inclosure 1 in No. 1 Consul-General Alcock to Acting Consul Vyse r,. Yeddo, November 21st, 1859. Sir,- — I HAVE had under consideration your despatches of the 7th, I8th, and 20th instant, together with their inclosures, consisting of 268 APPENDIX correspondence and documents relating to the conduct of British subjects in their transactions with the Japanese oflEicials and others at your port. As the charges brought against the persons impUcated are of the gravest character, I have deferred answering your first communication until further information had been obtained, and I could make some investigations on the spot as to the leading facts. I was unwilling to believe, on anything short of the most conclusive evidence, in the correctness of some of the statements that reached me ; and hoped to the last to find them, if not altogether without foundation, at least exaggerated. Such evidence, however, having been supplied as leaves no doubt, it only remains for me, in the discharge of a painful duty, to convey to you the conclusions at which I have arrived, and such instructions as the circumstances demand. The subjects brought under my notice involve the consideration, and must lead me to speak of the conduct and acts of foreigners generally at Yokuhama, and the complaints of the Japanese to which they have given rise ; because they are so inextricably mixed that it is impossible to separate them. Not only do the natives make little or no distinction between one foreign nation and another, but as regards individuals they often have not the means of dis- criminating ; and thus it follows that the acts of any one member of the European family in this country, for good or for evil, must always react, and exercise a direct influence upon the interests and position of all. This soUdarity, therefore, gives to each one right of judgment and comment, whenever questions arise afEecting all ; nevertheless, I wish to confine my observations, as much as possible, to those only who are under British jurisdiction, whose acts and conduct come properiy under my notice, and who are in their persons subject to British laws and authority. The state of things at Yokuhama and Kanagawa in this fifth month after the opening of the port to foreign trade, is in every sense deplorable and unpromising for the future. Very different results were contemplated by the Contracting Parties to the Treaties ; and all the provisions made, had for their object to secure quite other relations of commerce and amity than those which now exist. To what is this to be attributed, where does the blame lie ? This is the first and most important question ; for on the right answer being found, rests all hope of improvement. Have the British under your jurisdiction been left without knowledge of Treaty obligations, APPENDIX 269 or advice and assistance as to the course to be followed ; or have the Japanese been so ignorant of their obligations, or determined to evade them, that nothing was left to either party, but mutual aggressions and recrimination ? No worse result could certainly have followed if both these conditions had been reaUzed. There have been murders committed twice, at short intervals, on foreigners in Yokuhama, marked by circumstances of great atrocity and vindictiveness. After a period of great confusion and clamour, during which facilities for the exchange of Japanese and foreign coin had been afforded to a large amount, these facihties have been suddenly withdrawn ; and trade, which had begun to show some signs of development, is stopped, equally by the want of currency and an interference on the part of the Japanese authorities contrary to Treaty, while nothing but mutual complaints and recriminations between foreigners and the Japanese officials with whom they come in contact is heard. First in order comes the insecurity to life, and the evidence of ill- blood and irritation existing between the natives and the foreigners. Of this the murders, and Mr. Telge's letter complaining of insult at the hands of an o£B.cial in the Custom-house, are sorrowful in- dications ; and an inquiry into these facts has only tended to prove how much foreigners, in a marked degree, have themselves to blame for so untoward a state of affairs. It has been matter of common observation that sailors from the ships of all nations which have anchored in the port have been allowed to come on shore, and intoxicated, as is too much their habit everywhere, they have in that state day after day gone about, singly and in bands, offering violence to the Japanese whom they met, or into whose shops they intruded. As regards the residents even, who have more permanent interests at stake, I wish the information which has reached me would permit me to believe that they at least had given no just cause of complaint, either to officials or peaceable inhabitants, by indecorous or violent conduct. I have reluctantly come to a difierent conclusion, and cannot doubt but that by their own acts, and at other times in the persons of their Chinese followers, they have not unfrequently given cause both for irritation and ill will. I have to instruct you, therefore, as regards Mr. Telge's complaint, to inform him, in answer to his letter of the 5th instant, that I must be better satisfied than I have hitherto had reason to be, that he 270 APPENDIX Las not, by his own conduct on a former occasion, provoked incivility from these officials, before I can feel called upon to afford him any redress. Rudeness and violence beget the Uke, in Japan as else- where ; and it is not in the power of any constituted authority, to prevent such tendencies. The inconsiderate or ill-conditioned acts of one individual, un- fortunately, may not only provoke retaliation as a natural con- sequence in that particular case, but frequently involves others, by generating a feeUng of ill-will toward all of a class or nation. It is therefore, doubly, reprehensible, since the innocent are con- tinually in danger of suffering for the guilty, and the many for the few. There is no reason to suppose that the unfortunate Russian officer and sailors who were so brutally attacked and murdered by armed Japanese, had themselves, either then or at any former period, given cause of offence ; but it is well known that many sailors of different nations had repeatedly alarmed and outraged Japanese by their violence and ill-conduct, before this act of assassina- tion. So again with the Chinese servant, still more recently sacri- ficed to some feehng of hostiUty or desire for vengeance ; it is quite possible that he, himself, may have been perfectly innocent of all cause of offence or injury either to the ruffians who murdered him, or any of their race, but he fell a victim not the less. And so may many after him, if no efiective steps are taken to put an end to causes of disorder and ill-blood ever recurring on the part of the foreigners. For it is difficidt to beheve, where such manifest grounds of enmity exist, that there is no connection between these and the acts which evidence its existence in the most vindictive form. I deem it therefore, above all, important that you should lose no time in communication, and I hope in concert, with your col- leagues, the Consuls and Consular Agents of other Treaty Powers at Kanagawa, as well as with the Governor of that port, in taking measures for making Yokuhama more secure by poUce arrangements, and in framing such port regulations as may be needful to repress these sources of disorder and danger to the whole community. More especially does it seem necessary to control the landing of sailors without better security than has hitherto existed for their good conduct. In China, it is provided by Treaty that no sailor shall land at any of the Consular ports except in charge of a responsible officer. There is no such clause in the Japanese Treaty ; but it is not the less essential that provision- should be made to prevent APPENDIX 271 saflors of any nation having license to come into a Japanese town, and, in a state of intoxication, to insult and outrage all the peace- able inhabitants they may meet. It will, therefore, be for you and your colleagues to consider what regulations will best answer this end, without unnecessary restraint on those who can be trusted with their liberty on shore ; and, as regards the British, it has been distinctly provided by the Queen's Order in Council, that " the Consul in the port, place, or district, shall have full power and authority to carry into efEect, and to enforce by fine or im- prisonment (as thereinafter provided), the observance of the stipula- tions of the said Treaty, or of the Articles for the regulation of trade appointed thereto ; or to make and enforce, by fine and imprison- ment. Rules and Regulations for the observance of the stipulations of any such Treaty, and for the peace, order, and good government of Her Majesty's subjects being within the dominions of the Tycoon of Japan." Therefore you have full power to make such Rules and Regula- tions for the peace, order, and good government of all, and for the observance of the stipulations of the Treaty and annexed Regula- tions of Trade, as may be found necessary, and on the same being sanctioned by Her Majesty's Consul- General, to enforce attention to them by fine and imprisonment. I trust it will be found that your colleagues are equally em- powered by their respective Governments, and no less disposed, to co-operate with you for the preservation of life and the maintenance of order. But in any case you are still instructed to take immediate steps to secure this end as regards the British ; and whether in reference to residents, or the crews of ships coming temporarily on shore, I look to you to be vigilant and firm in the exercise of your authority to repress and punish with severity any infraction of Treaty, or of Trade or Port Regulations, in the full assurance that, within all legal limits, you will be promptly supported. It is not to be tolerated that a few individuals should, in pursuit of their own interests, or the indulgence of their vices, put to peril the lives and interests of others, or jeopardize the relations between the two nations, by a total disregard of Treaty obligations and all authority. I come now to the consideration of the correspondence, docu- ments, and statements connected with the Custom-house administra- tion, and its Treasury Department for the exchange of money. The Governor at Kanagawa on my recent visit, placed documents in 272 APPENDIX my hands in corroboration of the complaints he urged ; and the Governors of Foreign AfEairs have been charged by the Government here to call my serious attention to the violence, confusion, and irregularity on the part of foreigners, which had become insup- portable — more especially in the Treasury Department, where reiterated demands, in the name of individuals of whose existence they had no evidence, for fabulous sums, were thrust upon the officials daily, with every mark of intentional rudeness and insult, and sometimes with menace and violence. There are not wanting counter-statements and complaints of British subjects — of vexatious delays, procrastinations, and want of all system or regularity on the Japanese officials, sometimes accompanied by incivility or insult, as Mr. Telge has alleged (after a similar complaint against him, personally, however, had been preferred by the Governor). Finally, it is complained that in the exchange of moneys there has been a total absence of impartiality and equity in the amounts accorded to individuals, and that the whole sums daily issued were inadequate. I am quite satisfied that there has been some foundation for all these complaints. As regards the Custom-house, the Japanese themselves admit that there has been a want of system and of knowledge how to transact the business, from inexperience of foreign trade at the port, and a paucity of interpreters to serve as means of communication. The Governor, I am given to under- stand, is ready, however, in communication with you and your colleagues, to frame a set of Custom-house Regulations for the port, founded upon the Treaty provisions, for the better and more regular conduct of aU Custom-house and shipping business in future ; and I hope no time will be lost in carrying this purpose into effect, for these rules will show both foreigners and Japanese the part which each has to perform, and be equally binding and obUgatory upon both. If there be any departure from them, or infraction on either side, it will then admit of easy remedy. And it is to be hoped that the Japanese, who are sufficiently apt when they choose, wiU soon have officers trained to the business, able and willing to give all proper facilities to the merchants and consignees of ships. The Custom-house will ultimately be removed to Kanagawa, where the site for a foreign location has been selected, and the Consuls are already resident ; but in the meantime there is no APPENDIX 273 reason why a better system of administration should not be at once inaugurated. The sources of confusion and irregularity in the administration of the Treasury Department, of which there is only too much evidence on both sides, is a subject presenting more serious difficulties. Not only the want of method or system has been greater in the adminis- tration, but the absence of all intelligible principle of distribution in the proportions issued to each applicant, has been made the plea for every kind of unseemly conduct on the part of individual apphcants. I am not surprised, therefore, that the end of all has been a total stoppage in the issue. Things had come to such a pass that I am not sure it was not the best thing the Japanese for the moment could do. In presence of the insane demands pressed upon them, often with menace and violence (for such beyond doubt is the fact), and for sums which not only the apphcants could not produce in dollars, but which could not be expressed otherwise than by a long line of figures, while a hfetime would not suffice to count many of the sums claimed in itzebous, it is difficult to say whether the indecent levity and bad taste which mark many of the requisitions now under my eye, or the disregard of all Treaty conditions and national interest or repute equally manifested, are most worthy of reprehension. Some are a positive disgrace to any one bearing the name of an EngUshman, or having a character to lose. Not only the sums, in their preposterous amount, are an insult to the Japanese Government, to whose officers these requisitions were presented, but they are documents essentially false and dishonest, as purporting to be the names of individuals having a real existence, and entitled to demand facihties for trade ; whereas mere words are used as names, and made to convey gross and offensive com- ments. That there may be no question upon the strict correctness of this description, I annex two copies of several of these documents so disgraceful to the authors, and I have to direct you to circulate these, together with a copy of this despatch, for general information among the British subjects at your port. There are some outrages against society and the common interests of nations, only to be fitly dealt with by giving them pubhcity, that the reprobation of all honest and rational men may overtake those who permit them- selves such license, even where the law may fail to reach them. Some have been careful not to sign their names to the documents 18 274 APPENDIX presented to the Treasury ; but you will have no difficulty in tracing them to their authors by the handwriting and other circumstances, and I forward you the originals, that in the event of the Japanese officials who received them being able to certify to the names of the parties presenting them, a copy of the same should be appended. With so much to deplore and to be amended on the one side and the other, it is not easy to apply a remedy. For the present stoppage in the issue of Japanese coins, it is quite certain the foreign ap- plicants have themselves chiefly to thank, and they are responsible for any loss or inconvenience that may result to them or their constituents. Mr. Keswick, I observe, in the correspondence which you for- warded, adopts a tone of injured innocence, which, I must say, is very ill borne out by the facts. In the face of a notification, hmiting all demands of British subjects or firms to a maximum of 5,000 dollars, Mr. Barber and he together, both in the same firm, do not scruple to send in requisitions on one day, the 3rd of November, the first for 4,000,000 dollars, and the second for 1,400,000 dollars. Mr. Keswick alleges as an excuse (he could hardly mean it to be a justification), that others were permitting themselves the same hcense ; and that he took this course " as an act of protection " to the interests confided to his care, when he saw others adopting a system for the exchange of more money than they really possessed. The defence is, if possible, worse than the act defended ; for if the fact of others adopting a confessedly dishonest and unworthy system (which Mr. Keswick himself seemed^ too much ashamed of to go on with the following day), could be any justification ; the argument would be equally vahd to justify his taking the officials by the throat and seizing their money, without any form of requisi- tion whatever, provided only that others could be found to set the example ! I should be sorry to think, after all, that this can be Mr. Keswick's real opinion, and I have no doubt whatever that, at all events, the firm of high and established reputation whom he and Mr. Barber represent at this port will be the first to condemn it, whether regarded as a question of good judgment or commercial morality. The proceeding had not, in truth, the poor excuse of being profitable ; for the Japanese, under pressure from some they hardly knew how to resist, and clamour and irregular demands from all, seemed to have been utterly _^bewildered at last, and to have adopted no APPENDIX 275 principle of division or proportion whatever. Thus, while Messrs. Keswick aad Barber, for their collective 5,400,000 dollars received only 746 dollars' worth of itzebous, others at the same time received difierent quota. The alternative open to Mr. Keswick and others in such circumstances, consistent with the duty they owed to their employers or constituents, and the interests confided to them, was to appeal to you that a fair proportion should be observed, and not to set aside, as of no authority, a Consular notification, and ask for " exaggerated sums." This disposition to treat with open disregard counsel and injunction ahke, when officially communicated by notification, I have already observed, on more than one occasion ; but if is for you, in the exercise of the authority with which you are legally invested, in the interest of both nations to punish all whose acts tend to turn such authority into contempt. Ofiences and misdemeanours have been committed by those who appear to have thought themselves safe in only disregarding the Consular notifica- tions issued by competent authority for their governance ; but the Queen's Order in Council gives ample powers to deal with such persons, and authority not only to punish by fine and imprisonment, but to send out of the country those who are incorrigible. As to the tone and spirit of Mr. Keswick's ofiicial reply to your letter on the subject, to which you drew my attention, I regret to see it ; but I am unwilling to make further comment. You were in- correctly informed, it appears, as to the exact amount, but perfectly justified in charging him with making " preposterous demands," and in calling his attention to the fact that he was acting equally contrary to the rules laid down in your notification and the best interests of commerce. And if the Japanese authorities had not taken the matter into their own hands by stopping all issue, you would have been perfectly authorized in directing them to decline receiving all such irregular, and, as you rightly termed them, pre- posterous demands, and to suspend, in regard to the persons so conducting themselves, all further communication, except through the Consulate. The consequence of all these and other ill-advised proceedings on the side of foreigners, coupled with shortcomings, in many ways, of the Japanese, is very injurious, not alone to those who are on the spot, and far from blameless, but to national interests and trade. It is no secret to the Japanese what mainly caused these half-frftntic demands for Japanese silver coins. Thejr knew that 276 APPENDIX the desire to buy up the gold currency of the country, despite the prohibition of the Japanese law for the natives to sell it, Was at the bottom. It is no less perfectly well known to them that, although they have put many natives in prison for infringing their laws, yet large sums have been shipped and exported by foreigners contrary to the stipulations of Treaties, because without manifest or declaration at the Custom-house. How far, under existing con- ditions, large exports of the gold coin contrary to the wiU of the Rulers and the laws is a traffic justifiable in itself, or compatible with the development of a more legitimate trade in Japanese produce and foreign goods, it is perhaps useless to inquire. While the present gold coinage ofEers a premium of 100 per cent, profit on the purchase by silver, means and traders will always be found to make the investment and ship the produce. But there is no question about the illegaUty of shipment without Custom-house declarations ; and if the Japanese should be led to take more determined measures in the exercise of their undoubted right to prevent smuggUng by foreigners themselves, the latter may be subjected to many and serious inconveniences without redress, from which they are now wholly exempt. I do not, however, consider it necessary to give you any special instructions for the present in reference to such shipments. The Japanese have taken the most efiective means for the moment of protecting themselves, by stopping the issue of itzebous, on which the purchase of kobangs hangs ; and when it is found possible to induce the Government to recommence the issue of silver at Yokuhama, it will at the same time be necessary to have a clear understanding with the Governor and Treasury Department as to the adoption of some intelligible system, and a rigid adherence to an equitable principle of distribution, under guarantees that all who are entitled to apply shall receive im- partially a fair share or proportion. - 1 shall be glad to hear from you on this subject, after communication with your colleagues and the Governor, and shall be prepared to take into consideration any plan or system that may be suggested, after dehberation on the spot. I have only to add, in conclusion, that every efEort must be made to allay the irritation and alarm of the Japanese Government at the shipment of their gold currency. It was this, I believe, even more than rehgious quarrels and encroachments, which led, 250 years ago, to the total expulsion of both Spanish and Portuguese, APPENDIX 277 and the long isolation of Japan from Western Nations. We are threatened with the same dangers now, by persons wholly regardless of what may happen, if they can only secure their own temporary advantage. But it is the business and the duty of all foreign Representatives to prevent a few individuals thus endangering the relations and damaging the permanent interests of nations. It is better that there should be no trade, than a trade carried on under such conditions as those which it has been attempted to impose. It is better that there should be no intercourse, than relations of ill-will and conflict, threatening only war as a final result. It is an imperative duty, therefore, to send out of the country all who lend themselves to such mischievous practices before worse comes of it ; and you are directed to keep a vigilant eye upon every British subject within your jurisdiction, and apply the law, without hesita- tion or delay, in every case of deUberate ofEence or misdemeanour for which legal penalty has been provided. Neither England nor Japan has anything to gain, but much to lose, by the presence of such pioneers of trade and civihzation as these, and the sooner the country is rid of their presence the better. The cessation of the present stoppage of trade and exchange of moneys is already the subject of strenuous exertion on my part, as well as of my colleagues here. The facility for the exchange of dollars, lost for the hour, chiefly, I am clear, by the misconduct of those whom it was desired to benefit, was entirely due, in the first instance, to our united efforts here ; and indeed, as regards the interests of trade generally, and the position of the merchants, the efforts to benefit both have been unremitting and strenuous. But that the Government of the Tycoon should be singularly indisposed to listen to, or concede anything to, present remonstrances, with the knowledge of the uses to which foreigners have turned the faciUties already obtained, and the mode they adopted to secure, each for himself, larger suppUes of itzebous, cannot be matter of surprise, however re- grettable. This, Uke other difficulties, must be met as it best may : I hope with success. But it is deplorable that to those difficulties which are inseparable from the situation and the nature of things in deaUng with a Government and people so long isolated from the rest of Europe, with strong prejudices opposed to any foreign intercourse or trade, and principles of political economy and national institutions 278 APPENDIX antagonistic to our own, tave now to be added obstacles, scarcely less formidable, which foreigners themselves daily create, very unscrupulously, and often very wantonly. It is in relation to these conditions that I have entered thus fully into a review of our position and the present aspects of afiairs ; more especially desiring to impress upon you the importance of both vigilance and firmness in the execution of your office. I have, &c. (Signed) Rutheefoed Alcock. Inclosure 2 in No. 1 Requisitions on the Japanese Treasury Defartment To the Officers of the Treasury, Kanagawa Please change for me to-day 250,000,000 dollaxs, and oblige, yours truly, , (Signed) B. Telge. Friday. Kanaqawa, November 2nd, 1859. To the Customs, Yokuhama, — Please give me itzebous for the following : $ W. Jones 1,000,000 Troas 1,000,000 A friend 1,000,000 J. Barber 1,000,000 4,000,000 (Signed) J. S. Baebee. APPENDIX 279 Sir,- YoKUHAMA, November iih, 1859. To the Chief Officer, Treasury I beg to apply for change as under : Mr. Eskrigge 20,000,000,000 Mr. Jones 20,000,000,000 Mr. Robinson 20,000,000,000 Mr. Peters 20,000,000,000 Mr. Sinker 25,347,819,632 Mr. Bones . 250,000,000,000 Mr. Moses . 250,000,000,000 Mr. Doodledoo . 250,000,000,000 Mr. Nonsense . 250,000,000,000 Mr. Is-it-not . 250,000,000,000 Mr. Snooks . 250,000,000,000 Mr. James . 250,000,000,000 Mr. His-brother 25,000,000,000 Mr. John 25,000,000,000 Mr. Bosche . 250,000,000,000 355,347,819,632 Three hundred and fifty-five billions, three hundred and forty-seven millions, eight hundred and nineteen thousand, six hundred and thirty-two. (Signed) Tho. Eskrigge. YoKUHAMA, November 2nd, 1859. To Chief Officers of Treasury, Yokohama Sirs, — I hereby apply to change dollars into itzebous, for the following gentlemen : $ Mr. Tatham 1,000 Mr. Newman . . Mr. Oldman . . Mr. Lucky Cove Mr. Bang Mr. Bake Mr. Nelly Mr. Joseph Mr. Johnson . . 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 280 APPENDIX Mr. Henery . . $ . 1,000 Mr. Bensoa . 1,000 Mr. Moses . 1,000 Mi. Aaron . 1,000 Mr. Levi . 1,000 Mr. Cook . 1,000 Mr. Gniminell . 1,000 Mr. Eye-aU .. . 1,000 Mr. No-nose . . . 1,000 Mr. Sampson . . . .1,000 Mr. Smell-bad . 1,000 Mr. Angel . 1,000 Mr. Balls . 1,000 Mr. Grindem . . . 1,000 Mr. Stieketup . 1,000 Mr. Sweidelpipes . 1,000 25,000 (Signed) Thos. Tatham Custom-house. I beg to apply for itzebous for — Mr. Tatham * 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 Mr. Newman 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 Mr. Jones . . 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 Mr. Oldman 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 Mr. Stick . . 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 Mr. Walker 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 Mr. Hookit . . 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 Mr. Snooks 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 Mr. Weller .. 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 Mr. Tome . . 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 Mr. Brown . . 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 Mr. Jack Ketch . 100,666,777,888,999,222,321 1,200,666,777,888,999,222,321 One sextillion, two hundred qmntillions, six hundred and sixty- six quadrillions, seven hundred and seventy-seven trillions, eight hundred and eighty-eight billions, nine hundred and ninety-nine millions, two hundred and twenty-two thousand, three hundred and twenty-one. (Signed) Thos. Tatham. APPENDIX 281 No. 2 Mt. Hammond to the Secretary to the East India and China Association Sir, — Foreign Office, February 1st, 1860. I AM directed by Lord John Eussell to request that you will state to the Committee of the East India and China Association that he thinks it right to place them in possession of a copy of a despatch from Mr. Alcock, Her Majesty's Minister in Japan, to Her Majesty's Acting Consul at Kanagawa, commenting upon the conduct pursued by foreigners and, Lord Russell regrets to say, in many specific instances by British subjects, in their dealings with the Japanese. Lord John Russell cannot doubt that the members of the Associa- tion will learn with the utmost concern the circumstances stated in this paper ; and that they will agree with him that Her Majesty's Government have a right to expect that Her Majesty's efforts for the extension and protection of the commerce of the country should not be neutralized by the reckless and violent proceedings of in- dividuals. Lord John Russell trusts, therefore, that the members of the Association will severally and conjointly use their utmost influence with their correspondents in China and in Japan, to induce them to put a stop to such proceedings as are mentioned by Mr. Alcock ; and his Lordship requests that the Association will make known what is stated in this letter and its inclosure to the several Asso- ciations in England with whom they may be in correspondence ; so that the whole weight of the commercial influence in this country may be brought to bear upon a state of things which is at' once discreditable to the British name, and incompatible with the suc- cessful prosecution of trade in Japan. I am, etc. (Signed) E. Hammond. 282 APPENDIX No. 3 The Secretary to the East India and China Association to Mr. Hammond {received February 17 th) East India and China Association, Cowper's Court, Sir,— CoRNHiLL, February 16th, 1860. I am directed to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 31st ultimo, inclosing a communication from Mr. Alcock, Her Majesty's Consul- General at Yeddo. This correspondence has received the best attention of the houses of business and individuals connected with China and Japan. I am to convey to you the expression of their deep regret that the painful occurrences to which Mr. Alcock alludes have taken place to such an extent as to cause the stoppage of trade by the Japanese. They concur with Her Majesty's Government in their reasonable expectation that, after having made great and successful exertions to open and extend a commercial intercourse with Japan, all persons resorting to that country for commercial purposes ought to abstain from violent and irregular conduct, which may give just cause for offence and resentment on the part of the Japanese. I am to add the assurance that influential parties here will not fail to urge upon those with whom they are connected in Japan, the utmost care and caution in refraining from all conduct which might lead to disputes and personal altercations and violence. It is hoped that the directions laid down by Mr. Alcock will prevent further collision between the Japanese and foreigners, and that perfect harmony will be established and maintained when the parties become better acquainted with each other's customs, manners, and language. There can be no doubt that all Associations in England, and houses of business, will impress upon their correspondents that a satisfactory and successful commerce can only be carried by on mutual goodwill and forbearance. In conformity with Lord John Eussell'a request, the correspondence ehall be circulated generally ; and it is thought desirable that Her Majesty's Government should permit the whole to be printed, with the hope that the exposure of such irregularities will put a stop to any future interruption of a valuable and increasing trade with Japan. I am, etc., (Signed) George Saintsbuey. INDEX Adams'a History of Japan, quoted, 6, 15, 19 et seqq. Adams, Will, visit to Japan, 16 e< seqq., 20, 25 Alcock, SirRutherford,f21, 92 — The Capital of the Tycoon, 21, 126, 205 Alliance of Great Britain and Japan, the, 9 et seqq., 22 et seqq., 29, 50, 246 Amery's Times' History of the War in South Africa, 2, 36 Amusements of the Japanese, 74 Ancestor-worship, 55, 56, 101, 189 Animals, Japanese kindness to, 208 Anti-foreign riots in China, 233 Arnold, Sir Edwin, Japonica, 98 Art, Japanese, 223 Asiatic Society of Japan, Trans- actions of the, 158, 173, 211 Bacon, Miss, 12, 43, 45, 54 Batchelor's, Rev. John, An Ainu- English- Japanese Dictionary, 111 Becker, J. E. de, the Nighiless City, 76, 82 Bismarck, Prince, 96 Boutmy, M., The English People, 174 Brinkley's, Captain, Japan, its History, Arts and Literature, 183, 238, 241 Brugseh, Dr., Religion und My- thologie, 103 Buddhism, 100, 112 et seqq., 152, 155, 159, 163, Budge, E. A. 'W., The Egyptian Religion, 105 Bushido, 33, 113 Carpenter, Edward, 48 Century Dictionary, The, 99 Chamberlain, Prof. Basil Hall, 112, 116, 166, 255 — Things Japanese, 7, 12, 21, 22, 26, 47, 53 et seqq., 83, 96, 114, 127, 156, 174, 175, 199, 215, 222, 236, 260 Character of the Chinese, 235, 240 — of the Japanese, 96 et seqq. Characteristics of the English, National, 147 et seqq. Charles II., 18 Chastity of the Japanese, 153 el seqq. Children in Japan, 43 et seqq., 59 — contrasted with English, 59 China war with Japan, 23, 244 China and the Yellow Peril, 233 et seqq. — anti-foreign riots in, 233 — ethical system of, contrasted with the Japanese, 234 — conservative character of, 235, 240 — miUtary class in, 236 — rehgion of, 238 — and the Japanese, 240 et seqq. — and foreign learning, 241 — and missions, 249 et seqq. — press subsidised by foreigner*, 251 Chinese influences in Japan, 27 Cho-Koran, a Japanese authoress, 158 Choshiu clan, 5 Christianity, 106 et Seqq., 116, 129, 132, 142 et seqq., 163, 173, 187 et seqq. 283 284 INDEX Christianity in Japan, 18, 19, 35, 65, 186 el aeqq. — and science, 261 Civilisation, Japanese, 183 Cleanliness of the Japanese, 125, 222 Clothing, Japanese, 219 Cock, Captain, 17 Coinage of the Japanese, 8 Colonists, the Japanese as, 228 Commercial classes of the Japanese, 230 — morality in Japan, 91 ei seqq. Confucianism, 100, 157 Connaught, Prince Arthur of, his visit to Japan, 21 Criminal punishment in Great Britain contrasted with that in Japan, 58 Customs of Japanese often opposed to Europeans, 52 et aeqq. Daimyo, the, 5, 6, 27, 58, 236 Dancing girls, Japanese, 73 Dead, Japanese belief in the influ- ence of the, 189 et seqq. — soldiers, English honours for, 192 Death, Japanese view of, 121 et seqq. Development of Japan, the Modern, 26 Doyle, Sir A. Conan, Story of Waterloo, 169 Dutch in Japan, the, IT et seqq., 25, 26, 94 East India Company, 18 Education, faults of English, 194 — • of English children compared with Japanese, 46 — of English sailors, good points of, 197 — of the Japanese, 42-196 et aeqq. — and patriotism in Japan, 176 et seqq. Egjrptian (ancient) religion and the Japanese, 105, 131, 141 Ellis, Colonel, 118 Encho, the Japanese novelist, 83 England, see Great Britain English sailors in Japan, 1 1 — in Japan, 12 — pupils in Japanese schools, 50, 63 — educated in Japan, 60 English national characteristics, 147 et seqq. — loyalty, 174, 175 — honours for dead soldiers, 192 — education, faults of, 194 — sailors, good points of their education, 197 Eta, the, 83, 84 Ethical system of the Chinese con- trasted with the Japanese, 234 European and Japanese living con- trasted, 219 — habits, Japanese opinion of, 49 Feudal system abolished in Japan, 5 Fielding-Hall, H., The Hearts of Men, 120 Finck, Henry T.,~ Lotos Time in Japan, 47, 76, 95 Flesh-eating in Japan, 164 Foreign influence on the Japanese, 228 — learning in China, 241 Fraser, Mrs. Hugh, A Diplomatist's Wife in Japan {Letters from Japan), 46, 88, 89, 154 Garter Mission to Japan, the, see Lord Redesdale Geisha, 77, 78 Germany and her fleet, 28 — and Japan, 67, 255 et seqq. — and her colonies, 256 Ghost story, a, 118 Gold currency of Japan and Euro- pean powers, 92 et seqq. Great Britain, naval and military defence of, 1 et seqq., 28, 36 — compared with Japan, 9, 10 — population and volunteers in, 2, 36 — alliance with Japan, 8, 22 et aeqq., 29 et seqq., 50, 246 — national sympathy for Japan, 1 3 et aeqq. — Sir Rutherford Alcock, the first British minister to Japan, 21 — treaties with Japan, 22 et aeqq. — Japan's lessons for, 29 et seqq., 193 et seqq., 223 et seqq. — abuses of the Press in time of war, 39 — education of children in, com- pared with Japanese methods, 46 — criminal punishment in, con- trasted with that in Japan> 58 INDEX 285 Great Britain and the stopping of Japanese trade, 92 — mob-law, 213 — her lessons for Japan, 225 et seqq. — and the Yellow Peril, 233 et seqq. Griffis, Rev. W. E., 76, The Cen- tury's Change in Japan and China and The Mikado's Em- pire, 25 — The Mikado's Empire, 188, 230 Gymnastics in Japan, 166 Haldane, Mr., speech on naval defence, I Hara Saihin, a Japanese authoress, 158 Harris, Mr., American minister to Japan, 21 Health of the Japanese, 48 Heam, Lafcadio, 12, 21, 60, 96, 112, 155, 162, 204 — Olimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, 115, 166, 181, 263 — Japan, an Attempt at Inter- pretation, 17, 18, 45, 51, 57, 81, 87,-97, 101, 110, 113, 115, 116, 120,^,124, 126, 153, 158, 160, 171, 179 et seqq., 184, 198, 207, 208, 210 232 249 — Wfcoro, 23, 48, 113, 122, 125, 184, 219, 240 Hebrew religion contrasted with the Japanese, 102 et seqq., 133, 142 Hildreth's Japan as it was and is, 173 \-\ Hizen clan, the, 5 Hohenlohe, Priace, Memoirs, 259 Huxley, T., quoted, 214 Ijuin, Admiral, 168 Imperial Strategy, quoted, 2 In the event of War, etc., 3 Invasion, Japanese preparations for, 28, 29 Inventors, Japanese, 61 lyeyasu, the Shogun, 17, 18, 20, 25, 87, 97. 170 Japan, religion of, 81, 99 et seqq., 185 — Shintoism, 7, 65, 82, 101 et seqq., 112 et seqq., 151 et seqq., 185 — and Christianity, 18, 19, 35, 55, 65, 186 et seqq. — ancestor- worship, 55, 56, 101, 189 — Confucianism, 100, 157 Japan Buddhism, 100, 112 et seqq., 152/, 155, 169, 163 — and national defence, 4 et seqq. — Kublai Khan's attempted in- vasions of, 4, 242 — abolishes the feudal system, 5 — the Mikado of, 5, 6, 176 e< seqq. — adoption of Western ideas by, 6 et seqq., 183 et seqq. — • visited by Commodore Perry, 8, 24, 164 — ■ alhance with Great Britain, 9 et seqq., 22 et seqq, 29, 50, 246 — compared with Great Britain, 9, 10 — the author's impressions of, 1 6 — Will Adams in, 16, 17, 18, 20, 25 — and the Dutch, 17, 25, 26, 94 — Christianity in, 18, 19, 55, 62 — Sir Rutherford Alcock, first British minister to, 21 — treaties with Great Britain, 22 et seqq. — wars with China and Russia, 23, 30 et seqq., 244 — her methods of warfare, 24, 37 — modern development, 26 — and Chinese influences, 27 — her preparations for invasion, 28, 29 — the secret of her success in war, 32 et seqq. — and press censorship, 38 — • teaching of English in, 50, 63 — punishment in, 57, 58 — and trade, 65 et seqq., 91 et seqq. — morahty in, 67 et seqq. — social distiactions and habits in, 68 — prostitution in, 76, 78 et seqq. — commercial morality in, 91 et seqq. — flesh-eating in, 164 — gymnastics in Japan, 166 — education and patriotism in, 176 ei seqq. — poverty and wealth in, 207 et seqq. — the simple hfe in, 21-8 — Great Britain's lessons for, 225 — and the Yellow Peril, 233 et seqq. — and China contrasted, 240 et seqq. — and Russia, 254 — and Germany, 65, 255 et seqq. Japan Daily Mail, 115 Japanese, national coinage of the, 8 286 INDEX Japanese sailors, visit of, to Eng- land, and English to Japan, 11, 50 -^ good breeding and refinement of the, 15, 16 — education of the, 42, 196 et seqq. — children, 43 et aeqq., 59 — health of the, 48 — opinion of European habits, 49 — women, 50, 64 et seqq., 67 et seqq., 95 et seqq., \52etaeqq., lQ2etseqq., 202 et seqq. — difficulty of vmderstanding the, 51 e( seqq., 62 — customs often opposite to Euro- pean, 52 et seqq. — educated in Europe and America, 60 — in\'entor8 and musicians, 61 — misconceptions about the, 65 et seqq. — dancing girls, 73 — amusements of the people, 74 — character, 96 et seqq. — view of death, 121 et seqq. — cleanliness, 125, 222 — and war, 137, 149, 167 et seqq. — chastity, 153 et seqq. — women writers, 158 — objections to taking life, 164 — warriors, modesty of, 168 et seqq. — civilisation, 183 — study of Western music, 184 — belief in the influence of the dead, 189 et seqq. — kindness to animals, 208 — clothing, 219 — food, 221 — art, 223 — as colonists, 228 — bad foreign influence on the, 228 — commercial class, the, 230 — nobiUty, 231 Japanese Chronicle, 85 Jesuit missionaries in China, 187 Jewish roHgion contrasted with the Japanese, 102 et seqq., 133, 142 Kaempfer's History of Japan, 18, 20, 26, 84, 89, 94, 111, 127, 130, 164, 172, 243, 250, 260, 264 Kamei Shokin, a Japanese author- ' ess, 168 Keane, Dr. A. H., 67 Kingsley, Henry, 109 Kipling, Rudyard, 40, 227 Knapp, A. M., Feudal and 'Modern f Japan, 5, 7, 22, 62, 68, 83, 96, 114, 121. 131, 171, 173, 186, 211, 250, 260, 263 Kodama, General, 115 Koshin (the Japanese monkeys), 264 Kublai Khan's attempted invasions of Japan, 4, 242 Kuroki, General, 116 Kuropatkin, General, 5 Kyoto, 72 Life, Jananese objection to taking, 64 Lowell, Percival, The Soul of the Far East, 184 Loyalty of the English, 174, 175 Macdonald, Sir Claude, 174 — quoted, 76 Maoris of New Zealand, 10 Maspero's Dawn of Civilisation in Egypt and Chaldea, 103 Metchnikofi's, The Nature of Man, 136 Mikado of Japan, the, 5, 6, 176 et seqq Military Class in China, 236 Misconceptions about the Japan- ese, 65 et seqq. Missionaries in Japan, 18, 251 — in China, 249 Mitford, A. B., see Lord Redesdale Mob-law in Great Britain, 213 Mohl, Herr von, 236 Morality in Japan, 67 Moro, Captain, 19 Murasaki, a Japanese authoress, 158 Murray's Handbook for Ja/pan, 78 Music, Japanese study of Western, 184 Musicians; Japanese, 61 National Defence and Japan, 4 et seqq. Naval defence, 1 et seqq., 28, 36 New Zealand, 10 Nitob6, Dr. Inazo, Bushido, 71, 91, 96, 98, 152, 263 Nobility, Japanese, 231 Nogi, General, 150, 227 Norman, Sir Henry, 80, — The Far East, 25 — The Real Japan, 82, 87 Nozu, Field-Marshal, 116 Okakura-Yoshisaburo's The Japan- ese Spirit, 131, 822 miyEX 287 Oxford, Rev. A. W., on " Ancient Judaism," in The RMgious Sys- tems of the World, 104 Oyama, Marshal, 169 Pall Mall Gazette, 257 Parkes, Sir Harry, minister to Japan, 22 Perry, Commodore, 8, 24, 164 Petrie, Professor, 13, 237 Pfoundes, C, " Religions of Japan," 223 Polo, Marco, 4, 17, 92 Population and volunteers in Great Britain, 2, 36 Poverty and wealth in Japan, 207 et seqq. Press, abuses of in Great Britain in war time, 39 — censorship in Japan, 38 — in China subsidised by foreigners, 251 Prisse Papyrus Etudes sur le, 109 Prostitution in Japan, 76, 78 et eeqq. Punishment in Japan, 57, 58 Quelch, H., Social Democracy and the Armed Nation, 167 Redesdale, Lord (A. B. Mitford), Garter Mission to Japan, 5, 12, 13,16,20,50, 61,67,81, 166 — Tales of Old Japan, 79 Religion of the Chinese, 238 — of Japan, see under Japan Rennenkampf, General, 247 Rhodes, Cecil, 120 Rocholz, Deutscher Glaube und Brauch, 189 Rojesvensky, Admiral, 4 Roman Catholicism, 187, 189 Russell, Lord John, 93 Russia and her war with Japan, 23, 30 et seqq., 233 — and Japan, 254 — influence in China, 251 Samm-ai, the, 5, 27, 33, 71, 88, 91, 97, 113, 168 Satow, Sir E., 173 Satsuma clan, the, 5 Scherer, T. A. B., Japan To-day, 61, 67 Seaman, Major-General, 39 Shintoism, 7, 65, 82, 101 et seqq., 112 etseqq., 151 et seqq., 185 Shogun, the, 236 Simmons, Dr., 211 Simple life in Japan, 218 Social distinctions and habits in Japan, 68 Spencer, Herbert, 232 — Principles of Sociology, 56, 101, 145, 189 Story of Waterloo, 8 Straohey, Mrs. Leo, letter to The Times, 217 Suyematsu, Baron, The Risen Sun, 15, 39, 158, 167, 176, 177, 198, 204, 218, 236, 239, 243 Taira-no-Masakado-Heishino, 83 Teroutsi, General, 223 Tilley's Japan, the Amur and the Pacific, 18, 94 Times, The, 2, 191, 217, 228, 232, 252, 255, 258 Times' History of the War in South Africa, 2 Togo, Admiral, 14, 180, 191, 220 Toza clan, 5 Trade of Great Britain stopped in Japan, 92 — and Japan, 65 et seqq., 91 et seqq. Treaties of Great Britain with Japan, 22 et seqq. Treves, Sir F., 39 Volunteers in Great Britain, 2, 36 War and the Japanese, 137, 149, 167 et seqq. — secret of Japanese success in, 32 et seqq. Warfare, Japanese methods of, 24, 37 Warriors, modesty of Japanese, 168 et seqq. Wars of Japan with China and Russia, 23, 30 et seqq., 244 Wedderbum, A. J., 95 Wellington, Duke of, 4 Western ideas adopted by the Japanese, 6 et seqq., 183 et seqq. Women in Japan, 50, 64, 67 et seqq., 88 et seqq., 152 et seqq., 162 et seqq., 202 et seqq. — writers in Japan, 158 Xavier, St. Francis, 17, 62 Yellow Peril, the, 233 et seqq. Yemasaiko, a Japanese authoress 158 Yoshiwara, the, 76, 85 et seqq. Yuasa, Commander, 171 Yule's, Colonel, translation of Marco Polo, 4 « PRINTED BY UAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD., LONDON AND AYLE8BUBY.