The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE THURSDAY, MAY 15, 1919. RACIAL EQUALITY.

Taihape Daily Times, 15 May 1919, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

THURSDAY, MAY 15, 1919. RACIAL EQUALITY.

(With wttieh iR Incorporated The 7*aihape Port and Wa.lEsarla'* News).

-1 By a determined stand at the Peace Conference, and in the League of Nations discussions, Japan is making the racial question of foremost consideration and interest in all civilised countries. There will be a very small percentage of the leading peoples .of the world who will consent to take Japanese people at their own valuaj lion. Civilisation in far eastern naI tions —if civilisation it could be called j prior to adoption of western ideas of 1 life and progress-had developed during I many centuries along quite different lines, resulting in the enthronement I in the minds of the Japanese ideals i somewhat the opposite to those obtaining among western peoples. The question now is whether hereditary characteristics have been so completely eradicated by adopted civilisations, and have methods of life been so effectively transformed as to warrant the Japanese people being freely admitted into the social, religious and commercial life of western peoples Avhosc civilisal tions date back very many centuries, j I There should be no attempt to dis- J | courage the efforts of any nation to 1 rise in the international scale of eivi- , lisation, bijt there are urgent reasons I for carefully observing and noting j what sentiment is at the back of any such development. It is noteworthy that the Japanese have a burning love for knowledge, and if western nations were satisfied that. Japanese knowledge was unmistakably favouring peace, self-determination and right of all to work out their destiny in their own way there could be no cause for alarm, and every encouragement and opportunity could freely be accorded such noble intentions. But, it is equally noteworthy that until very recent times Japanese organisation was purely military, and the military cult wa« the only honourable object of pursuit. The Mikado is believed to be the direr:i descendant of some fabulous warrior. The fighting proclivities of no race can be exterminated in only a few years, and this is borne out by Japanese attitude at. the Peace Conference, I and at the evolution of a League of ' Nations .whose primary object is to j limit war and, if found possible, to | cause wars to cease for ever. Japan chose the militarism of Germany as her modern military ideal, and all Japanese military institutions are built / upon German military models. German military organisers and instructors laid the foundations and raised up thereon j the Japanese military superstructure. Is German militarism something less , to be watched and feared in the pos- j session of a nation that only emerged j from barbarism, as it were, but yester- > day, than it was in an old civilisation like that of Germany? We shall make one of the gravest errors that the nations of the world ever fell into if , anything of the kind is believed possible. Running through Japanese commercialism there is that extreme Quality of aggressive pungency so obwu s in all German trading operatons, Germany has had no more faithful copyist in the evolution of its military j and trading systems than the nation [ of little brown people. T n\:.:ic':^

reasonably be assumed that a people only just freed from feudalism can in a few years throw off all -trace of barbaric predatory habits, so change their nature as to render them desirable as equal in every respect to the people of older civilisations. Japanese civilisation, despite its rapd growth, is really only a recently born infant. Writers of current history, as well as writers of past history, tell us that Japanese upper classes arc abnormally proud and revengeful, and that the lower classes are immoral; and when it is understood that imbibement of western ideas did not commence to anything beyond a negligible extend until 1870 would the Peace Conference be justified, viewing the whole military, social, and industrial situation, together with the Japanese temperament, in deciding right out for racial equality, and what the term really stands for'? Can the national char-

acter and temperament of Japan, in view of her adoption of German militarism and Germany's trading methods, and the low standard of ' social life that obtains in Japan, have become so thoroughly and completely transformed as to render international intercourse on the basis of what is understood by racial equality, a sane proposal? Delegates at the Peace Conference have before them the roll of horrors wrought by German militarism as practiced by Germans, and they are not likely to invite a recurrence at the hands of a people only recently emerged from barbarism, and from whom the instincts of barbarism cannot yet have been eliminated. Delegates have the evidence fresh before them of the number of the best lives of civilised peoples it has required to break the power of German militarism, will they risk as many more lives in stemming the tide of Japanese militarism? We think not, for they know that their names would all go down in history among those of the greatest enemies of peace and civilisation. All current intelligence from Japan helps to disclose that Japan's methods are based upon military power for purposes of aggression. Just, before the war a Russo-Japanese agreement gave Japan virtually a free hand in Manchuria, each pledging to help the other in filching Chinese territory. To-day we see, what looks like'German slimness, a Japanese leader stating that. Japan intended to hand recently occupied Chinese ports back to China, and to restore Chinese territory back to its rightful owners, Japan is undeniably working by the German book; she is not at war with China, in fact, China is Japan's ally in that both have declared Avar against Germany, and it is apparent that she has only ousted Germans so that she may take Germany's place in theiving Chinese Territory. Japanese militarism will work

its own destruction as Gorman militarism has done. Japan can become a

great nation from every viewpoint. but this involves a reconsideration of the basis upon which that end is being sought. Militarism has reached a crisis; il has been -weighed in the international balance and found to bo worthless as a civilising agent, and its doom lias been sealed. If Japan will realise the situation the time may soon come when her people are the social equal of all other peoples as her military systm is the equal of that which she has assisted to destroy. The world to-day stands for peace not the sword.