WHAT IS HAPPENING IN JAPAN.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2143, 19 March 1908, Page 3

WHAT IS HAPPENING IN JAPAN.

(Uv F. A. McKenzie, “Dauly Mail Special Correspondent to tho Far East.)

Tho train from Seoul to F-iisun was live hours late. It had broken down twice. The locomotive, badly cleaned and badly handled, was scarce able to drag its ‘load, and carriages had been discarded to lighten it. Some of us, standing in flic Korean station —wet, cold, and miserable—were passing caustic remarks about Japanese engine-drivers and of tile way they muddled- and misused their engines. A quiet Scotsman turned on us with a single question. “Do you ever reflect,” he asked, “on the wonder that, these people can do -ns well as they dop” “Think of it," he continued. “The driver was probably two years ago mi agricultural laborer in a village, and had never seen an engine, lie is running this train, badly it. is true, but ho is running it, and in twelve months's time he will be handling it well. What man of another nation could have done the same?”

The quiet (Scotsman had touched tho heart of tlie problem. Tho casual visitor to Japan to-day secs great, and glaring faults. But when he has stayed longer in tlie country and gono deeper into its problems his wonder is not that there are faults, hut that development has reached such a stago as to make- the faults noted. A MIRACULOUS TRANSFORMATION.

It is barely thirty years since Japan was stilf. torn in the struggle between feudalism and modernity. Tho men who to-day are managing cotton mills wore, in their younger manhood, two swords and fantastic armour.. Yesterday the kiheitai (irregular soldiers) walked through their districts armed to the teeth, terrorising peaceful farmers; now the same kiheitai work their ten hours a day in the factory for fifteen pence. Yesterday the-dainty wife sat modestly at home waiting for her lord to return from his political brawls; today the same wife is busy over tho spinning jenny in the factory, whilo her lord is doing his share in shop or warehouse. The thing its a world miracle, and the longer one contemplates it the greater tho miracle appears.

What is the meaning of this new Japan? What- underneath her surface quiet is simmering there to-day ? Japan lias earned the reputation of slying little and striking hard. Is she preparing again, in her grim silence, to strike a ne.iv blow at fresh foes ?

The world breathes more freely because the prospect of early war between Japan and America has been removed. That the danger was roil, and for a time acute, none who know the circumstances will deny. The departure, of the Pacific Fleet- did notstand alone. For nearly a year America lias been straining every nerve to prepare the Philippines, Hawaii, and, to a lesser -degree, the Pacific Coast for defence. Diamond Head, above Honolulu, had its rocks Hastily blasted and cut, and great guns slung into position. Ships, weighed down with their loads of submarine mines, were rushed to the Philippines to make the waters around Manilla safe from an attacking fleet. Japan, on her side, was equally active, although the cloak of impenetrable silence and mystery was thrown over her operations. Four new divisions were added to her Army, and each division was increased in number. The great naval yard of Jvure has bee n so busy that, although it is no wa point of national policy to have all warships built- at home, it was recently announced that the Government intended- to build a new battleship on the Clyde. The immediate fear of a Japanese-Americ-an war has gone, but the problem which created the danger remains. The present armed truce resembles nothing so much as the condition of affairs after Russia laid hold of Japan’s conquests of war on the Liaotung Peninsula. Japan submitted, smiled, and- waited for her hour to come. Those who see in the present agreement a final settlement know little of the East. Happily for tho world, every month of peace gives fresh opportunities for devising plans for making permanent arrangements-, honorable and satisfactory to both sides. Japan will not permanently permit her people to bo treated differently from Europeans. ° The same problem may come to tho front before long in the south. A few weeks -ago Mr Iwasaki, the acting Japanese ..Consul-General in Sydney, left Australia for Europe. Before leaving he told the Australian people frankly: “It would be idle to pretend that- there are not- many grave and important questions pending, which may be fraught with serious consequences to your nation and mine.”

There arc -many signs in Japan today of a steady revival of the dreaded joi—anti-foreign feeling. Strict control of the Press and public enables this to he kept well in hand', and manifestations of it are largely suppressed ; but. it is there. Responsible daily journals in tlie leading cities have indulged freely during the last year in series of articles attacking white men in Japan, denouncing their morals, and generally -holding them up to conte upt. Tlie native comic Press, such as. lor instance, the “Tokio Puck,” indulges in unending series of cartoons, all making the white man appear odious. A few weeks ago an English trader was peacefully .returning home in \ okohama when he was set upon by a crowd of roughs and badly used. No one knew why, for lie had done nothing to offend them. In Korea the Englishman has to walk carefully if be would avoid unpleasantness l'rc-m Japanese soldiers and- coolies. Thissame anti-white feeling shows itself in the work of two or three societies controlled in Tokio, that aie making a very vigorous agita'.ion throughout- Asia. Count Okuma’s speech on India was received by the British public with incredulous surprise, and attempts were made io deny the accuracy of the reports of it. Either these reports were accurate or a number of shorthand writers present at the meeting—men of diverse nations and views—joined in an incredibly foolish and wicked conspiracy. But Count Okuma’s speech does not stand alone. I myself hare read many articles printed in Japan during last summer, and reports of many speeches, severely criticising British action in India. Every t tinea tecl Japanese with whom I have discussed the matter regards it as inevitable that tho revival of Asia will involve the loss of India to England. They think this, not from any hostility to 11s, but simply from a perhaps natural racial sympathy.

THE OPEN DOOR—TO JAPANESE Another way in which the new development of Japanese life has shown itself in direct warefare in fields of hands of Europeans. When, in the summer of 1906, I cabled to the commerce that were formerly in the. “Daily Mail” from Kobe that Japan was not observing the policy of the open' door in the new lands over' which slip had acquired control, my statement was received with indignant denials. To-day the denials would lie less emphatic. Even Japanese writers now admit that in 1906 the Manchurian market was practically dosed to white' men. They say that this was remedied in 1907, but that is not whoiy true. One lvg syndicate of Japanese cotton mil':: has largely succeeded in driving American cotton goods out of Manchuria, substituting Japanese goods for them. It has done this under Government direction and by Government assistance. The Government advanced it money; the Government advanced it money; the Government directed shipping lines that goods between Japan and Dalny for a nominal rate; the Government-owned Manchurian railways give this Japanese cotton special facilities. No wonder that the American manufacturer, working by himself, cannot successfully fight a Government. What applies to cotton applies almost equally to other things. In China to-day the foreign trader is confined to the treaty ports, while the Japanese arc sending their men throughout the country, doing bus-

iuoss into the interior, in dcliaiieo of treaty regulations. Only.this autumn great foreign enterprises have had to be abnadoned in Korea because the .Inpanose luive made snob regulations there, that foreign capital cannot live under them. The British mine-owner, for instance 1 , under I lie new regulations, lias to put liini--1 at the mercy of the whims ol a Japanese-appointed official, who has pci,- r ‘.u confiscate the entire proj) -: !y whenever lie pleases. Great projects ;.-.e given up in Korea lor this very reason, and men are walking the streets of London to-day workless through it. There is no room lor the Englishmen in Korea, they say. Whatever delusions tho British public may have on this piont, those who know the East have none. Japan talks of an open door, but her open. door is one open to Japan alone, or to her -favoured proteges.