The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING FRIDAY, JANUARY 4, 1907.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 1970, 4 January 1907, Page 2

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING FRIDAY, JANUARY 4, 1907.

The very cordial feelings that existed between America and Japan | during the Russo-Japanese War, | when American attaches, as well as 0 British, were specially favored, lias' | suddenly giyen place to a feeling of ! repulsion on the part of both nations for one another. According to the Times San Francisco correspondent the cause of this display of hostility is I “the energy, ability, and enterprise of the Japanese,” which the American does not like, boeauso the American is essentially a business mail and a money-maker, and lie can brook no | rivalry within bis domain of business | in bis own country. In addition to 3 being, a business man ho is a farseeing man, and he has quickly dis--5 covered in his now ally, the Jap, a I man who bids fair to be a dangerous i rival, because of his “energy, ability 3 and enterprise.” These things evij dently portend a new trend in 1 Eastern politics, in which a growing mistrust of the Anglo-Saxon race is | likely to manifest itself in tlie heart | of the Japanese nation. There is an | old saying that “The wanderer ? meets with strange bedfellows,” and I the peripatetic proclivities of the ■ Anglo-Saxon in search of business has in this instance brought him into contact witli a. racG of people with whom lie has little in common, and whose characteristics and potentialities he has little understood. In the eagerness to extend business relations and to get ahead of other nations in that respect, this “strange bedfellow” was taken in, and an alliance I formed with lion almost before the formalities of introduction were A<;mpleted; but there was no suspicion ijjon that the stranger would ever attempt to control the household or do more liij.n the washing up that was necessary after the Russian picnic on Chinese territory. Well, the Jap lias done the washing up in; a. way that was little expected of; him, /ind, like many other pugnacious flunkeys who lack a proper sense of the illness of things, and having cleared up flip backyard, be desires now to take possession of the Western drawing-room on an equal footing with those who talight 'him his business only a very few years ago, and gave him his first insignfc into civilised life. But civilisation has not affected the Jap as it has affected other nations, for it has merely confirmed in his heart the ancient Shinto notions that Japan is more than ever to be regarded as the country of the gods, and that the Mikado is the direct descendant of tiie Sun goddess; noi lias lie forgotten the Shinto belief that there is no necessity for any system of morals,

as every Japanese noted aright if lie only' ennsulL d iiis own heart and ■ implicitly obeyed the comma nils of ' the Mikado, which is Ilia whole duty. , For lifteen hundred years Buddhism \ lias draggled with Shintoism ii 1 Japan without oradiontiong these iineient notions, and more recently Christianity tried its hand at tlm same husiness, hut the results will probably- he about the same fifteen hundred years lienee, and by that time the pugnacity of the Jap will have had its sway over Christendom if not cheeked in its incipient attempts by American and Anglo-Saxon opposition. For that very sullicient reason there is nothing to deplore, and a great deal to admire, in tie manifestations coming from the Pacific Slope. But the question tluic concerns ns most is what will ho the attitude of Britain towards this threatened invasion I for it would appear as though Britain lias taken a snake into her bosom that is going to bite hor pretty severely, and when we remember the proverbial somnolence of John Bull until lie feels 'lie bite tile outlook is not too cheering. Uncle Sam is not made of that stuff, and lie already resists the tendency to bite that lie so plainly foresees in the attitude of the Jap. John Bull’s 1 alliance with the Jap naturally 'll- - the disinclination to rese.it intrusion, and there is therefore little hope that Uncle Sam’s example will he followed until it is too late to check the incursions without serious trouble. If the Japanese could be treated as our own equals, and there was no danger of contamination, or risk of race deterioration from' the contact, it would not me worth while tc take notice of the * matter; but, although we may give the Mikado’s legions credit for vast improvement, and may even go so !!• r as to acknowledge that many valuable lessons may be learned from • them, no one ..can predict that close contact with a race of aliens whose oxclusiveness in matters of habit and thought is almost unbreakable, an i whose characteristics are not of tno loftiest standard, would be anything but detrimental. Though we may trade with them as friends at a Jis- ~ tancc with perhaps some advantage to both races, there is yet no juvlilication for a closer contact, ail - Britain would do well to take a leaf out of Uncle Sum’s book, and pay some attention to the idea that Britain should bo reserved for the British, as he is convinced that his soundest policy rests upon vbo thought that America should be icsorved for the Americans.