WAR WITH JAPAN? By Dk. THOMAS E. GREEN International Lecturer of the American Peace Society Author of “The Burden of the Nations;” “The Forces that Failed;” “Who Pays?”, etc. The American Peace Society Washington, D. C. 1916 WAR WITH JAPAN? By Dr. THOMAS E. GREEN International Lecturer of the American Peace Society Author of “The Burden of the Nations;” “The Forces that Failed;” “Who Pays?”, etc. The American Peace Society Washington, D. C. 1916 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from Columbia University Libraries https://archive.org/details/warwithjapanOOgree WAR WITH JAPAN? Hysterical enthusiasm has no wit. Particularly if it be spurious and intriguing, it takes leave of logic, and forgets to fortify itself with reason. To carry a questionable point, designing men often take leave of common sense. Profit is a risky foundation for even an unscrupulous philosophy; an itching palm and tingling fingers often overreach the watchful warning of shrewd mentality. Selfishness seldom stops to calculate ultimate results. Nothing in the continual campaigning for “prepared- ness” is so reckless, so utterly criminal in its inanity, as the constant playing up of the “Japanese Menace” as a reason why we should be in a condition of “adequate and efficient readiness.” Aside from the prejudice and wicked mis judgment that is being whipped into foam by the scheming “War Trust” and its masquerade equivalent, the “Navy League,” there is a psychological fact in this prepared- ness madness that must not be overlooked It is the secondary, far-way result of continually harping upon a thing that may not in reality exist. The Book of Ancient Wisdom puts the fact into an epigram, when it writes as an invariable rule of char- acter this fundamental rule, “as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” A thoughtful student of current events has para- phrased the proverb into an up-to-date syllabus, thus : ^WThen the people of one nation go busily about, saying that war with another nation is inevitable, by those very words they come prettey near making it so.” ( 3 ) 4 History, past and current, is an indisputable com- mentary upon that fact. Ho nation has ever built and maintained a vast naval and military establishment hut that readiness, and the spirit that preparedness creates, have found in what have often been insignificant affairs a cause for war. The mental toxin, bred by oft-considered and repeated possibility, brings as a logi- cal result probability and eventually certainty. How much more malicious, then, is the combination of preparedness and agitation — a shrewdly manipulated campaign for a widely augmented militarism, and side by side with it an utterly gratuitous preachment of an entirely suppositive peril. In a way this astounding attempt to innoculate the American mind with mistrust and apprehension regard- ing Japan is logical enough. The War Trust is determined to force vast appro- priation and expenditure in order that we may be “pre- pared.” Prepared against what? Merely to use hundreds of millions of dollars, for which we have far-reaching need along scores of lines, in giving great corporations an opportunity for inordi- nate profit would he not only farcical but criminal in the last degree. We have enough of that sort of thing, heaven knows, in the ordinary waste of political manipu- lation. There must he preparedness against something tan- gible. The people must he swept into a contagion of fear, an epidemic of palpable disaster. Until the great world-war had swept the belligerent nations to the very verge of bankruptcy and exhaustion, it was easy enough to talk impersonally about the “vic- tor” in Europe, leaping nimhly from among innumerable corpses and impoverished people, and faring gaily forth to begin a fresh war with an hundred million fresh and sturdy people over sea. The sheer inanity of the thing was disregarded. It was enough to raise the hue and cry. 5 But the European menace is fading away now in the flame and smoke of the world’s climacteric of horror. Undismayed the Quixotic and unscrupulous War Trust create a new bugbear and conjure up a fresh frenzy. War with Japan, they now vociferate, is inevitable. And Japan in her far-off islands is wondering how and why — but touched as she cannot help being by the continual reiteration of the gruesome thing, is of necessity fram- ing a mental picture, and asking if it can really be. Give the War Trust room and rope and they will de- liver the goods. We shall have war with Japan, how- ever unnecessary and horrible the thing may be. The great difficulty is to get the real facts squarely before the people. They do not know, or at any rate do not stop to consider, that the ultra-patriotic Navy League and the ultra-plutocratic War Trust are one and the same thing. That the officers and directors of the Navy League are almost to a man directors or stockholders of the great armor-plate war supply and ammunition corporations, who alone of all our millions of people would make profit out of war and coin Ameri- can blood into tainted gold. And the misfortune is that the means of public in- formation are so largely dominated by the delusion that sensation, however groundless, is the only news worth featuring. There are unhappily few of our great news- papers that would waste headlines in announcing sane and sober truth. It is a journalistic waste of ink to assure the people that righteousness and peace have met each other. But a mere rumor — utterly unreliable as to source and content — shrieks in sable capitals its message of false- hood and alarm. What the American people need above all else just now IS a candid, reliable estimate of the relations and the problems that exist between Japan and the United States. It is easy enough to read and be influenced by lurid articles dealing with Japanese conditions, and setting forth Japanese purposes. It might be salutary to re- 6 member that a l 3 .rge proportion of these are written by men who have never been in Japan, and who, aside from utterly gratuitous assumption, have no adequate idea of the Japanese mind. And it may be well to remember that the larger part of our present estimate of the question comes from the badly and sadly involved politics- of the Pacific coast, and are a part of the involved and everlasting “labor problem,” played there to a finish as an issue in vote- getting and office-seeking. There, of course, the great charge is that Japan is not only using this country as an overflow for its con- gested population; that the Japanese are not only swamping California, but before long they will overrun large sections of the country, and own our best land; and that, worst of all, they are being strategically placed in view of an unpreventable war to come, and are acting as spies and advance guards for a future in- vading army. With various modifications and elabora- tions, these things have become current opinion with multitudes of well-meaning but unthinking people. There are few to take the trouble to counteract these weird and utterly fallacious statements. The truth is that in all the twenty-five years since Japanese immigration began, there have come to the United States less than 85,000 Japanese. Of these over 15,000 have returned. Since the “gentleman’s agreement” between Count Komura and Secretary John Hay immigration has been negligible. During the past fifteen years more than 2,500,000 Italians have come to America, but no one has ever raised the cry of an Italianized America. During 1913 alone 197,722 Poles were admitted — dur- ing the same year 164,631 Croatian, Lithuanian, and like aliens arrived, and in all these multitudes the stand- ard of intelligence, thrift, and morals was far below that of the 70,000 Japanese, the product of twenty-five years of incoming. Japan has never, even in the face of California’s most drastic agitation and legislation, professed her intention 7 of insisting that her people come to America. All that she has contended for was their right to come. No one but a fool could picture a nation willing to fight for the privilege of losing her subjects. Of course there are multitudes of Japanese in Hawaii. But be it remembered that they came there not by J apa- nese initiative, but by the insistent invitation of the sugar planters, who found the mongrel labor unsatis- factory and unprofitable, while the Japanese were in- dustrious, frugal, efficient, and dependable. And, to dismiss this phase of the discussion, let me quote from a recently received copy of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin an extract from an address to the Japanese Citizens’ Association by its president, Mr. S. Sokabe. There are many men belonging to races which from their self-assumed superiority look down upon the so-called “undesireable alien” who may well learn wisdom from this straight, plain candor. He said: “ 1 ou who were born in Hawaii are not sons of the Emperor. If trouble should ever come- with Japan, 3'ou must remember that you are sons of America and not of Japan. Aim to work for the best examples of citizenship, and then aim to work for peace.” With all our wealth of tradition behind us, with the very genius of our Constitution pledged to the providing for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, for the universal brotherhood of humanity, it is strange indeed that any real American should fail to respond to the spirit of such an appeal. Not content with the dissemination of envenomed sug- gestion as to the purpose of our military preparation, certain articles are constantly appearing in American newspapers, to the effect that a strong and infiuential organization in Japan is preparing for and advising war with this country. A certain chain of newspapers re- cently published serially the contents of a book by a Japanese author, called “War between Japan and the United States,” and numberless papers have printed cleverly prepared abstracts of the book, alleging for it official authority. 8 There was such a book prepared and printed. It was published in Japan at the time of the agitation in California regarding alien ownership of land.. It was written by a newspaper reporter familiar enough with international jingoism to make an highly imaginative and luridly readable tale. It was of ex- actly the sort as Thomas Dixon’s flamboyant story of an invaded America, or the hideously impossible yarn em- bodied in “The Battle Cry of Peace.” And its object and purpose were exactly the same — to sell by virtue of its sensationalism, and make profit for its author. In order to do this, it was given a fabricated authorship, and “The National Defense Association” was given as the responsible authority. It was illustrated with portraits of Japanese officials, and also of the President and War Secretary of the United States. It was an ex- ceedingly clever imitation of a lot of similar stuff pro- duced here, and has been translated into English and circulated in this country as a justification of the War Trust’s insidious suggestion as to coming peril. It chances that I have been much in Japan in recent years, and fortunately have unquestioned source for trustworthy information. And this is the answer of official Japan in regard to this much-trumpeted cause of alarm; 1. “There is not now and never has been such an organization as ‘The National Defense xlssociation of Japan.’ “2. No statesman, official, nor any re- sponsible person in Japan had any part what- ever in the preparation of the story. “3. It is the work of a Japanese of no con- sequence nor influence, prepared for his per- sonal profit, and does not in the least reflect any recognized opinion or sentiment.” And from an authoritative source in California, where the book has been zealously circulated, probably by the Exclusion League, comes the opinion that its publicity is largely due to the head of that League, the bellicose and, if his name be any criterion, sterling American, Tveitmoe, one of the men said to have been connected with the dynamiting of the Los Angeles Times. 9 With equal reason might any European power attempt to judge the policy of the American Government by our own literature of jingoism. Is it worth while, in the face of misrepresentation and deliberate perversion, to listen to these words from the Premier of Japan? Count Okuma is the sage of his nation. Nearly four-score years in age, he has been a strong influence in guiding his nation from feudalism to Twentieth Century civilization. From the climax of a long and honorable career he speaks the language of disinterested patriotism. His world has no honor that he has not already received. He said: ^‘There never was a war party in Japan. There never was any real war sentiment in Japan. And neither exists now. There has never been a responsible agitation in this country for war between Japan and the United States. What there has been or is, is the echo of agitation and war talk that began in your country. We have jingoes here, just as you have jingoes in America. When your jingoes and the selflsh interests they serve cry war in America, our jingoes and our sensational press take up the cry. But it is neither responsible nor official. ‘‘How could there be war between Japan and the United States? Your country will never be the aggressor, and Japan never will be. What, then, could or would start a war? Who talks of war between us? Not your gov- ernment. Not my government. Are the rela- tions of two people whose friendship is not only cordial, but traditional, to be disturbed by sensationalists and rumormongers, by jin- goes and a yellow press? I do not think so. No intelligent person in Japan thinks so. Our national ways and your are ways of peace and enlightenment and commerce and friend- ship — and not the savage and brutal ways of war.” In the face of such a statement from the highest pos- sible authority, agitation, insinuation, misrepresentation, falsehood, nakedly set forth and with a deliberate pur- 10 pose of evil, are crimes beyond the power of words to describe. It is not to be supposed, however, that this constant parading of the war spectre has failed to produce its logical result. The constant dropping of water will wear away a rock, and the mind and soul of a nation is far more easily worn not only to irritation, but to in- flammation. And let it be frankly said that no real and intelligent student of things ISTiponese can fail to admire the ad- mirable self-control with which official Japan is meeting this constant and malicious insinuation. That they are beginning to wonder and to consider is unquestionable. They could not rationally do other- wise. It is to their eternal credit that they are consider- ing sanely and carefully. There lie's before me a recent copy of the “Japan Advertiser,” whose leading editorial, authentic and authoritative, should be read and carefully considered by every thoughful and impartial American. One or two paragraphs from this remarkable article are of paramount interest, because I have reason to know that it represents the best thought and opinion of Japan. It begins: “Every intelligent citizen of Japan and the United States has been conscious for some years past of a change in the relations of the two countries. The old-time cordiality has given place to a feeling of doubtfulness. A strange fact, in that while trade has improved, and personal connections have always been most cordial, diplomatic relations have shown a tendency to gravitate from cordiality to ^cor- rectness.’ “The question which lovers of each country, lovers of both countries, lovers of peace and civilization, have to ask themselves, is whether this uncertainty of feeling, this suspense of cordiality, has its origin in a real conflict of those vital interests for which upon due provo- cation nations will go to war, or whether it is merely the temporary uncertainty of passing and adjustable misunderstandings.” 11 The writer then proceeds to an analysis of the causes of friction and misunderstanding. He takes up what he calls the ^'silly, though understandable,” school in- cident in San Francisco leading up to the dispute re- garding Japanese immigration into the Pacific States. The school question he dismisses as ^Trivial”; admits the difficulty of harmonizing State rights in California with national control at Washington; admits America’s right to regulate the influx of newcomers who wish to share the benefits of her national organization, and then flashes at once to the crux of the whole question — a thing that concerns something far deeper than land owner- ship, profit, or education ; the thing that has made proud, sensitive, tremendously efficient Japan wince to the quick. He says : “Japan does not deny that right, but al- leges that her people alone among the subjects of civilized powers are subjected to discrimina- tory and humiliating treatment.” The writer sees in the situation what he calls “a dis- pute between two rights.” In actual practice he says the question will settle itself. “Japan does not require and does not claim the right of unrestricted entry. America, while bound to defend her right to complete control of immigration, does not wish to dis- criminate unfairly, and can achieve her pur- pose without it.” And then this wise and lucid writer leaps to a con- clusion so logical as to be self-evident, so convincing as to furnish an absolute reply to every American jingo argument. Listen : “Anyway, as for Japan it is sufficient to point out that the question is not worth the bones of a single Japanese infantryman. Ja- pan, with her straightened resources, will never go to war for the right to lose her sub- jects to other nations. And the Japanese are by no means so ignorant of realities as to dream of successful aggression on the other side of the Pacific.” 12 Thus tumbles into ruins the fatuous idea ‘That only among Occidental nations can Japan find the stimuli for her future development.” The writer of this cogent editorial says: “Japan’s policy faces west, not east. It is in Asia she must seek her destiny.” And in Asia we have no more business interfering with Japan, so long as she safeguards the open door for the world’s commerce, than we had in fighting the battles of jealous oil kings of Mexico. There remains the question of the Japanese in Amer- ica, judged not from the standpoint of jealous and ever- contending politics, but by the opinions of a very large number of sensible public-spirited Americans who live in constant contact with conditions on our Pacific coast. I chanced a few months ago to sit at a table with the editor of one of the sanest and most influential news- papers on the Pacific Coast. What he said is not to be quoted perhaps as the policy of his paper, nor shall I quote him as personal authority, although he imposed no ban of secrecy : “I am by no means in favor,” he said, “of an unlimited and unrestricted influx of Japan- ese, or, for that matter, of any alien people. Oriental or otherwise. But we are in no dan- ger of that. J apan does not ask nor desire any such thing. But up to any reasonable, or, for that matter, probable point, I am in favor of admitting the Japanese. “We need them in the development of our territory. They make by far the best and most trusty labor that we can obtain. They are industrious, clean, frugal, amenable to direc- tion and control. Compared with other avail- able labor, they are not in the same class. “They gain by it, to be sure, but so do we. And if our much-exploited and much-pro- tected American labor will not and cannot ac- complish this result, why should it play the dog in the manger and shut out those who will?” 13 And this, leaving aside the question of acquiring American citizenship, and the ever easily invoked, though utterly nonsensical bogy of preparation by the Japanese farmers for eventual war — this is the attitude of many of the most far-sighted and sensible men of the Pacific coast. But, so far as this whole question of Japanese im- migration is concerned, from the viewpoint of the Jap- anese people and the Japanese government, it is not the mere matter of getting Japanese into the United States. Were it not for the fact that Japan is hopelessly, help- lessly overcrowded with her rapidly increasing popula- tion, she would not want, she would not be willing, that any of her peopie should seek lodgment oversea. She would much prefer keeping them at home, building up and increasing her national strength. Nor does Japan object in theory to the claim of Cali- fornia, or, for that matter, of the whole United States, to a right to regulate and restrict foreign immigration. On the contrary, she has done, and is doing, the self- same thing herself. The thing that Japan objects to, the thing that has cut her national pride to the quick, is the fact that she has been singled out from among the many; that she has been assigned to a place among the lowest class of “undesirable aliens.” The fact that the city of San Francisco is full of aliens from the rivers and the ends of the earth — Polacks, Lithuanians, Huns, Eussian Jews — illiterate, un-American, but who can send their children to school, own land, engage in business, while she, a nation of public schools and colleges, where ever}’ child of twelve can read and write; where illiteracy is a thing belonging only to the oldest and rapidly passing generation, is singled out for apparent and intentional discrimination — this is Japan’s complaint; this is her appeal to the national sense of fairness and justice that has been the boast of America. In Japan in 1913 41,620 books were published, while Germany, the most bookish of European nations, had only 31,281 volumes to her credit. Japan has become a land of book stores, libraries, and daily newspapers. In no city that I have ever visited around the world have I 14 seen more book stalls than in Tokio. Stop for a call any- where in Japan, when you come out to resume your way, you are sure to find your jinrikisha cooley seated on the cross-piece between the shafts of his pull-car immersed in his book or newspaper. If you want to understand Japan’s position of hurt and wounded pride, remember her marvelous exhibit at the Panama-Pacific Exposition. It was as if she were, in patient, proud, courageous desperation, casting her all in one final appeal. In California, the home of her dearest foe, she made the most wonderful exhibition she has ever created. It was as if she had thrown her su- preme challenge for rightful recognition into one momentous cast. In almost every department she sur- passed every other foreign country; in aggregate she far exceeded any, and rivalled our own. And as in San Francisco, Avith its motley medley of all sorts and conditions of men, she laid down her wonderful showing in art, in manufacture, in education, in scientific ac- complishment, it was as if she turned her hand palm upward, and said : “I appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober. Am I an undesirable alien, am I the yelloAV peril, or have I a right by virtue of ac- complishment in the sisterhood of modern civilization and advancing culture?” It is not a cry for conquest — not a blatant proclama- tion of martial prowess; it is a people who have done much, asking recognition among the people of the world. But what about Japan politically, internationally, particularly as related to tbe United States and to the world, just at this particular and peculiar moment in world affairs? I^Jiat about Japan and China? What about Japan in Mexico? For any sort of an intelligent reply to these questions, there are certain facts fundamentally necessary to be understood. 15 The first and most important one is to appreciate the fact that with Japan’s recent awakening and her un- precedented advance as a modern State, her necessities for room and reach became greatly magnified. The Japan of paper lanterns and pictured fans could live much more easily and comfortably than can the Japan of express trains and telegraphs, of electric lights and palatial ocean liners. Japan today is hopelessly overcrowded, so far as the demands of modern life go. There are six hundred and six islands in the Empire ; six large ones, six hundred that range from a jutting crown of coral to considerable area. Together they aggregate 260,738 square miles, in- cluding littoral, moiintains, everything. Of this not to exceed 25 per cent is arable; the rest practically worth- less, so far as production goes. On this modicum of fertile soil, fertile after centuries of continuous cultiva- tion only by dint of artificial enrichment and most in- tensive agriculture, subsists a population of more than fifty-three million, increasing at a normal rate of 600,000 yearly. Japan has more than half the population of the United States, with an area only one twenty-fourth as large. She has twenty-one times the population of Cali- fornia, with an area not quite as Iqrge. Her population averages 370 to the square mile, while we average 25 for the entire country, and for California about 15. Life with Japan has become a question of breathing space. She must expand or smother. The second fact to be borne in mind is that Japan, by dint of her own indomitable energy, by virtue of the most sublimated purpose and labor in modern history, has won for herself the premiership of Asia? About her are nations as yet far inferior both in ideal and ac- complishment. Great soporific China, yawning in her gradual awakening; stolid, stupid Siberia, stoop- shouldered under the yoke of the Muscovite; India, 16 even after an hundred and fifty years of British rule, primitive and swept by recurrent famine. Among them Japan stands conscious and conceded leader — a modern world power, though born as in a day. What more natural than that she should set up a shibboleth of “Asia for the Asiatics,” and announce herself as the framer and, if necessary, the protector of a Monroe Doctrine for the Orient. Who are we that we should object ? She learned the dearly adored philosophy from us. Can we consistently interpose a word of objection if Japan duplicates our own creed? We have said to the political and commercial greed of the nations, “Hands off the Americas.” Why should not Japan, our earnest pupil in so much of her ac- complishment, echo our words, with none to say her nay? With these two facts fairly in mind, Japan’s present coiidition and her present purposes become fairly in- telligible. Between them and our conclusion there is one other fact to be interposed, and that is an appreciation of the extreme sagacity, the marvelous foresightedness of this remarkable nation and her astute statesmen. It is orientalism raised to the nth power. We of the Occident are impetuous, clumsy, impatient of delay, anxious for immediate results. The soul of the Orient is infinite patience — a per- sistency that has learned the wisdom of waiting. Like a skilled player, her moves upon the chessboard look to a final result. Take these two things, the one of which she must have, the other for which every im- pulse of national pride and spirit cries aloud. She must have territory — room for her surplus popu- lation. There were two ways by which she might have attained it — conquest or purchase. The one she did not desire — of the other she was incapable. Japan does not want to fight. Her shoulders are still aching, her wounds are barely staunched from her titanic war with Eussia. Japan wants no war. 17 Count Komura emphasized this to me nine years ago. Count Okmna has re-emphasized it over and again dur- ing these troublous days. The Japanese are not by inclination bellicose and quarrelsome. I have found them the very opposite. Count Okuma said to me ; “What Japan wants, what Japan must have, is an era of quiet prosperity and constructive peace.” And Count Okuma is president of the Japanese Peace Society. And Japan could not buy, because Japan is poor, burdened with a stupendous debt, for whose discharge as yet she has found but little by way of sinking fund. She carries an indebtedness of a billion three hundred million dollars, while we in the United States have but one billion or less. Japan’s indebtedness averages a per capita of $21.35, and her interest charge approxi- mates $75,000,000 yearly. And this is an additional reason why Japan does not want war. She wants trade, commerce, profit, a place, and a great place, in the marts of the world. And yet you say she fought tremendously and vic- toriously against the Germans in Kiao-Chau. So she did. Under her treaty with Great Britain she could do nothing else, especially when England furnished the money and Japan but a handful from her millions of men. But her entry into the European war was not only a shrewd, but a far-seeing move. It gave her occupation of Chinese territory — territory which she solemnly promised to recede to China “under certain conditions.” And she will keep her word if her conditions are met, and they demand the two great fundamental things of which we have spoken, room and place — relief from her congested population and the whip-hand in the de- velopment of China. And her conquest of the Germans makes one thing doubly sure: that when the world’s war is ended and the overtures for peace are begun, at the council table of the nations, a peer among her equals, will sit the Sunrise Kingdom of the Orient, the Premier of Asia. To this program of national ambition there are many who will raise objection. Our commercial interests are imperiled. American money and American trade are jeopardized ! 18 Japan has protested that she will stand by the “Open Door^’ in China, but she claims the right to stand by the door. It is a poor time to make much ado about mere com- mercial considerations. American capital has cut some queer capers in Mexico, and no one can say how much commercial jealousy had to do in bringing on the world’s present horror. But we can’t afford to underestimate the power and purpose of Japan. They are too wise to fight if they can attain their ends by diplomacy and compromise, but in a pinch they can fight, and fight tremendously; but, as Count Okuma says, not “until they are cornered, until their honor has been stained, until that is the only course.” Japan has made friends with Mexico. It is said she has acquired 85,000 acres for an agricultural colony at Guaymas, right at the southern portal of the United States, and is going to teach the Mexicans how to de- velop their country. Possibly that is Japan’s answer to California. Quien sabe? Be all that as it may, Japan intends to safeguard a Monroe Doctrine for Asia, and, money or no money, remember that, so far as the United States is concerned, “people that live in glass houses should not throw stones.” In conclusion, then, Japan is keeping her promise. She is playing the gentleman. She is not attempting to force unwelcome immigration upon us. That whole question has been immeasurably bettered in that the scene of interest has shifted from California to China. There will be no war with Japan, unless we with our continual yammering and yowling make it unavoidable. If we keep on talking about it, insisting upon it, pre- paring against it, we’ll get it — and we’ll deserve it. 19 But these Japanese are no fools. 1. They know the difference between fifty millions impoverished, congested people, in- creasing in their straightened environment at the rate of 600,000 yearly, and an hundred millions with illimitable resources at their back. They know, however troublesome they might be for a time, war would mean but one thing — the final and inevitable ruin of Japan. 2. We are Japan’s best customer. It will be years before exhausted and war-ravaged Europe will need Japan’s peculiar merchan- dise. Europe will need pork and beans, flour and sugar, brick and mortar, for a long time before she will want silk and embroidery, damascene and cloisone — the deft artistry of the Orient. Break the commercial bond with America and Japan will stand face to face with financial ruin. She is making money now in war munitions, but that will stop some day, and she needs every yen she can make. Japan’s play now, regardless of her real and inmost soul — -J apan’s policy demands peace and friendship with America, and she will not break either, unless she is driven to it. Just let us be true and honest, straightforward and faithful, and we shall still, in spite of avarice and itching greed, fulfill the vision of our fathers, and America shall be “the friend of all humanity — the ideal of the world.” 21 Addenda. FACTS ABOUT JAPAN. The Empire: Consists of six hundred and six islands and of Korea (Chosan) on the main land of Asia. Total area, 260,738 square miles. Population 1915, 53,696,868. The Army: On a peace basis, 250,000. Keserves (veterans), 1,250,000. Total war strength, 1,500,000. Total available men of military age, 8,239,372. Military service compulsory, and training in all schools. The Navy: Eanks, 1916, fifth in world. 5 dreadnaught battleships. 4 battle cruisers. 14 pre-dreadnaughts. ♦ . 13 armored cruisers. 22 cruisers (protected). 12 gunboats. 52 destroyers. 55 torpedo boats. 17 submarines. PERSONELLE. Peace footing, 48,000. Eeserves (veterans), 115,000. Total war strength, 163,000. Japan’s greatest ship, the Fuso, is an up-to-date super-dreadnaught of 30,000 tons’ displacement, armed with 15-inch guns. Three sister ships are said to be in process of construction. 22 The Exchequer : The national income, $387,596,000. The national budget, $335,874,000. Apparent surplus, $51,732,000. The national debt, $1,295,590,000. Annual interest, $73,213,000. Commerce: Japan’s imports, $363,000,000. Japan’s exports, $304,000,000. Debit of trade, $59,000,000. United States trade — From Japan, $98,883,638. To Japan, $41,514,792. We were buying in 1914 nearly 33J of Japan’s export. Now we are taking more than 52 per cent of it. Emigration: Total Japanese living — Abroad, 358,711. June 30, 1914 — Japanese in IT. S. A., 80,773. In Hawaii, 90,808. In Philippines, 5,179. In Guam, 119. Japanese in China, 131,956. In Brazil, 15,465. In Canada, 11,959. In Australia, 6,661 . In Peru, 5,381. In Mexico, 2,737. Normal increase of population at home 600,000 yearly. Density of population 370 to the square mile. *■ It’ ;! , t‘"'. •f ■ ,'f / -> \ »;'■,•■- ; ) 'V'