The Problem of China Part 6

Through the Const.i.tution of j.a.pan the j.a.panese Emperor exercises the legislative power, the executive power, and the judiciary power. The Emperor convokes the Imperial Diet, opens, closes, prorogues, and dissolves it. When the Imperial Diet is not sitting, Imperial ordinances may be issued in place of laws. The Emperor has supreme control of the Army and Navy, declares war, makes peace, and concludes treaties; orders amnesty, pardon and commutation of punishments.

As to the Ministers of State, the Const.i.tution of j.a.pan, Article 55, says: "The respective Ministers of State shall give their advice to the Emperor and be responsible for it."

Ito's commentary on this article indicates his intention in framing it. "When a Minister of State errs in the discharge of his functions, the power of deciding upon his responsibilities belongs to the Sovereign of the State: he alone can dismiss a Minister who has appointed him. Who then is it, except the Sovereign, that can appoint, dismiss, and punish a Minister of State? The appointment and dismissal of them having been included by the Const.i.tution in the sovereign power of the Emperor, it is only a legitimate consequence that the power of deciding as to the responsibility of Ministers is withheld from the Diet. But the Diet may put questions to the Ministers and demand open answers from them before the public, and it may also present addresses to the Sovereign setting forth its opinions.

"The Minister President of State is to make representations to the Emperor on matters of State, and to indicate, according to His pleasure, the general course of the policy of the State, every branch of the administration being under control of the said Minister. The compa.s.s of his duties is large, and his responsibilities cannot but be proportionately great. As to the other Ministers of State, they are severally held responsible for the matters within their respective competency; there is no joint responsibility among them in regard to such matters. For, the Minister President and the other Ministers of State, being alike personally appointed by the Emperor, the proceedings of each one of them are, in every respect, controlled by the will of the Emperor, and the Minister President himself has no power of control over the posts occupied by other Ministers, while the latter ought not to be dependent upon the former. In some countries, the Cabinet is regarded as const.i.tuting a corporate body, and the Ministers are not held to take part in the conduct of the Government each one in an individual capacity, but joint responsibility is the rule. The evil of such a system is that the power of party combination will ultimately overrule the supreme power of the Sovereign. Such a state of things can never be approved of according to our Const.i.tution."

In spite of the small powers of the Diet, it succeeded, in the first four years of its existence (1890-94), in causing some annoyance to the Government. Until 1894, the policy of j.a.pan was largely controlled by Marquis Ito, who was opposed to militarism and Chauvinism. The statesmen of the first half of the Meiji era were concerned mainly with introducing modern education and modern social organization; they wished to preserve j.a.panese independence _vis-a-vis_ the Western Powers, but did not aim, for the time being, at imperialist expansion on their own account. Ito represented this older school of Restoration statesmen.

Their ideas of statecraft were in the main derived from the Germany of the 'eighties, which was kept by Bismarck from undue adventurousness.

But when the Diet proved difficult to manage, they reverted to an earlier phase of Bismarck's career for an example to imitate. The Prussian Landtag (incredible as it may seem) was vigorously obstreperous at the time when Bismarck first rose to power, but he tamed it by glutting the nation with military glory in the wars against Austria and France. Similarly, in 1894, the j.a.panese Government embarked on war against China, and instantly secured the enthusiastic support of the hitherto rebellious Diet. From that day to this, the j.a.panese Government has never been vigorously opposed except for its good deeds (such as the Treaty of Portsmouth); and it has atoned for these by abundant international crimes, which the nation has always applauded to the echo.

Marquis Ito was responsible for the outbreak of war in 1894. He was afterwards again opposed to the new policy of predatory war, but was powerless to prevent it.[52] His opposition, however, was tiresome, until at last he was murdered in Korea.

Since the outbreak of the Sino-j.a.panese war in 1894, j.a.pan has pursued a consistent career of imperialism, with quite extraordinary success. The nature and fruits of that career I shall consider in the next two chapters. For the time being, it has arrested whatever tendency existed towards the development of democracy; the Diet is quite as unimportant as the English Parliament was in the time of the Tudors. Whether the present system will continue for a long time, it is impossible to guess.

An unsuccessful foreign war would probably destroy not only the existing system, but the whole unity and _morale_ of the nation; I do not believe that j.a.pan would be as firm in defeat as Germany has proved to be.

Diplomatic failure, without war, would probably produce a more Liberal regime, without revolution. There is, however, one very explosive element in j.a.pan, and that is industrialism. It is impossible for j.a.pan to be a Great Power without developing her industry, and in fact everything possible is done to increase j.a.panese manufactures. Moreover, industry is required to absorb the growing population, which cannot emigrate to English-speaking regions, and will not emigrate to the mainland of Asia because Chinese compet.i.tion is too severe. Therefore the only way to support a larger population is to absorb it into industrialism, manufacturing goods for export as a means of purchasing food abroad. Industrialism in j.a.pan requires control of China, because j.a.pan contains hardly any of the raw materials of industry, and cannot obtain them sufficiently cheaply or securely in open compet.i.tion with America and Europe. Also dependence upon imported food requires a strong navy. Thus the motives for imperialism and navalism in j.a.pan are very similar to those that have prevailed in England. But this policy requires high taxation, while successful compet.i.tion in neutral markets requires--or rather, is thought to require--starvation wages and long hours for operatives. In the cotton industry of Osoka, for example, most of the work is done by girls under fourteen, who work eleven hours a day and got, in 1916, an average daily wage of 5d.[53] Labour organization is in its infancy, and so is Socialism;[54] but both are certain to spread if the number of industrial workers increases without a very marked improvement in hours and wages. Of course the very rigidity of the j.a.panese policy, which has given it its strength, makes it incapable of adjusting itself to Socialism and Trade Unionism, which are vigorously persecuted by the Government. And on the other hand Socialism and Trade Unionism cannot accept Mikado-worship and the whole farrago of myth upon which the j.a.panese State depends.[55] There is therefore a likelihood, some twenty or thirty years hence--a.s.suming a peaceful and prosperous development in the meantime--of a very bitter cla.s.s conflict between the proletarians on the one side and the employers and bureaucrats on the other. If this should happen to synchronize with agrarian discontent, it would be impossible to foretell the issue.

The problems facing j.a.pan are therefore very difficult. To provide for the growing population it is necessary to develop industry; to develop industry it is necessary to control Chinese raw materials; to control Chinese raw materials it is necessary to go against the economic interests of America and Europe; to do this successfully requires a large army and navy, which in turn involve great poverty for wage-earners. And expanding industry with poverty for wage-earners means growing discontent, increase of Socialism, dissolution of filial piety and Mikado-worship in the poorer cla.s.ses, and therefore a continually greater and greater menace to the whole foundation on which the fabric of the State is built. From without, j.a.pan is threatened with the risk of war against America or of a revival of China. From within, there will be, before long, the risk of proletarian revolution.

From all these dangers, there is only one escape, and that is a diminution of the birth-rate. But such an idea is not merely abhorrent to the militarists as diminishing the supply of cannon-fodder; it is fundamentally opposed to j.a.panese religion and morality, of which patriotism and filial piety are the basis. Therefore if j.a.pan is to emerge successfully, a much more intense Westernizing must take place, involving not only mechanical processes and knowledge of bare facts, but ideals and religion and general outlook on life. There must be free thought, scepticism, diminution in the intensity of herd-instinct.

Without these, the population question cannot be solved; and if that remains unsolved, disaster is sooner or later inevitable.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 46: McLaren, op. cit. p. 19.]

[Footnote 47: Kegan Paul, 1910, vol. i. p. 20.]

[Footnote 48: "What _popular_ Shinto, as expounded by its village priests in the old time, was we simply do not know. Our carefully selected and edited official edition of Shinto is certainly not true aboriginal Shinto as practised in Yamato before the introduction of Buddhism and Chinese culture, and many plausible arguments which disregard that indubitable fact lose much of their weight." (Murdoch, I, p. 173 n.)]

[Footnote 49: The strength of this movement may, however, be doubted.

Murdoch (op. cit. i, p. 162) says: "At present, 1910, the War Office and Admiralty are, of all Ministries, by far the strongest in the Empire.

When a party Government does by any strange hap make its appearance on tho political stage, the Ministers of War and of Marine can afford to regard its advent with the utmost insouciance. For tho most extreme of party politicians readily and unhesitatingly admit that the affairs of the Army and Navy do not fall within the sphere of party politics, but are the exclusive concern of the Commander-in-Chief, his Imperial Majesty the Emperor of j.a.pan. On none in the public service of j.a.pan are t.i.tles of n.o.bility, high rank, and still more substantial emoluments showered with a more liberal hand than upon the great captains and the great sailors of the Empire. In China, on the other hand, the military man is, if not a pariah, at all events an exceptional barbarian, whom policy makes it advisable to treat with a certain amount of gracious, albeit semi-contemptuous, condescension."]

[Footnote 50: The following account is taken from McLaren, op. cit.

chaps, xii. and xiii.]

[Footnote 51: _The Far East Unveiled_, pp. 252-58.]

[Footnote 52: See McLaren, op. cit. pp. 227, 228, 289.]

[Footnote 53: Coleman, op. cit. chap. x.x.xv.]

[Footnote 54: See an invaluable pamphlet, "The Socialist and Labour Movements in j.a.pan," published by the _j.a.pan Chronicle_, 1921, for an account of what is happening in this direction.]

[Footnote 55: _The Times_ of February 7, 1922, contains a telegram from its correspondent in Tokyo, _a propos_ of the funeral of Prince Yamagata, Chief of the Genro, to the following effect:--

"To-day a voice was heard in the Diet in opposition to the grant of expenses for the State funeral of Prince Yamagata. The resolution, which was introduced by the member for Osaka const.i.tuency, who is regarded as the spokesman of the so-called Parliamentary Labour Party founded last year, states that the Chief of the Genro (Elder Statesmen) did not render true service to the State, and, although the recipient of the highest dignities, was an enemy of mankind and suppressor of democratic inst.i.tutions. The outcome was a foregone conclusion, but the fact that the introducer could obtain the necessary support to table the resolution formally was not the least interesting feature of the incident."]

CHAPTER VII

j.a.pAN AND CHINA BEFORE 1914

Before going into the detail of j.a.pan's policy towards China, it is necessary to put the reader on his guard against the habit of thinking of the "Yellow Races," as though China and j.a.pan formed some kind of unity. There are, of course, reasons which, at first sight, would lead one to suppose that China and j.a.pan could be taken in one group in comparison with the races of Europe and of Africa. To begin with, the Chinese and j.a.panese are both yellow, which points to ethnic affinities; but the political and cultural importance of ethnic affinities is very small. The j.a.panese a.s.sert that the hairy Ainus, who are low in the scale of barbarians, are a white race akin to ourselves. I never saw a hairy Ainu, and I suspect the j.a.panese of malice in urging us to admit the Ainus as poor relations; but even if they really are of Aryan descent, that does not prove that they have anything of the slightest importance in common with us as compared to what the j.a.panese and Chinese have in common with us. Similarity of culture is infinitely more important than a common racial origin.

It is true that j.a.panese culture, until the Restoration, was derived from China. To this day, j.a.panese script is practically the same as Chinese, and Buddhism, which is still the religion of the people, is of the sort derived originally from China. Loyalty and filial piety, which are the foundations of j.a.panese ethics, are Confucian virtues, imported along with the rest of ancient Chinese culture. But even before the irruption of European influences, China and j.a.pan had had such different histories and national temperaments that doctrines originally similar had developed in opposite directions. China has been, since the time of the First Emperor (_c._ 200 B.C.), a vast unified bureaucratic land empire, having much contact with foreign nations--Annamese, Burmese, Mongols, Tibetans and even Indians. j.a.pan, on the other hand, was an island kingdom, having practically no foreign contact except with Korea and occasionally with China, divided into clans which were constantly at war with each other, developing the virtues and vices of feudal chivalry, but totally unconcerned with economic or administrative problems on a large scale. It was not difficult to adapt the doctrines of Confucius to such a country, because in the time of Confucius China was still feudal and still divided into a number of petty kingdoms, in one of which the sage himself was a courtier, like Goethe at Weimar. But naturally his doctrines underwent a different development from that which befel them in their own country.

In old j.a.pan, for instance, loyalty to the clan chieftain is the virtue one finds most praised; it is this same virtue, with its scope enlarged, which has now become patriotism. Loyalty is a virtue naturally praised where conflicts between roughly equal forces are frequent, as they were in feudal j.a.pan, and are in the modern international world. In China, on the contrary, power seemed so secure, the Empire was so vast and immemorial, that the need for loyalty was not felt. Security bred a different set of virtues, such as courtesy, considerateness, and compromise. Now that security is gone, and the Chinese find themselves plunged into a world of warring bandits, they have difficulty in developing the patriotism, ruthlessness, and unscrupulousness which the situation demands. The j.a.panese have no such difficulty, having been schooled for just such requirements by their centuries of feudal anarchy. Accordingly we find that Western influence has only accentuated the previous differences between China and j.a.pan: modern Chinese like our thought but dislike our mechanism, while modern j.a.panese like our mechanism but dislike our thought.

From some points of view, Asia, including Russia, may be regarded as a unity; but from this unity j.a.pan must be excluded. Russia, China, and India contain vast plains given over to peasant agriculture; they are easily swayed by military empires such as that of Jenghis Khan; with modern railways, they could be dominated from a centre more securely than in former times. They could be self-subsistent economically, and invulnerable to outside attack, independent of commerce, and so strong as to be indifferent to progress. All this may come about some day, if Russia happens to develop a great conqueror supported by German organizing ability. But j.a.pan stands outside this order of possibilities. j.a.pan, like Great Britain, must depend upon commerce for power and prosperity. As yet, j.a.pan has not developed the Liberal mentality appropriate to a commercial nation, and is still bent upon Asiatic conquest and military prowess. This policy brings with it conflicts with China and Russia, which the present weakness of those Powers has enabled j.a.pan, hitherto, to conduct successfully. But both are likely to recover their strength sooner or later, and then the essential weakness of present j.a.panese policy will become apparent.

It results naturally from the situation that the j.a.panese have two somewhat incompatible ambitions. On the one hand, they wish to pose as the champions of Asia against the oppression of the white man; on the other hand, they wish to be admitted to equality by the white Powers, and to join in the feast obtained by exploiting the nations that are inefficient in homicide. The former policy should make them friendly to China and India and hostile to the white races; the latter policy has inspired the Anglo-j.a.panese Alliance and its fruits in the annexation of Korea and the virtual annexation of Manchuria and Inner Mongolia. As a member of the League of Nations, of the Big Five at Versailles, and of the Big Three at Washington, j.a.pan appears as one of the ordinary Great Powers; but at other moments j.a.pan aims at establishing a hegemony in Asia by standing for the emanc.i.p.ation from white tyranny of those who happen to be yellow or brown, but not black. Count Ok.u.ma, speaking in the Kobe Chamber of Commerce, said: "There are three hundred million natives in India looking to us to rescue them from the thraldom of Great Britain."[56] While in the Far East, I inquired of innumerable Englishmen what advantage our Government could suppose that we derived from the j.a.panese Alliance. The only answer that seemed to me to supply an intelligible motive was that the Alliance somewhat mitigates the intensity of j.a.panese anti-British propaganda in India. However that may be, there can be no doubt that the j.a.panese would like to pose before the Indians as their champions against white tyranny. Mr. Pooley[57]

quotes Dr. Ichimura of the Imperial University of Kyoto as giving the following list of white men's sins:--

(1) White men consider that they alone are human beings, and that all coloured races belong to a lower order of civilization.

(2) They are extremely selfish, insisting on their own interests, but ignoring the interests of all whom they regard as inferiors.

(3) They are full of racial pride and conceit. If any concession is made to them they demand and take more.

(4) They are extreme in everything, exceeding the coloured races in greatness and wickedness.

(5) They worship money, and believing that money is the basis of everything, will adopt any measures to gain it.

This enumeration of our vices appears to me wholly just. One might have supposed that a nation which saw us in this light would endeavour to be unlike us. That, however, is not the moral which the j.a.panese draw. They argue, on the contrary, that it is necessary to imitate us as closely as possible. We shall find that, in the long catalogue of crimes committed by Europeans towards China, there is hardly one which has not been equalled by the j.a.panese. It never occurs to a j.a.panese, even in his wildest dreams, to think of a Chinaman as an equal. And although he wants the white man to regard himself as an equal, he himself regards j.a.pan as immeasurably superior to any white country. His real desire is to be above the whites, not merely equal with them. Count Ok.u.ma put the matter very simply in an address given in 1913:--

The white races regard the world as their property and all other races are greatly their inferiors. They presume to think that the role of the whites in the universe is to govern the world as they please. The j.a.panese were a people who suffered by this policy, and wrongfully, for the j.a.panese were not inferior to the white races, but fully their equals. The whites were defying destiny, and woe to them.[58]

It would be easy to quote statements by eminent men to the effect that j.a.pan is the greatest of all nations. But the same could be said of the eminent men of all other nations down to Ecuador. It is the acts of the j.a.panese rather than their rhetoric that must concern us.

The Sino-j.a.panese war of 1894-5 concerned Korea, with whose internal affairs China and j.a.pan had mutually agreed not to interfere without first consulting each other. The j.a.panese claimed that China had infringed this agreement. Neither side was in the right; it was a war caused by a conflict of rival imperialisms. The Chinese were easily and decisively defeated, and from that day to this have not ventured to oppose any foreign Power by force of arms, except unofficially in the Boxer rebellion. The j.a.panese were, however, prevented from reaping the fruits of their victory by the intervention of Russia, Germany and France, England holding aloof. The Russians coveted Korea for themselves, the French came in as their allies, and the Germans presumably joined them because of William II's dread of the Yellow Peril. However that may be, this intervention made the Russo-j.a.panese war inevitable. It would not have mattered much to j.a.pan if the Chinese had established themselves in Korea, but the Russians would have const.i.tuted a serious menace. The Russians did not befriend China for nothing; they acquired a lease of Port Arthur and Dalny (now called Dairen), with railway and mining rights in Manchuria. They built the Chinese Eastern Railway, running right through Manchuria, connecting Port Arthur and Peking with the Siberian Railway and Europe. Having accomplished all this, they set to work to penetrate Korea. The Russo-j.a.panese war would presumably not have taken place but for the Anglo-j.a.panese Alliance, concluded in 1902. In British policy, this Alliance has always had a somewhat minor place, while it has been the corner-stone of j.a.panese foreign policy, except during the Great War, when the j.a.panese thought that Germany would win. The Alliance provided that, in the event of either Power being attacked by two Powers at once, the other should come to its a.s.sistance. It was, of course, originally inspired by fear of Russia, and was framed with a view to preventing the Russian Government, in the event of war with j.a.pan or England, from calling upon the help of France. In 1902 we were hostile to France and Russia, and j.a.pan remained hostile to Russia until after the Treaty of Portsmouth had been supplemented by the Convention of 1907. The Alliance served its purpose admirably for both parties during the Russo-j.a.panese war. It kept France from joining Russia, and thereby enabled j.a.pan to acquire command of the sea. It enabled j.a.pan to weaken Russia, thus curbing Russian ambitions, and making it possible for us to conclude an Entente with Russia in 1907. Without this Entente, the Entente concluded with France in 1904 would have been useless, and the alliance which defeated Germany could not have been created.

Without the Anglo-j.a.panese Alliance, j.a.pan could not have fought Russia alone, but would have had to fight France also. This was beyond her strength at that time. Thus the decisive step in j.a.pan's rise to greatness was due to our support.

The war ended with a qualified victory for j.a.pan. Russia renounced all interference in Korea, surrendered Port Arthur and Dalny (since called Dairen) to the j.a.panese, and also the railway as far north as Changchun.

This part of the railway, with a few branch lines, has since then been called the South Manchurian Railway. From Dairen to Changchun is 437 miles; Changchun is 150 miles south of Harbin. The j.a.panese use Dairen as the commercial port for Manchuria, reserving Port Arthur for purely naval purposes. In regard to Korea, j.a.pan has conformed strictly to Western models. During the Russo-j.a.panese war, the j.a.panese made a treaty guaranteeing the independence and integrity of Korea; in 1910 they annexed Korea; since then they have suppressed Korean nationalists with every imaginable severity. All this establishes their claim to be fully the equals of the white men.

The j.a.panese not merely hold the South Manchurian Railway, but have a monopoly of railway construction in South Manchuria. As this was practically the beginning of j.a.pan's control of large regions in China by means of railways monopolies, it will be worth while to quote Mr.

Pooley's account of the Fa-ku-Men Railway incident,[59] which shows how the South Manchurian monopoly was acquired:--

"In November 1907 the Chinese Government signed a contract with Messrs Pauling and Co. for an extension of the Imperial Chinese railways northwards from Hsin-min-Tung to Fa-ku-Men, the necessary capital for the work being found by the British and Chinese Corporation. j.a.pan protested against the contract, firstly, on an alleged secret protocol annexed to the treaty of Peking, which was alleged to have said that 'the Chinese Government shall not construct any main line in the neighbourhood of or parallel to the South Manchurian Railway, nor any branch line which should be prejudicial to the interests of that railway'; and, secondly, on the Convention of 1902, between China and Russia, that no railway should be built from Hsin-min-Tung without Russian consent. As by the Treaty of Portsmouth, j.a.pan succeeded to the Russian rights, the projected line could not be built without her consent. Her diplomatic communications were exceedingly offensive in tone, and concluded with a notification that, if she was wrong, it was obviously only Russia who could rightfully take her to task!

"The Chinese Government based its action in granting the contract on the clause of the 1898 contract for the construction of the Chung-hon-so to Hsin-min-Tung line, under which China specifically reserved the right to build the Fa-ku-Men line with the aid of the same contractors. Further, although by the Rus...o...b..itish Note of 1898 British subjects were specificially excluded from partic.i.p.ation in railway construction north of the Great Wall, by the Additional Note attached to the Rus...o...b..itish Note the engagements between the Chinese Government and the British and Chinese Corporation were specifically reserved from the purview of the agreement.

"Even if j.a.pan, as the heir of Russia's a.s.sets and liabilities in Manchuria, had been justified in her protest by the Convention of 1902 and by the Rus...o...b..itish Note of 1899, she had not fulfilled her part of the bargain, namely, the Russian undertaking in the Note to abstain from seeking concession, rights and privileges in the valley of the Yangtze.

Her reliance on the secret treaty carried weight with Great Britain, but with no one else, as may be gauged from the records of the State Department at Washington. A later claim advanced by j.a.pan that her action was justified by Article VI of the Treaty of Portsmouth, which a.s.signed to j.a.pan all Russian rights in the Chinese Eastern Railway (South Manchurian Railway) 'with all rights and properties appertaining thereto,' was effectively answered by China's citation of Articles III and IV of the same Treaty. Under the first of these articles it is declared that 'Russia has no territorial advantages or preferential or exclusive concessions in Manchuria in impairment of Chinese sovereignty or inconsistent with the principle of equal opportunity'; whilst the second is a reciprocal engagement by Russia and j.a.pan 'not to obstruct any general measures common to all countries which China may take for the development of the commerce and industry of Manchuria.'