JAPANESE MOVING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8536, 17 September 1907, Page 5

JAPANESE MOVING.

OUSTING THE BRITISH. MARCH TOWARDS AUSTRALIA "The Japanese are colonising Java," Mr A. E. Webb, an enginee: well known in the East, remarked t< a Sydney press representative las week. "They are driving the Britisl out of the China seas: they are try ing to get a firm footing in British Columbia; and their ambition, a; every student of Eastern affairs knows, is to be paramount in th< Pacific —paramount at the expense oJ ally, friend, or foe." Mr Webb wa: formerly in the employ of the Japanese Government, and later was in the Siamese service. Nine months ago he was in Java. Having spent ove: a generation in the East, he has ac quired a good knowledge of the Oriental language. He is going back—perhaps to Siam, where thej are building railways. "The Japanese are coming down t( Java," Mr Webb asserted. "Th< Sultan of Banka (o-ie of the Java Islands) has been to Japan to interview the Mikado. Why? It i: common property; everyone knows. I was an impudent thing to do, but hi attempted to get the Mikado to gran" him ' protection against the Dutch I was in Java for two and a hal: years. AH t'.e Dutch steamers run ning from Hongkong take Japs tc Java. Jardine's boats are doing'thi same. Also, there is a line oJ Chinese steamers running betweei Samarang and Hongkong. Besides the E. and A. Company bring some Japs to Timor, in the Malays., osten siuly for the pearling luggers. Thej never return from those islands They drift along the Java islands. The Dutch authorities have beer very much troubled about this matte] for some time—ever since the war Even in the Malay States they are getting in. In Singapore they are already prominent. They are gradually drifting towards Australia. Ir Hongkong to-day you will see ' the Japanese motor boats careering aboul the harbour. In the Pacific the Jap anese marine is driving the Britisl out. The Scottish Oriental line hat gone into the hands of the Germans —the Nord Deutscher Lloyd. Williarr Milburn and Co., no longer exists in the East. The Gulf Steamship Company has gone out of the trade; so has the Abbotsford Company. Then Bowser and Orinson have disappeared. In short, two hundred British steamers have been wiped out of the Eastern trade during the past few years. "To-day the Japanese are building steamers for Siam, both gunboats a;id torpedo boat destroyers. They are trying lo get in there too! Three or four hundred years agj there was a Japanese colony in Bangkok, Siam.' They are trying tc build it up again, and to exclude the British and German officers from the Siamese service. As a matter of fact, the tendency in the Siamese service is to supplement the German and British officers by appointing Japanese. Of course, there are points of resemblance in the Japanese and Siamese languages. Besides some Japanese are Buddhists; so are the Siamese. "Many Punjabis have told me—and there is no reason to discredit their story— that Japanese emissaries dressed as Buddhist monks are in India. They are trying to instil into the Oriental mind that Japan is the coming Powei*. It is the intention of the Japanese, no matter what Count Hayashi says, to secure supremacy in the East at ail costs. "This interests Australia. Java is three days' sail from Port Darwin; Timor is 24 hours."