The Yellow Whirlwind.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 41, 18 February 1904, Page 2

The Yellow Whirlwind.

I,—THE INSPIRATION OF MCpDERN JAPAN. (Ilf Stephen England, Daily Mall correspondent). YOKOHAMA, Nov. 22. f The spirit of change has saturated jKi iii'olc! ai'*iL, üßil at present there s !>ut one stronger emotion in the ireasts of Ilv musses of Japan—it is ww with Russia. Every normal Jar mnese dreams of telescoping the \smtie section of Russia into irrorievable wreck. Even the school jhildren pray to Shaka for war, and :xpr<#is tile pious wish that Japan nay strike Russia unawares head on, ml smash her power in the East, Therefore, limuise the people or# io convinced that their worsening :oiKlition can only lie ameliorated by a nudic.al in the internal lolicy of the State, Uie elder states-, men—the godd, grey-headed veterans who stiwHl like itn impivgtiablc; bulwark around the Mikado—have considered yar not alone for territorial txpu»«ion, but as a safety valve for lopular unrest, which, unrelieved may result in a social explosion. Hut, itj!«in, they consider that Jaiuji, impo'veris'ln*! |,y a protracu.4l struggle, would emerge from the conflict a harder place for. the poor mun tham it is to-day. Oh !' 1 ( )'■< <1 a P»ince of the Blood lit a recent chrysanthemum party to an English olllcer, " if Russia' only' had a l'ari» in the East. How quickly we would seize it and domund tine lust ounce of gold as indemnity." And when tlie time shall come Jai pan will sot bo found unready. Despite the lesston «f the Boer war, the J upaineso di'd very little open order anid extended formation work in their last manoeuvres, but opcrt&tad in solid masses as trim and rightangled as thouglh with a Spirit level. Whi-n Field-Marshal Marquis Yamagata was asked 11 Japan would not ohange Uer field tactics to suit the conditions of modern lilting, lie replied : "Japan will reveal ksr tactics in baittle. Bo sure that they will be those necessary to ensure victory." THE SPI HIT OF THE JAP, This was not the sell-conltdence of the uulicateii warrior, but the expression of the only spirit Japan knows, for she never consjdsrs defeat even as a remote possibility. On the sea officers and men are spoiling for a Itjgilit. From the crews of the huge Mikasa and her winter battleships down to the inen on sucih cra(it us tine Whi'te j n,'as)ed_Cn»ne and the Dragon's Lamp—torpedo destroyers— they are swearing by every ancestor that, if let loose, they will sink or capture each consonantly; namod Hussion warship in the Pacliio. And do they not contemplate a possible defeat 1 Yes, but capture —no. Never will a 'Japanese ship, high or low, 'g|o into po|r-t a prize. When the turrets are jammed and tho big guns dumb, when the screws arc still iuid all 'defiance is dqad and done, the men chosen by lot before the beginning of action will from their station in Uie heart of tihe ship, perfoihi the lajt full votion in exploding tho magazines, and ty-.e sixteen-petalled chrysanthemum on tlie iinj>eriul standard will go deep down in a welter of blood and steam and smoke till, " streaked wi th ash and sleeked'with oil, the lukewarm whirlpools close." THE SWOiRD IN ASM;. " Russiu," I heard a great officer say the other day, "is trying to head oil Japan by intriguing with tho Buddhist powers ut Lhasa. She hus agents n-s close to the sacred city as any foreigner ever reached, and the Czar Iran laibjjurod for several years to consummate an alliance offensive mid defensive with the Grand Lamu, who sees that Thibet ('Annpt remain closed much longed But, despite the Embassy froui the'* Grand Ixtina to Livadiu, Jtlpun has had some influence in Lhasa herself, iuid England is going overland to dictate ternio with the swoid, and England is our ally. Asian politics are played on a vast board, and thero is a multiplicity of moves. Peraonully 1 think, however, that tho diay ho.-i gone by when any religions organisation can ligure'as a potential factor in world politics, either, in the East or West. The sword will decide the ftiture of Asia. " Napoleon remarked tiiftt God fights on the side of the heaviest battalions. When Japan has tlie 400,000,000 of China making common cause with her under her direction, tho soldiers of the Son of Heaven will lead battalions whose utnuber will enlarge all hluman conceptions of mankind at war." TWO MIGHTY CIVILISATIONS. Asia for the Asiatics is far from an impossibility. The Kaiser 901110 years ago uttered a prophetic warning aguinst the coalition of China ajid Japan. His ear caught the soupd of the nuirching millions, and, "when they smilod because he deemed it near," he declared that what ulvu Mongolian horde had done before t might well do again. Gheogbts ■vhaji and Tamerlane were suiccbaeful through sheer weight of numfefera, and China lias more men to-day than it had . then. lvakasu Okakura, tho William Morns of Japan, dcvdaies that "Asia is 0140. The Himalayas divide, only to accentuate, two mighty civilisations, tho Cbl'.iese with its communism of Confucius and the Indian with H« ir.d,iv<;lu|jJfein of the Vedas. But not even th<« snowy t»arricrs can interrupit for one moment that broad expanse of Hope tor the ultimate and the universal which is the common thought inheritance of every Asiatic race. ' ' "If Asia be one, it is also true that the Asiatic races form a single mighty web. Arab chivalry, sian poetry, Chineßo ethics, and Indian ilioui./lil all spoaJt of a ancient Asiatic jieace, in whioh there gixrtv up a common life, boaning to dilfaent regions dillerent characteristic blossoms, but nowhere capable 1 of a luuxi and fast dividing line, islam itself may bo described as ConHiciuiwsm on horseback, sword in liand. Or to turn again to Eastern Asia from the West, Buddhism, that 1 great ocean of klettlijsm in whiiih mergeoll the liver systems of East- .■! n Asiutic thoun'ht, is coloured not , only with the jmre watei' of tho !.iungi«, for the Tartaric nations that joined it havo made their genius also tributary, bringing new symbolism, new orgunistttion, and new powers of devotion to add to the treasures of tlie faith. THE UNITY OF THE EAST, "it bus been, however, the great privilege of JajMn to lvaliao this unily in complexity with a speiial tlranies.s. The Indo-Tai'taric blood of tho ruce was in ilself, a heritage which )|uali(h"d it to imflyiibe from the two sources, a.':d so mirror the whole of Asiatic consciousness. "Tlie uni'.Jue blessing of unbroken sovereignly, the pi\>uil self-relinncc of an iweoi(<{aer«l rntce, and the -insular isolation which protected anccstrnl ideas 'iiiwl inslincls at the 1 cost of expansion, made Japan thi real repository of Asiatic thought and culture." There in a nutshell, as written In "Tlie Ideals of the East," you have the inspiration of Modern Japan. The Hon of Heaven did an unprecedented thing when Okakura's work appeared, He praised it, and iU(uh his prnise kitown, therefore It ifi tc be assumed that his ideals are UipM based upon the theory that Asia 1< ono, and that Japan is the lmpi'eg liable rock upon which its rejjbieration and salvation uro to Ih! based. 1 IVrhaps the grand droams of tihe • Mikado will end in t litter diWP- , poinlinent n.ild disillusion, but evcß without united Asia his cry,, and the cry of all wood -laivaneso, Is—"Tho Power of Kus«ia must b< do3troyed."