The Empire Of The East Part 1

The Empire of the East.

by H. B. Montgomery.

PREFACE

On my return from another visit to j.a.pan a few months ago I found those persons in this country with whom I was brought into close a.s.sociation extremely curious and strangely ignorant regarding that ancient Empire. Despite the mult.i.tude of books which have of late years been published about j.a.pan and things j.a.panese a correct knowledge of the country and the people is, so far as I can judge, altogether lacking in England. Indeed the multiplicity of books may have something to do with that fact, as many of them have been written by persons whose knowledge, acquired in the course of a flying visit, was, to say the least, perfunctory, and who had no opportunities for viewing the life of the people from within and forming a sound judgment on many matters upon which the writers have dogmatically p.r.o.nounced. I, accordingly, came to the conclusion not only that there was room for one more book on j.a.pan, but that another book was greatly needed--a book not technical, historical, abstruse or recondite, but a book describing in simple language j.a.pan as it was, is, and will be.

This is the task I set before myself when I commenced to write this volume, and the reader must be the judge to what extent I have been successful in the accomplishment thereof. I have touched but lightly on the material development of the country of recent years. I know from experience that though statistics are the fad of a few they are caviare to the great ma.s.s of the public. Nor have I dealt at all with politics or political parties in new j.a.pan. It is, I think, unfortunate that the j.a.panese people, in adopting or adapting English inst.i.tutions, should have introduced the political party system so much in evidence in Great Britain and other European countries.

Whether that system works well in the West, where it has been in existence for centuries and is not always taken over-seriously by party politicians themselves, is a question upon which I shall express no opinion. But I think it is problematical whether such a system is well adapted for an Oriental people, possessed of and permeated by an ancient civilisation--a people whose feelings, sentiments, modes of thought, prejudices and pa.s.sions are so essentially different from those of Western nations. Be that as it may, j.a.panese politics find no place in this work.

The morality or otherwise of the j.a.panese is a matter which has been much discussed and written about. The views of speakers and writers in regard thereto, so far as I have been able to ascertain them, have been largely affected by their prejudices or the particular standpoint from which they have regarded the matter. The result, in my opinion, has been that an entirely erroneous conception of the whole subject of j.a.panese morality has not only been formed but has been set forth in speech or writing, and a grave injustice has been done to the j.a.panese in this matter, to say nothing of the entirely false view of the whole question which has been promulgated. In this book I have endeavoured to deal with this th.o.r.n.y subject, so far as it can be dealt with in a book, free from prejudice or preconceived ideas of any kind. I have simply confined myself to facts, and have endeavoured to represent the whole matter as it appears to the j.a.panese and to morality according to the j.a.panese standard.

I have deemed it necessary to deal at some length with the various phases of j.a.panese art, which it is no exaggeration to say has permeated the whole nation so that the j.a.panese may truthfully be termed the most artistic people in the world. Of course it is impossible to deal exhaustively in a work of this kind with j.a.panese art. I have, however, endeavoured to describe the princ.i.p.al art industries of the country and to set forth what I may term the catholicity of art in j.a.pan. I have also dealt with the question how far art has been affected by the Europeanising of the nation which has taken place of recent years, and the effect thereof.

The religion of the j.a.panese, the Const.i.tution, the home life of the people, the Army and Navy, the financial position of the country are all subjects treated as fully as possible, inasmuch as they are matters essential to be understood in order to realise the j.a.pan of to-day. The j.a.pan of the future I have attempted to forecast in two final chapters.

But the j.a.pan of to-day and the j.a.pan of the future can neither be understood nor realised unless the reader have in his mind some idea as to the j.a.pan of the past--not the barbaric or uncivilised j.a.pan brought into contact with civilisation and suddenly discarding its barbarism, which is, I fear, the conception many persons still have, but, as I have sought to show, a highly civilised country holding itself aloof from European influences and excluding, so long as possible, the European invasion of its sh.o.r.es just because it had convinced itself by painful experience that European ideas and manners and methods were undesirable and unsuitable for a great island nation which possessed and cherished a civilisation of its own, had high artistic ideas and ideals, had its own code of morals, its own conception of chivalry, and was, on the whole, undoubtedly happy, contented, and prosperous. I trust the chapter I have written on this subject will tend to dispel many erroneous ideas.

The book is the result of my own investigations, and the opinions expressed therein are entirely my own. I have, however, read nearly every work on j.a.pan that has appeared in recent years, and when the views put forward in any of these have not coincided with my own I have endeavoured, by impartial investigation and inquiry, to arrive at a correct conclusion in the matter. No doubt some of my views and opinions will be questioned and criticised, but I claim to have written this book with a mind free from prejudices of any kind. I have sought to depict j.a.pan as it really is, not the j.a.pan seen through gla.s.ses of various colours, of which, I think, the public has had enough.

H. B. M.

THE EMPIRE OF THE EAST

CHAPTER I

A GLIMPSE AT THE PAST

I have seen it stated in a popular handbook that j.a.pan possesses a written history extending over two thousand five hundred years, while its sovereigns have formed an unbroken dynasty since 660 B.C., but that the "authentic history begins about 400 A.D." "Authentic history"

is, I consider, not a very apt phrase in this connection. Most j.a.panese history is legendary, and authenticity in history, j.a.panese or European, even much later than 400 A.D., is hopeless to look for. I have no intention of leading my readers into, as I should find a difficulty in extricating them from, the mazes of j.a.panese history at any date. I simply propose to give them a glimpse of j.a.pan as it has appeared to Europeans since it was first "discovered" by three storm-tossed Portuguese sailors about the year 1542. I say "discovered" with full knowledge of the fact that Marco Paolo, as early as 1275, dictated to a friend when imprisoned at Genoa that stirring narrative, "Maravigliose Cose," which, by the way, was not printed for nearly two centuries later. That narrative was read by and, it is stated, so fired the imagination of Christopher Columbus as to lead him to set out on that voyage of exploration which ended in the discovery of America. Marco Paolo's narrative must, however, be received with caution. I regard it as largely legendary. He never himself visited j.a.pan, and his glowing description of the "Isles washed by stormy seas and abounding in gold and pearls" was founded on what he had been told by the Chinese he had met during his Eastern travels.

The commencement of European intercourse with j.a.pan may, as I have said, be taken to be 1542, when three Portuguese adventurers in a Chinese junk were driven by stress of weather on a part of the j.a.panese coast under the authority of the Prince of Bungo. The Portuguese were kindly received by the natives, and a treaty or arrangement seems to have been entered into whereby a Portuguese vessel was to be annually despatched to j.a.pan laden with "woollen cloths, furs, silks, taffetas," and other articles. Some years later a j.a.panese n.o.ble, Hansiro by name, murdered another j.a.panese and fled the country. He found his way to Goa, where he came under the influence of some Portuguese priests, and was eventually converted to Christianity and baptized. He was, if the records of his career are correct, desirous to bring to his fellow-countrymen not only the knowledge of the Christian religion but many articles of European commerce. The great Apostle of the East and disciple of Ignatius Loyola, St. Francis Xavier, had then recently arrived in Goa, where he appears to have taken up with ardour the project of converting j.a.pan.

Both enterprises, the material and the spiritual, seem to have been organised about the same time. A ship was loaded with articles likely to be in demand in j.a.pan, and Francis Xavier embarked in another vessel, with the j.a.panese refugee and a number of Jesuit priests as missionaries.

The vessels in due course arrived at Bungo, and both priests and traders were cordially, not to say enthusiastically, received.

Foreigners were evidently not then excluded from j.a.pan, and no objection whatever was made to the Christian propaganda in any part of the country. The efforts of the Jesuit missionaries were crowned with remarkable success. All ranks and cla.s.ses, from priest to peasant, embraced the Catholic faith. Churches, schools, convents, and monasteries sprang up all over the country. The only opposition came from the Bonzes, or native priests, who felt their influence and power declining. They appealed to the Emperor to banish the Roman Catholic priests, but the imperial edict simply was, "Leave the strangers in peace." For forty years or thereabouts Catholicism not only flourished but was triumphant. Indeed, a j.a.panese mission of three princes was despatched to Pope Gregory XIII. laden with valuable presents. The arrival of this mission was acclaimed as a veritable triumph throughout Catholic Europe. By a stroke of irony its advent there was almost contemporaneous with not only the overthrow but the almost total extinction of Christianity in j.a.pan. The edict for the banishment of the missionaries was published in 1587. It was followed by persecutions, martyrdoms, and the rasing of all the Christian churches and buildings--the destruction, in a word, of Christianity in j.a.pan. This was in due course followed by not only the expulsion of all foreigners from the country--with the exception of the Dutch, who were allowed to have a factory at Nagasaki--but the enactment of a law, rigidly observed for two and a half centuries, that no j.a.panese should leave his country on any pretence whatever, and no foreigner be permitted to land therein. Prior to this edict the j.a.panese had been enterprising sailors and had extended their voyages to many distant lands. What, it might be asked, was the reason of or occasion for this violent change in the att.i.tude of the j.a.panese to Christianity and the presence of Europeans in their midst? It is impossible, at this length of time, to arrive at a correct answer to this question, largely mixed up as it has been with the _odium theologic.u.m_. We have been told that the result was greatly or altogether due to the pride, arrogance, and avarice of the Roman Catholic priests; to the pretensions of the Pope, which came to be regarded with suspicion by the feudatory princes of j.a.pan, as also to the cupidity and cunning of the traders. How far any or all of these alleged causes were responsible for the change in j.a.panese opinion I shall not venture to p.r.o.nounce. Suffice it to remark that, whatever the cause, there must have been some powerful, impelling influence at work to induce the nation not only to cast out the stranger within its gates, but to exclude him for two and a half centuries, and veto any inhabitant of j.a.pan leaving its sh.o.r.es and thus being brought into contact with, and stand the chance of being contaminated by, the foreigner. We may regret the destruction of Christianity in j.a.pan, but at the same time we may, I think, accept the fact that the uprising of j.a.pan against the foreigner at the close of the sixteenth century was simply the result of the gorge which had arisen in the nation against the foreigner's manners, methods, and morals, his trampling underfoot of national prejudices and ideas, his cupidity, his avarice, his cruelty, his attempt to impose on j.a.panese civilisation a veneer which it did not desire and deemed it was much better without. It must be remembered that the missionaries and the traders had a common nationality, and that the j.a.pan of the sixteenth century did not find it possible to differentiate between them.

Down to the nineteenth century we have to rely for our knowledge of j.a.pan and the j.a.panese on the narratives of the few travellers who managed to visit that country more or less by stealth, or from the information derived from Europeans serving in the Dutch factory at Nagasaki. Every Englishman has heard of Will Adams and his j.a.panese wife, but though his career was romantic and interesting it has added but little to our knowledge of j.a.pan at the time of his visit thereto.

In 1727 Dr. Kaemfer's work on j.a.pan was published. Kaemfer had been physician to the Dutch factory at Nagasaki, and, accordingly, had some opportunities of studying j.a.panese life and character. His book in the original form is rare, but I am glad to say that a cheap edition, a reprint of the English edition produced by the Royal Society in 1727, has recently been published in this country. Kaemfer's work is spoiled and its utility or reliability largely impaired by the fanciful theories put forward by the author respecting the origin of the j.a.panese. Much of his information is, of course, mere hearsay, and a great deal of it, by the light of what we now know, is not only misleading but nonsensical. A considerable amount of s.p.a.ce is devoted by Kaemfer to chimerical animals, and he dilates upon the awful sanct.i.ty that surrounds the person of the Emperor. "There is," he remarks, "such a Holiness ascribed to all the parts of his Body that he dares not cut off neither his hair, nor his beard, nor his nails.

However, lest he should grow too dirty, they may clean him in the night when he is asleep; because they say that what is taken from his Body at that time had been stolen from him, and that such a theft does not prejudice his Holiness or Dignity." In a notice of this new edition of Kaemfer's work I have seen it a.s.serted that the book is the foundation of nearly all that was known or written of j.a.pan till the last twenty-five years. How such a statement as this came to be published I quite fail to comprehend. There was plenty of literature in reference to j.a.pan far more reliable than Kaemfer's whimsical "yarns" at a much earlier period than twenty-five years back. Sir Rutherford Alc.o.c.k's "The Capital of the Tyc.o.o.n" was, I think, published in 1863. Sir Rutherford was the first resident British Minister in j.a.pan, and his book remains a stirring and, making allowance for the author's prejudices on various matters, on the whole a vivid picture of j.a.pan as it was in the early sixties. Alc.o.c.k's book was followed by many others, and twenty-five years ago the world was so far from being dependent on Kaemfer for its knowledge of j.a.pan that, as I have said, it had even then quite a library of recent and reliable books in regard to that country.

Following Kaemfer, a little later in the eighteenth century, a Swedish physician, Thunberg by name, who also had been attached to the Dutch factory at Nagasaki, wrote a book undoubtedly interesting and of great value. That country, he remarks, is "in many respects a singular country, and with regard to customs and inst.i.tutions totally different from Europe, or, I had almost said, from any other part of the world.

Of all the nations that inhabit the three largest parts of the globe, the j.a.panese deserve to rank the first, and to be compared with the Europeans; and although in many points they must yield the palm to the latter, yet in various other respects they may with great justice be preferred to them. Here, indeed, as well as in other countries, are found both useful and pernicious establishments, both rational and absurd inst.i.tutions; yet still we must admire the steadiness which const.i.tutes the national character, the immutability which reigns in the administration of their laws and in the exercise of their public functions, the unwearied a.s.siduity of this nation to do and to promote what is useful, and a hundred other things of a similar nature. That so numerous a people as this should love so ardently and so universally (without even a single exception to the contrary) their native country, their Government, and each other--that the whole country should be, as it were, enclosed, so that no native can get out, nor foreigner enter in, without permission--that their laws should have remained unaltered for several thousand years--and that justice should be administered without partiality or respect of persons--that the Governments can neither become despotic nor evade the laws in order to grant pardons or do other acts of mercy--that the monarch and all his subjects should be clad alike in a particular national dress--that no fashions should be adopted from abroad, nor new ones invented at home--that no foreign war should have been waged for centuries past--that a great variety of religious sects should live in peace and harmony together--that hunger and want should be almost unknown, or at least known but seldom,--all this must appear improbable, and to many as impossible as it is strictly true, and deserving of the utmost attention." He goes on to say, "If the laws in this country are rigid, the police are equally vigilant, while discipline and good order are scrupulously observed. The happy consequences of this are extremely visible and important, for hardly any country exhibits fewer instances of vice. And as no respect whatever is paid to persons, and at the same time the laws preserve their pristine and original purity, without any alterations, explanations, and misconstructions, the subjects not only imbibe, as they grow up, an infallible knowledge of what ought or ought not to be done, but are likewise enlightened by the example and irreproachable conduct of their superiors in age.

"Most crimes are punished with death--a sentence which is inflicted with less regard to the magnitude of the crime than to the audacity of the attempt to transgress the hallowed laws of the empire, and to violate justice, which together with religion they consider as the most sacred things in the whole land. Fines and pecuniary mulcts they regard as equally repugnant to justice and reason, as the rich are thereby freed from all punishment--a procedure which to them appears the height of absurdity.

"In the towns it often happens that the inhabitants of a whole street are made to suffer for the malpractice of a single individual, the master of a house for the faults of his domestics, and parents for those of their children, in proportion to the share they may have had in the transaction. In Europe, which boasts a purer religion and a more enlightened philosophy, we very rarely see those punished who have debauched and seduced others, never see parents and relatives made to suffer for neglecting the education of their children and kindred, at the same time that these heathens see the justice and propriety of such punishment." Dealing with agriculture, the Swedish physician remarked: "Agriculture is in the highest esteem with the j.a.panese, insomuch that (the most barren and untractable mountains excepted) one sees here the surface of the earth cultivated all over the country, and most of the mountains and hills up to their very tops. Neither rewards nor encouragements are necessary in a country where the tillers of the ground are considered as the most useful cla.s.s of citizens and where they do not groan under various oppressions, which in other countries have hindered, and ever must hinder, the progress of agriculture. The duties paid by the farmer of his corn in kind are indeed very heavy, but in other respects he cultivates his land with greater freedom than the lord of a manor in Sweden. He is not hindered two days together at a time, in consequence of furnishing relays of horses, by which he perhaps earns a groat and often returns with the loss of his horses; he is not dragged from his field and plough to transport a prisoner or a deserter to the next castle; nor are his time and property wasted in making roads, building bridges, almshouses, parsonage-houses, and magazines. He knows nothing of the impediments and inconveniences which attend the maintenance and equipments of horses and foot soldiers. And what contributes still more to his happiness, and leaves sufficient scope for his industry in cultivating his land is this--that he has only one master, viz., his feudal lord, without being under the commands of a host of masters, as with us. No parcelling out of the land forbids him to improve to the least advantage the portion he possesses, and no right of commonage, belonging to many, prevents each from deriving profit from his share.

All are bound to cultivate their land, and if a husbandman cannot annually cultivate a certain portion of his fields he forfeits them, and another who can is at liberty to cultivate them. Meadows are not to be met with in the whole country; on the contrary, every spot of ground is made use of either for corn-fields or else for plantations of esculent-rooted vegetables: so that the land is neither wasted upon extensive meadows for the support of cattle and saddle-horses, nor upon large and unprofitable plantations of tobacco; nor is it sown with seed for any other still less necessary purpose; which is the reason that the whole country is very thickly inhabited and populous, and can without difficulty give maintenance to all its innumerable inhabitants."

Let us now take a step, a long step, forward in time from the Swedish physician relating his impressions in the seventeenth century, to an American in the eighteenth century delivering his opinions on j.a.pan and the j.a.panese as viewed from the American standpoint at that period. "The sitter is the same, and, what is more, he sits on his heels to-day just as his grandfather did to Thunberg, yet it is hard to see any points of resemblance--a lesson to all theologians and politicians who still indulge the dreams that uniformity of opinion on the plainest matters of fact and observation can ever be attained among men, however honest and conscientious they may be in their efforts after unity. The Chinese proverb with more wisdom declares, 'Truth is one, but opinions are many.'

"All officials serve in pairs, as spies upon each other, and this pervades the entire polity of j.a.pan. It is a government of espionage.

Everybody is watched. No man knows who are the secret spies around him, even though he may be and is acquainted with those that are official. The emperors themselves are not exempt; governors, grand councillors, va.s.sal princes, all are under the eye of an everlasting unknown police. This wretched system is even extended to the humblest of the citizens. Every town is divided into collections of five families, and every member of such a division is personally responsible for the conduct of the others; everything which occurs, therefore, out of the ordinary course in any one of these is instantly reported by the other four to save themselves from censure. The Ziogoon (Tyc.o.o.n) has his minions about the Mikado and the Grand Council have theirs about the Ziogoon. And the cowardice engendered by such ceaseless distrust necessarily leads to cruelty in penalties.

When an official has offended, or even when in his department there has been any violation of law, although beyond his power of prevention, so sure is he of the punishment of death, that he antic.i.p.ates it by ripping up his own body rather than be delivered over to the executioner and entailing disgrace and ruin on all his family. There cannot under such a system be anything like judicious legislation founded on enquiry and adapted to the ever-varying circ.u.mstances of life. As Government functionaries they lie and practise artifice to save themselves from condemnation by the higher powers: it is their vocation. As private gentlemen they are frank, truthful, and hospitable."

Taking a further step and coming down to the year 1877, I have before me, as I write, the private letter of a naval officer of an impressionable age visiting j.a.pan for the first time and giving his opinions thereof, at a period when j.a.pan was just beginning to feel really at work the distinct influences of Western civilisation--the beginning, in fact, of the extraordinary metamorphosis which has been witnessed of recent years. He remarks: "Probably to the traveller seeking the marvellous and desiring the beautiful, there is no more interesting country to pay a visit to than j.a.pan. In something under a decade that country astonished, and, at first, rather amused the civilised world by emerging from the acme of barbarism to the extremes of civilisation. It was but a very few years ago that a foreigner could not land in the country unless accompanied by a Government escort. But now that is all changed. The foreigner is welcomed, his habits and religion are not alone tolerated but respected; his dress is copied to an extreme that indeed proves imitation to be the sincerest flattery, and but for the olive complexion, flat nose and dark hair, a j.a.panese gentleman of the period is very little different from his English contemporary. There is a tendency I find among a good many persons, whose ideas on the subject of race and geography are slightly mixed, to confound the j.a.panese with the Chinese, and to imagine that the two names indicate no greater difference than at present exist between an Englishman and an Irishman. The fact, however, is that a greater difference exists among these two nationalities than can be either imagined or described, and, considering their contiguity, it is indeed surprising that they have scarcely a habit or a pursuit in common. The mind of the modern j.a.panese is progressive and acquisitive. The mind of the Chinaman of the nineteenth century, as far as he allows it to be seen, is as torpid and retrogressive as his ancestors of the Confucian period.

"Up to the year 1868 j.a.pan was governed jointly by a Tyc.o.o.n and a Mikado together with a council of the Daimios, or great feudal princes, in whose hands all real power rested. The spiritual sovereign was the Mikado, nominally the chief ruler, the Tyc.o.o.n being considered his first subject. All enactments required his sanction. The office of the Tyc.o.o.n was hereditary and he gradually absorbed all the powers of the State. In 1868 a revolution occurred which culminated in the overthrow of the spiritual head and the seating of the Tyc.o.o.n on the throne as an hereditary prince with the t.i.tle of Mikado. There is now no such person as a Tyc.o.o.n in j.a.pan. The insurrection of 1868 also saw the downfall of the Daimios or feudal princes of j.a.pan. These princes had each standing armies of their own, and administered justice in their own territories. Their retainers were the famous two-sworded men so long a terror to Europeans, and who strongly objected to any intercourse with foreigners, probably foreseeing its inevitable result. In 1868 the whole of these ferocious men were disarmed, and a standing army modelled on the French fashion established for the defence of the Empire. The j.a.panese Navy was organised about the same time by an English officer, and at first consisted of a few obsolete American and English men-of-war. That, however, is now a thing of the past, the j.a.panese Government having during the past few years spent many millions in purchasing modern ironclads and other vessels of the most approved type, and the j.a.panese Navy bids fair before long to become a power in the Far East.

"Concerning the oft-debated question of j.a.panese morality I can say little. Their ideas on the subject are, to put it mildly, somewhat lax, and would no doubt shock any one strongly imbued with morality as it is in vogue (theoretically) in European countries. That there is not that privacy between the s.e.xes which prevails in other countries may be indicated by the fact that men and women make their ablutions together in the public wash-houses. Nevertheless the j.a.panese have a code of morality peculiar to themselves, and any infidelity on the part of a woman to her husband is punished with severity.

"The great drawback to the prosperity of j.a.pan is a matter that prevails in some more ancient civilised lands, viz., an enormous issue of paper-money. Young j.a.pan, finding it easy to print notes to pay its obligations, printed them to the extent of twenty millions sterling in all sizes from 5 cents to 100 dollars. The consequence is that this paper-money has depreciated in value to the extent of 15 per cent. The Government, however, have seen their mistake, and are gradually calling it in, and have established a very fine mint with a gold and silver coinage. Insurrections have also been a drag on j.a.pan in its progress. The Prince of Satsuma, one of the most powerful of the ancient Daimios, has never acknowledged the present system of government and has periodically rebelled against it. This year a serious rebellion broke out at Kagoshima, and was not quelled without great loss of life and a heavy expenditure. His followers behaved with great fanaticism, many of them loading themselves with gunpowder rushing into the midst of the enemy and setting fire to the powder, killing themselves by so doing, but also, to the admiration of their less ardent comrades, killing numbers of the enemy.

"Against no ancient custom has the j.a.panese Government more set its face than tattooing. Any persons in j.a.pan now either allowing themselves to be tattooed or performing the operation on any one else are liable to imprisonment. Blacking the teeth, a custom prevalent among the women on being married, is rapidly dying out, being discouraged by the authorities."

The glimpses of j.a.pan shown us by Thunberg and the American I have quoted prove clearly enough, even were it not amplified by a host of other testimony I have not s.p.a.ce to refer to, that the j.a.pan of the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and early part of the nineteenth centuries was a highly civilised country in which law and order reigned supreme, where respect for authority was marked, the standard of comfort, if not high, was at any rate sufficient, the domestic relations and family life were almost ideal, clean living was the custom, crime was at a minimum, education was universal, amus.e.m.e.nts were plentiful, the artistic feeling and instincts were not the cult of a cla.s.s but were shared by the common people. This was the nation, self-contained and self-satisfied, that some persons, like the young naval officer from whom I have quoted, gravely affirm to have been steeped in barbarism until it came under Western influences and went in for frock-coats and silk hats for the men, Paris costumes for the women, and an Army and Navy on European lines. If these be the factors which const.i.tute civilisation I admit that j.a.pan has only recently been civilised. Being of opinion, however, that civilisation does not consist in costumery, but is a refining and educating influence, I prefer to regard j.a.pan as a country of more ancient civilisation than Great Britain, which has of recent years determined to tack on to that civilisation some Western manners and customs and facilities. Many of j.a.pan's greatest thinkers, a few Western philosophers who can look beyond a costume, the telegraph or the telephone, are strongly of opinion that in the process of modern development j.a.pan has not improved either morally or materially, and that, regarded through the dry light of philosophy, her pretensions to be considered a highly civilised nation were greater half a century back than they are at the present moment. Upon that matter my readers must form their own opinion. It is a question, the answer to which largely depends upon the point of view from which it is regarded and the factors taken into or left out of account.

In the first year of the Meiji (1868) the Emperor, in an edict, laid down clearly and concisely the lines on which he and his advisers had determined that j.a.pan should for the future be governed. "The old uncivilised way shall be replaced by the eternal principles of the universe." "The best knowledge shall be sought throughout the world so as to promote the imperial welfare." "The eternal principles of the universe" is a resonant phrase needing interpretation. The rulers of j.a.pan to-day, if they were interrogated on the subject, would probably reply that the record of j.a.pan for over thirty-eight years past is the practical interpretation of the Emperor's cryptic utterance. Be that as it may, the ink was hardly dry on the Imperial edict before j.a.pan laid herself out with earnestness, not to say enthusiasm, to carry into effect the principles enunciated in the edict. The whole country was quickly in a positive ferment of energy. The brightest intellects among its youth were despatched to foreign lands to acquire knowledge and wisdom to be applied at home in due course, education was taken in hand, so also was the reorganisation of the Army and Navy, and railways, telegraphs, and various other accessories of European civilisation were introduced into the country. j.a.pan, in a word, became quickly transformed and, being unable any longer to keep the foreigner out, she determined to utilise him and in the future fight him, should fighting be necessary, with his own weapons, intellectual rather than material, but not omitting the material. Thirty-eight years and more have elapsed since the issue of the Imperial edict referred to, and this book is designed to show what results have flowed therefrom, along what lines the development of j.a.pan has proceeded, and what are the position and prospects of that country to-day.

CHAPTER II

THE COUNTRY--ITS PHYSICAL FEATURES--PRODUCTS--FAUNA--FLORA, ETC.

The Empire of j.a.pan (a corruption of Nippon, the native name) is composed of four large islands--Honshiu, Shikoku, Kiushiu, and Yesso, besides some thousands of smaller isles. The Kurile Isles, north of Yesso, and in the neighbourhood of Kamschatka, have been incorporated in the Empire since 1875, and the Loo-Choo Islands, some 500 miles south-west of j.a.pan's southern extremity, since 1876. The great island of Formosa, situated off the coast of China, was ceded to j.a.pan as the outcome of the Chino-j.a.panese War in 1895, while as the result of the recent conflict with Russia, j.a.pan has obtained back the southern half of the large island of Sakhalin, which formerly entirely belonged to her, as well as Port Arthur and Dalny on the mainland, not to speak of the preponderating influence she has obtained in Korea, which is now practically under the suzerainty of j.a.pan. The population of the Empire according to the last census was about forty-seven millions, and, like that of Great Britain, it is annually increasing. The proximity of j.a.pan to the Asiatic Continent, despite the lessons in geography which the late war afforded, is not, I think, generally understood. The nearest point of the j.a.panese coast is only 100 miles distant from Korea, while between the two lies the important island of Tsu-shima, which j.a.pan found so useful as a strategic position during the war with Russia. The island of Sakhalin, the southern portion of which, as I have said, has lately pa.s.sed into the possession of j.a.pan, is about 20 miles distant from the northern part of Yesso, while at some places the island is only separated from the Russian mainland by 5 or 6 miles of water. The distance between Hakodate, in Yesso, and the great Russian port of Vladivostock is somewhere about 200 miles.

This contiguity of j.a.pan to the Asiatic Continent has already had a marked effect on the politics of the world, and in the future, if I mistake not, is likely to be a preponderating factor therein. The area of j.a.pan is about half as large again as that of the United Kingdom.

The southern extremity of the country is in lat.i.tude 31 N., the northern in lat.i.tude 45 N.

The j.a.panese islands are undoubtedly of volcanic origin, and many of the volcanoes in the country are still more or less active. The general conformation of the land leads one to suppose that the islands are the summits of mountain ranges which some thousands of years back had their bases submerged by the rising of the sea or else had by degrees settled down beneath the surface of the ocean. The general characteristic of the country is mountainous, and only about one-sixth of the total area is in cultivation. Fuji-yama, the loftiest mountain, for which the j.a.panese have a peculiar veneration and which has been immortalised in the art of the country, has an alt.i.tude of 12,730 feet. The next in height, Mount Mitake, ascends some 9,000 feet, and there are many others of 5,000 feet or more. j.a.pan has from time to time been ravaged by, and indeed still is subject to, terrible earthquakes. These dire calamities seem to recur at regular intervals.

The j.a.panese islands appear to be in the centre of great volcanic disturbances--a fact which probably accounts for those seismic outbreaks which periodically devastate considerable tracts of the country and cause tremendous havoc to life and property. The written records, extending back some 1,400 or 1,500 years, clearly prove that earthquakes even more terrible in their effects than any that have taken place in recent times were of frequent occurrence. It is, of course, possible that these records may be inaccurate or have been largely exaggerated, but they at any rate tend to show that those great cosmic forces which are popularly termed earthquakes have been constantly at work in j.a.pan ever since any written records have been preserved and no doubt long anterior to that time.

As the islands are narrow and mountainous there are no great rivers and none available for important navigation. None of the rivers exceed 200 miles in length. Although j.a.pan is situated much further south than Great Britain, its northern extremity being in about the same lat.i.tude as Cornwall, its climate is, on the whole, not unlike that of this country. Of course the climate of such a mountainous country and one extending over 14 degrees of lat.i.tude varies considerably. That of the island of Yesso, for example, is in winter rigorous to a degree, a fact in some measure caused by a cold current which flows down its eastern sh.o.r.es from the Sea of Okohotsk. Professor Rein, who has given great attention to the matter of the j.a.panese climate, has remarked in reference thereto: "The climate of j.a.pan reflects the characteristics of that of the neighbouring continent, and exhibits like that two great annual contrasts--a hot, damp summer and a cold relatively dry winter; these two seasons lie under the sway of the monsoons, but the neighbouring seas weaken the effects of these winds and mitigate their extremes in such a manner that neither the summer heat nor the cold of winter attain the same height in j.a.pan as in China at the same lat.i.tudes. Spring and autumn are extremely agreeable seasons; the oppressive summer heat does not last long, and in winter the contrast between the nightly frosts and the midday heat, produced by considerable insulation but still more by the raw northerly winds, causes frequent chills, though the prevailing bright sky makes the season of the year much more endurable than in many other regions where the winter cold is equal. As a fact the climate of j.a.pan agrees very well with most Europeans, so that people have already begun to look upon certain localities as climatic watering-places where the inhabitant of Hong Kong and Shanghai can find refuge from the oppressive heat of summer and invigorate his health."

The mean annual temperature of Tokio is about 56. The lowest temperature is in January or February, when the thermometer seldom falls below 25, the highest in August, when it sometimes rises to 95 or 100 in the shade, the average being 82. The j.a.panese suffer a good deal from the effects of the wintry weather, bronchial, chest, and rheumatic affections being prevalent. The dwellings of the people, somewhat flimsy in construction as they are, are not well adapted to withstand the effects of a low temperature. On the whole the people must be p.r.o.nounced to be extremely healthy--a fact probably due to their scrupulous cleanliness, to the excellent ventilation of their houses, and, as regards those living in the towns, to the wide and well-kept streets where nothing offensive is allowed to remain. The country has, however, from time to time been subject to epidemics introduced from without, cholera and the plague having more than once carried death throughout the length and breadth of the land.

Those circular storms known as cyclones in the Indian Ocean and typhoons in further Eastern seas have from time to time wrought great devastation in j.a.pan. Fortunately these revolving storms are of brief duration, and in the neighbourhood of j.a.pan they do not so frequently occur as in the China Sea.

j.a.pan is well provided with good harbours, that of Nagasaki in especial being one of the finest in the world. Sheltered completely by lofty and beautiful hills, with deep water throughout, it is an ideal anchorage. Until recently foreign trade was confined to the treaty ports; but as the country has now been completely thrown open, there is no doubt that the many fine harbours which j.a.pan possesses, and which so far have hardly been utilised at all, will in due course become the centres of great commercial activity. The Inland Sea--the beautiful Mediterranean of j.a.pan--abounds with excellent anchorages, most of which have hitherto been only entered by an occasional junk.

Regarding the mineral wealth of the country, it is impossible to speak with any precision. It was not until after the Revolution of 1868 that the mining industry a.s.sumed importance in j.a.pan. At first the Government itself owned several mines, but these were not financially successful, and they were after a time disposed of to private owners.

The old mining regulations have recently been superseded by a new mining law. In accordance with this the Minister of Agriculture and Commerce is the official who permits, approves, cancels, or suspends the right of mining, whether permanently or on trial. I may, however, at once remark that the j.a.panese Government has not up to the present held out much encouragement to the speculative prospector. Gold is believed to exist in considerable quant.i.ties in Yesso, and as a matter of fact, although the amount mined is still small, it is annually increasing. Coal is abundant in various parts of the country and the mines are extensively worked. In 1903 there were over ten million tons of coal produced, and the quant.i.ty is at the present time a.s.suredly very much greater. The coal is not of such a good quality as either Welsh or North Country, but there is a large and growing demand for it in the East, and coal is undoubtedly a highly important part of j.a.pan's latent wealth. Copper, a metal which is in increasing demand, exists in j.a.pan in enormous quant.i.ties, and she promises at no very far-distant date to be the chief copper-producing country of the world. Iron and sulphur are also found, and there are many other minerals, some of which are more or less worked. The j.a.panese Mining Law, it may be interesting to relate, recognises the following minerals and mineral ores, which may accordingly be taken as existing in the country: Gold, silver, copper, lead, tin, hemat.i.te, antimony, quicksilver, zinc, iron, manganese and a.r.s.enic, plumbago, coal, kerosene, sulphur, bis.m.u.th, phosphorus, peat.