A TRUSTED FRIEND OF JAPAN.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1635, 31 December 1912, Page 5

A TRUSTED FRIEND OF JAPAN.

DEATH OF CAPTAIN BRINKLBY. Capt. Brinkley, who died recently in Tokio, was one of the few remaining .links between old and new Japan. From the time when lie first reached the country, before the restoration of tho' Imperial power, he >vas generally recognised in Japan as a friend of the country, and : was asked by one of the most enlightened Daimyos to undertake the reorganisation of his military forces. With the sanction of the British Government he took up an important post in the military school at Tokio which the new Japanese Government hastened to establish on European lines. Thereafter he devoted himself whole-heartedly to tho service of Japan. Kot only did' he retire from the British Army, but he found he could serve Japan better with his pen than in any merely military, capacity, ho became proprietor and editor of the "Japan Mail," and soon was acknowledged the most authoritative Western' exponent of Japanese interests und Japanese aspirations. For fifteen years he acted also as tho chief correspondent of the London "Times" in Japan, while his monumental work, "Japan and China," published in 1903, is.one of the most valuable and exhaustive contributions to the history of tho Far East from the social and artistic and literary, as well as from the political point of view. His championship of Japan was sometimes too thoroughgoing to please his fellowcountrymen in the treaty ports, who had not his opportunities of seeing the best side of Japanese life. But his zeal was founded in knowledge, and tho event almost invariably justified the . faith he had in the destinies of Japan. He was the personal and trusted friend of all that older generation of Japanese statesmen and thinkers who have been tho makers of modern Japan, and was often their confidential adviser.