JAPAN.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5222, 17 December 1877, Page 3

JAPAN.

(From acorrespondentof the Otago Daily Times.) I find myself in the thick of the disturbed districts, and hope that a letter briefly describing what I' see and hear may be interesting. Let me premise that my knowledge is only such as a visitor may glean, but within these bounds you may depend upon it as perfectly trustworthy. I am in Kagoshinoa, and. the date is September 9th, 1877. A couple of hundred yards from where I write the Japanese Admiral’s band is playing medleys, in which I trace, with feelings of delight, the exquisite strains of “ Champagne Charlie,” “ The Bells are Ringing for Sarah,” and similar homely melodies that one would not expect in such a quarter. Mingling with the music, and occasionally drowning it, are the loud reports from Armstrong aud Krupp siege guns, while rockets are whirring through the air, and two-thirds of one of the most important towns in the country is in flames. People are apt to speak of the Japanese as though they were still in the midst of barbarism, and backward in their civilisation. But can anything in Russia aud Turkey now, or in Germany aud France a few years back, surpass such a scene of very advanced civilisation as that now before me ? The ships are good, the guns are powerful and from the best manufacturers, and the operations are conducted with science and skill, the slaughter aud destruction have been adequate to the occasion, and all that the moat fastidious in these incidents of modern civilisation could desire, may be found here under the flag of the oldest and yet newest of nations, tne “ Country of the Rising Sun, ’ as its people delight to call it. The cause of all this pomp and circumstance, and slaughter of glorious war, is the revolt of the Samurai, the final struggle of the last of the barons against the innovations they detest, in support of the feudal rights they have so long wielded, and of the feudal powers they have so long enjoyed. For generations it has been the special privilege of these barons to do all the fighting, and it has been their pleasure to do little else. They kept up great and lordly establishments, lived in state, and believed it their natural right to rule Japan. They quarrelled among themselves, and in doing so, gave the opportunity to introduce a new system more in accord with modern ideas, and more suited to give content and happiness to the great mass of a highly intellectual and clever people. The present Government is, in name, an absolute modarchy, but in reality it is a Government of Ministers, amenable in some degree to pnblic opinion, and is on the high road to a representative system. When the changes first took place, the old nobles were pensioned off. Since then many have wasted or spent their means of subsistence, and are now fighting to the death rather than live any longer in their present condition. Strangely enough, one of the war cries of these rebels is, “ Give us a representative Government,’’ —a Government which must come in the long run, but for which the country is not yet quite ripe. From them the cry is not regarded a* sincere. Their countrymen are not disposed to trust them witli the power such a system, administered by them, would again place in their hands.

The rebels have been very much in the minority all along, but so great is the traditional respect for their class, and the traditional dread of their powers among the mass of the people, that they have been able to show a bold front, and occasionally to breakthrough bodies of Imperial troops six or eight times their number, armed with the most improved weapons, and with a really good commissariat to meet their simple needs. They march with incredible speed from place to place, are well led, and pounce down on small bodies of the Imperial troops with a suddenness that enables them to use with terrible effect the long twohanded swords, which they yield with consummate skill. Gradually their number has decreased; none surrender, and no quarter is given. Wounded men are never brought in, and the dread bitterness of civil war is exhibited in its usual horrible light. The old barons had their good points, no doubt, but they were an arrogant aud insolent race. Any of the inferior classes, on meeting one of them in the street, was trained to go down on his knees directly, as though in the presence of a higher Being. The Government have armed these inferior people, and the delusion that fighting is possible only to the nobles has been dispelled. But the nobles do not yet see it in this light, and have engaged in a frantic struggle to repel ideas and to resist forces which must now crush them for ever. In the bitterness of their wrath, and in their longing for vengeance, these nobles and their followers have been guilty of horrible cruelties. When one thinks of wounded men, and oven of women and children slain, the fountains of pity arc closed, and admiration for the courage and daring of this lordly class is smothered under indignation and disgust. However, the thing is rapidly coming to an

end. The last of them, about a thousand strong, are gathered together on a mountain at the back of the town. They are short of provisions and water, aud are harassed almost to madness. They will not give in, because that would be certain death. They deserve no mercy, and will have none, and all their traditions are in favor of dying, under such circumstances, either by the hand of the enemy or by their own. There is romance in the struggle if one could lose sight of the cruelties that have attended, or of the pride and arrogance that have caused it. A gallant band of ancient, high-born nobles is encamped before me on the mountain side, hungry, and without other shelter than the trees afford them, All hope of escape is gone. They are looking down upon the ruins of their onoe-prond home*, while around them are encamped their despised enemy, throwing an incessant storm of shot aud shell among them, and repulsing with instant slaughter all attempts to break through their lines or quietly to escape. Why the troops do not dash in and end the thing at once I know not. Possibly the generals dread in their soldiers a revival of the old feeling of terror which the Samurai instilled into all classes beneath them. It may be that they have other good reasons ; but at all events the assault which, to a European, would seem the natural result of the present situation, is not made. Last night there was unusually heavy firing for three-quarters of an hour, but nothing came of it. Nevertheless the end is certain. The doom of the once dreaded “ Samurai ” is sealed, and the Imperial guns are-booming out the death-knell of the feudal system in its last great stronghold of Japan,. It is high time, for no form of good government would be possible while these nobles were in force. There pride and insolence were intolerable. Very soon the “two-sworded gentry” will be of the past, and it is to be hoped a better future will be open to a people whose abilities are sure to make their progress rapid and remarkable. The Government have bought some very fine steamers, having found their great use as transports and for public purposes. They intend running a line to England, and I am also informed sending a few to Australia. One of them has been altered into a sailing vessel, and will he probably used for training purposes. You are very likely before long to see her as the first in your waters under the flag of Japan, and will then be able to see what these Japs are like, aud to judge of what they are capable. I hope that what I have written will have some interest for your readers. Japan is so far away that I fear to bore you aud them witli anything like a traveller’s account of scenery and people. If they desire information on these points there are many excellent books in which they can readily find it. But the situation, as it is now before me, seems dramatic, and pregnant with great results. It is a turning point in the history of what will one day be a great people, and seemed to me worth your notice and record.