Civilisation of Japan.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLV, Issue 266, 26 December 1903, Page 4

Civilisation of Japan.

A CAREER OF ASSIMILATION. Although books about Japan have been numerous in recent years, and grow more numerous each year, particular interest attaches at the j,represent juncture to the first two volumes, published last month, of Captain F. Brinkley's projected "History of Japan."

The ulterior cause of the struggle with China was the ambition of Japan to attain the hegemony of the Far East. But this is not enough. "She has been taught that lighting capacity is the only sure passport to European esteem, and she has also been told again and again, is still perpetually told, that her victory over China proved nothing about her competence to stand in the lists of the West. She wiiij complete the proof, or try to complete it. Nothing is more certain, nothing more apparent to all that have watched her closely." As to tho complete and rapid transformation of Japan by acceptance of Western ideas which has so astonished the world, Captain Brinkley rigihtly points out how evident this was, how natural an outeOHie of the traditions and character of the race. It is still a prevalent opinion that this revolution was largely a passion for novelty, a phase of the childishness so often credited by superiicial observers to the Japanese. But those who know ner history realise that Japan's "whole career has been a continuous elfort of assimilation." Her people were always " perfectly ready to adopt every good tiling that a forctgn country had to offer, whether of philosophy, of art, of technique, of administration, or of legislation." As she had learnt with enthusiasm from China in the eighth century, so she was ready to learn from Europe in the nineteenth. The long break in this attitude of intelligent libi eralism, the jealous sadusion of two hundred years, was not really normal or characteristic of the nation, it was forced upon it in self-defence by the disastrous experience of first contact with the West. Captain Brinkley is inclined to think that any intelligent European nation, if it had suddenly and for the first time bcon brought to face with the full development of nineteenth century civilisation, as Japan was, would have transformed itself with eqiual enthusiasm and rapidity. But this seems very doubtful, as he himself bears witness. "In Japan no railways were torn up, no machines wrecked ; no lines of telegraph demolished by labourers afraid for their own employment or fanatics' who saw their superstitions slighted." More than this. " Japan did not confine herself to adopting the externals of Western civilisation. She became an eager pupil of its scientific, political, moral, philosophic and legislative systems also." This teachableness has been set! down to mere lack of, originality. Certainly Jajmn has nenier been a centre of ideas like her great neighbour, China. But if she hjas dru'nk largely from the springs of Chinese thought, it is io the same way that tho nations of modern Europe have been fed by the ideas and the art ot ancient Greece. There have teen certain types among great men who have found in a wise teachableness —a quality essential perhaps to true genius—sources of power enabling ihern to achieve infinitely more than those who rely solely on force of native gift. So it has bieen w.ith Japan ; and it is this element of her

character which renders her uniquely interesting among modern peoples, betokening an it does such great possibilities in her future. Joined to this power is an extraordinary reality and thoroughness of national ; prdVahty no nut ion of today is so whole and single-hearted. Captain Brinkley, with all his broad mioded appreciation of the people among3t whom he has lived for more tha» thirty years, is no thick-and-tkin enthusiast for the Japanese ; he is noti hliind to the) f6,ulte and excesses which appear to reappear through their history.—Truth.