The Empire of the East
by Helen Barrett Montgomery · English · Gutenberg #28690 · 553,880 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Empire of the East
Author: Helen Barrett Montgomery
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Language: English
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THE
EMPIRE OF THE EAST
BY
H. B. MONTGOMERY
"THIS NATION IS THE DELIGHT OF MY SOUL"
ST. FRANCIS XAVIER
WITH NINETEEN ILLUSTRATIONS
METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON
_First Published in 1908._
[Illustration: A STAR OF THE EAST
FROM A PRINT BY TOSHIKATA]
PREFACE
On my return from another visit to Japan a few months ago I found
those persons in this country with whom I was brought into close
association extremely curious and strangely ignorant regarding that
ancient Empire. Despite the multitude of books which have of late
years been published about Japan and things Japanese 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
pronounced. I, accordingly, came to the conclusion not only that there
was room for one more book on Japan, but that another book was greatly
needed--a book not technical, historical, abstruse or recondite, but a
book describing in simple language Japan 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 mass of the public. Nor have I dealt at all with
politics or political parties in new Japan. It is, I think,
unfortunate that the Japanese people, in adopting or adapting English
institutions, 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 passions are so essentially different from
those of Western nations. Be that as it may, Japanese politics find no
place in this work.
The morality or otherwise of the Japanese 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
Japanese morality has not only been formed but has been set forth in
speech or writing, and a grave injustice has been done to the Japanese
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 thorny 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 Japanese and to
morality according to the Japanese standard.
I have deemed it necessary to deal at some length with the various
phases of Japanese art, which it is no exaggeration to say has
permeated the whole nation so that the Japanese 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 Japanese
art. I have, however, endeavoured to describe the principal art
industries of the country and to set forth what I may term the
catholicity of art in Japan. 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 Japanese, the Constitution, 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 Japan of
to-day. The Japan of the future I have attempted to forecast in two
final chapters.
But the Japan of to-day and the Japan of the future can neither be
understood nor realised unless the reader have in his mind some idea
as to the Japan of the past--not the barbaric or uncivilised Japan
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 shores 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 Japan 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 Japan as it really is, not the Japan seen through
glasses of various colours, of which, I think, the public has had
enough.
H. B. M.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE v
CHAPTER
I. A GLIMPSE AT THE PAST 1
II. THE COUNTRY: ITS PHYSICAL
FEATURES--PRODUCTS--FAUNA--FLORA, ETC. 17
III. THE JAPANESE RACE AND ITS LANGUAGE 29
IV. THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN, THEIR INFLUENCES
AND EFFECTS 39
V. THE CONSTITUTION--THE CROWN AND THE HOUSES
OF PARLIAMENT 49
VI. THE PEOPLE, THEIR LIFE AND HABITS 63
VII. TRADE, COMMERCE, AND INDUSTRIES 80
VIII. JAPAN'S FINANCIAL BURDENS AND RESOURCES 90
IX. EDUCATION 102
X. THE JAPANESE ARMY AND NAVY 117
XI. JAPANESE ART--INTRODUCTORY--LACQUER AND
PORCELAIN 131
XII. JAPANESE ART--SCULPTURE--METAL WORK--PAINTING 149
XIII. JAPANESE ARCHITECTURE 167
XIV. POSTAL AND OTHER MEANS OF COMMUNICATION 176
XV. LAW AND ORDER 185
XVI. LITERATURE AND THE DRAMA 193
XVII. NEWSPAPERS IN JAPAN 202
XVIII. JAPANESE MORALITY 211
XIX. JAPAN AND CHINA 221
XX. EUROPEANS IN JAPAN 231
XXI. A VISIT TO SOME BUDDHIST TEMPLES 244
XXII. THE AINOS 250
XXIII. JAPAN AS IT IS TO-DAY 258
XXIV. THE FUTURE OF JAPAN--PHYSICAL--MORAL--MENTAL 276
XXV. THE FUTURE OF JAPAN--NATIONAL--POLITICAL--ITS
INFLUENCE ON THE WORLD 288
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
A STAR OF THE EAST _Frontispiece_
From a Print by Toshikata
FACING PAGE
THE SWEET SCENT OF THE CHERRY BLOSSOM 30
From a Print by Hiroshige
A CHERRY BLOSSOM PARTY 48
From a Print by Hiroshige
STREET SCENE ON NEW YEAR'S DAY 72
From a Print by Hiroshige
RICE PLANTING, PROVINCE OF HOKI 89
From a Print by Hiroshige
AMATEUR CONCHOLOGISTS 110
From a Print by Hiroshige
VIEW OF FUSI-YAMA FROM A TEA HOUSE 138
From a Print by Hiroshige
KUTANI EARTHENWARE, DECORATED WITH POLYCHROME }
ENAMELS. EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY } 146
}
INCENSE-BURNER, AWATA FAYENCE. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY }
From "The Arts of Japan," by Edward Dillon
BRONZE INCENSE-BURNER AND SMALL FLOWER-VASE. EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY 154
From "The Arts of Japan," by Edward Dillon
KAKEMONO ON PAPER. ATTRIBUTED TO MATAHEI }
}
KAKEMONO ON PAPER. ATTRIBUTED TO SHIMMAN, UKIYO } 160
SCHOOL. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY }
From "The Arts of Japan," by Edward Dillon
TEA HOUSE, NEAR TOKIO 170
From a Print by Hiroshige
ÆRIAL TRANSPORT: BASKET SLUNG ON ROPES, PROVINCE OF HIDA 182
From a Print by Hiroshige
A LABOUR OF LOVE 198
From a Print by Toshikata
THE ETERNAL FEMININE 218
From a Print by Toshikata
A MINISTERING ANGEL 242
From a Print by Toshikata
FIREWORKS IN TOKIO (SUMMER) 264
From a Print by Hiroshige
A SIGN OF THE TIMES 278
THE EMPIRE OF THE EAST
CHAPTER I
A GLIMPSE AT THE PAST
I have seen it stated in a popular handbook that Japan 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
Japanese history is legendary, and authenticity in history, Japanese
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 Japanese history at
any date. I simply propose to give them a glimpse of Japan 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 Japan, 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 Japan 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
Japanese 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 Japan laden with "woollen
cloths, furs, silks, taffetas," and other articles. Some years later a
Japanese noble, Hansiro by name, murdered another Japanese 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 Japan.
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 Japan, and Francis Xavier embarked in another
vessel, with the Japanese 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 Japan, 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 classes, 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 Japanese 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 Japan. 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
Japan. 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 Japanese
should leave his country on any pretence whatever, and no foreigner be
permitted to land therein. Prior to this edict the Japanese 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 attitude of the Japanese 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 theologicum_. 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
Japan, 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
Japanese opinion I shall not venture to pronounce. 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 Japan leaving its shores 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 Japan, but at the same time we may, I think, accept
the fact that the uprising of Japan 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 Japanese
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 Japan 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
Japan and the Japanese 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 Japanese
wife, but though his career was romantic and interesting it has added
but little to our knowledge of Japan at the time of his visit thereto.
In 1727 Dr. Kaemfer's work on Japan was published. Kaemfer had been
physician to the Dutch factory at Nagasaki, and, accordingly, had some
opportunities of studying Japanese 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
Japanese. 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 space is devoted
by Kaemfer to chimerical animals, and he dilates upon the awful
sanctity 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 asserted that the book is the
foundation of nearly all that was known or written of Japan 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 Japan far more reliable than Kaemfer's whimsical
"yarns" at a much earlier period than twenty-five years back. Sir
Rutherford Alcock's "The Capital of the Tycoon" was, I think,
published in 1863. Sir Rutherford was the first resident British
Minister in Japan, and his book remains a stirring and, making
allowance for the author's prejudices on various matters, on the whole
a vivid picture of Japan as it was in the early sixties. Alcock'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 Japan
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 institutions 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 Japanese 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 institutions; yet still we must admire the steadiness which
constitutes the national character, the immutability which reigns in
the administration of their laws and in the exercise of their public
functions, the unwearied assiduity 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
Japanese, 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
class 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 Japan
and the Japanese 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 Japan. 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, vassal 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 (Tycoon) 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
anticipates 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
circumstances 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 Japan for the first time and giving his
opinions thereof, at a period when Japan 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 Japan. 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 Japanese 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
Japanese 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 Japanese 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 Japan was governed jointly by a Tycoon 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 Tycoon being considered
his first subject. All enactments required his sanction. The office of
the Tycoon 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 Tycoon on the
throne as an hereditary prince with the title of Mikado. There is now
no such person as a Tycoon in Japan. The insurrection of 1868 also saw
the downfall of the Daimios or feudal princes of Japan. 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 Japanese 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 Japanese Government having during the past few years spent
many millions in purchasing modern ironclads and other vessels of the
most approved type, and the Japanese Navy bids fair before long to
become a power in the Far East.
"Concerning the oft-debated question of Japanese 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 sexes 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 Japanese 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 Japan is a matter that
prevails in some more ancient civilised lands, viz., an enormous issue
of paper-money. Young Japan, 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 Japan
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 Japanese Government more set its
face than tattooing. Any persons in Japan 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 Japan 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 space to refer to, that the Japan 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, amusements
were plentiful, the artistic feeling and instincts were not the cult
of a class 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 constitute civilisation I admit that Japan 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 Japan 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
Japan'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 Japan 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 Japan 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
Japan to-day, if they were interrogated on the subject, would probably
reply that the record of Japan 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 Japan
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. Japan, 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 Japan 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 Japan (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 Japan's southern extremity, since 1876. The great island
of Formosa, situated off the coast of China, was ceded to Japan as the
outcome of the Chino-Japanese War in 1895, while as the result of the
recent conflict with Russia, Japan 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 Japan. 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 Japan 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 Japanese coast is only 100 miles
distant from Korea, while between the two lies the important island of
Tsu-shima, which Japan 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 passed into the possession of Japan,
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 Japan 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 Japan is about half as large again as that of the United Kingdom.
The southern extremity of the country is in latitude 31° N., the
northern in latitude 45½° N.
The Japanese 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 Japanese have a peculiar veneration and which has been
immortalised in the art of the country, has an altitude 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. Japan 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 Japanese 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 Japan 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 Japan is situated much further south
than Great Britain, its northern extremity being in about the same
latitude 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 latitude 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 shores from the Sea of Okohotsk. Professor Rein, who has given
great attention to the matter of the Japanese climate, has remarked in
reference thereto: "The climate of Japan 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 Japan as in China at the same
latitudes. 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 Japan 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 Japanese 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 pronounced 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 Japan. Fortunately these revolving storms are of brief
duration, and in the neighbourhood of Japan they do not so frequently
occur as in the China Sea.
Japan 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 Japan 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 Japan--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 assumed importance in Japan. 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 Japanese Government has not up to the present
held out much encouragement to the speculative prospector. Gold is
believed to exist in considerable quantities 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 quantity is at the present time assuredly
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
Japan's latent wealth. Copper, a metal which is in increasing demand,
exists in Japan in enormous quantities, 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 Japanese 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, hematite, antimony,
quicksilver, zinc, iron, manganese and arsenic, plumbago, coal,
kerosene, sulphur, bismuth, phosphorus, peat.
Whatever the mineral wealth of Japan--and the extent and variety
thereof are probably yet not fully realised--there can be no question
as to the value of its arboreal products. The lacquer-tree (_rhus
vernicifera_), which furnishes the well-known Japanese lacquer, the
paper mulberry, the elm, oak, maple, bamboo, camphor, and many other
descriptions of trees, grow in abundance. The forests of Japan cover
nearly 60 per cent. of the land. For some years after the Revolution
there was a reduction in the wooded area, nearly four million acres
having been cleared for occupation. Of late years, however, forestry
has been scientifically taken in hand, and about one and a half
million acres have been replanted in districts which have not been
found suitable for farming. The climate of Japan varies so greatly
that there is a corresponding variety in its trees. About eight
hundred kinds of forest trees are suitable for cultivation in Japan,
varying from the palm and the bamboo to the fir and many other trees
with which we are familiar in this country.
The Japanese are above all things an agricultural people. The tobacco
plant, the tea shrub, potatoes, rice, wheat, barley, millet, cotton,
rape, and many cereals other than those I have mentioned are
extensively cultivated. The great mass of the people of Japan live on
the land, and though I think the tendency, as in Great Britain, is for
the large towns to magnetically draw the dwellers in the country,
nevertheless agriculture is still held in high esteem, and the peasant
is content to dwell on the land and live by it. Rice is the staple
food of the people, and it is grown everywhere; indeed the yearly
harvest of it affects the Japanese economy quite as much as, if not
even more than, the wheat crop does that of Europe. The Japanese
peasant is almost as dependent on rice as the Irish peasant used to be
on potatoes. The water, so necessary for irrigating the land, is
supplied by the streams and rivulets which are plentiful in the
country. The Japanese agriculturist has long been famous for the
admirable manner in which he keeps and tills his farm. The fields are
clean as regards weeds, and order and neatness are perceptible
everywhere. The labour is almost entirely manual, and men, women, and
children all take part in the work.
Fruit is abundant in Japan, but it is for the most part of an
inferior quality. Grapes, apples, pears, plums, peaches, chestnuts,
persimmons, oranges, figs, lemons, citrons, melons, and wild
strawberries are all grown, but except as regards the grapes I cannot
speak in laudatory terms of Japanese fruit. The flowers of many fruit
trees seem more appreciated than the fruit itself.
The floral kingdom is rich, beautiful and varied. Probably in no other
part of the world are flowers so greatly appreciated as in Japan. They
enter largely into various popular festivals. The Japanese, as most
people know, excel in the art of gardening and the dwarfing of trees
and shrubs. The flower vendor is a familiar sight, and there is never
any lack of buyers. The poorest householder will do without anything
almost rather than deprive himself of flowers. These enter largely
into the religious services of the people, and are also extensively
placed on the graves of the departed. Flowers, indeed, play an
important part in the lives of the Japanese. Japan has long been
famous for the great number of its evergreens. A large number of the
plants growing wild are of this class, so that even in winter the land
has not the bare appearance characteristic of European countries at
that time of the year. Coniferous plants are abundant, many of them
being peculiar to Japan.
The coasts abound with fish of an excellent quality, and this, with
rice, forms the staple diet of the people. Tea is, as I have said,
largely cultivated, and indeed may be regarded as the national
beverage. It has been cultivated in the country for over two thousand
years. It is an article of faith in Japan that tea strengthens the
body. It is drunk everywhere and at all times, without either milk or
sugar--the true way, I think, in which to appreciate its flavour. The
tea-house in Japan occupies the same position as the public-house in
this country, but it has many advantages over the latter. In the towns
and some other parts of Japan, saké--a spirit distilled from rice--is
drunk, and when the Japanese has to any extent been Europeanised or
brought into contact with Europeans, he affects a taste for European
varieties of alcohol. On the whole, however, the people are distinctly
a sober race.
The principal towns are Tokio, the capital, with a population of about
one and half millions, Osaka, having a population nearly as great,
Kyoto, the ancient capital, Nagoya, Kobé, Yokohama, and Nagasaki.
Yokohama may be regarded as the European headquarters; indeed it is
largely a European town, while Nagasaki has more than any other been
under European influences, the Dutch having, as I have already stated,
had a factory there, in the suburb of Decima, continuously ever since
the expulsion of foreigners from the country in the sixteenth century.
Railway communication in Japan is a subject upon which much might be
written. For many years there was only one line in the country--that
between Yokohama and Tokio, about 22 miles in length. At the present
time there are some 4,500 miles of railway open, and extensions are
either in progress or in contemplation. Of the lines now being worked,
about one-third are the property of the Government, the rest having
been constructed by private enterprise. This dual system of ownership
has its disadvantages, and it will doubtless not be permitted to last.
Railway construction has already had a considerable effect on the
opening up of the country, and as the construction is extended the
development of Japan will doubtless proceed in an increasing ratio.
The scenery of Japan has provided a theme for so many pens that I do
not feel inclined to do more than refer to it in passing. Much of the
scenery is sublime but, truth to tell, its beauty, or perhaps it would
be more correct to say the effect thereof on the sightseer, has been
somewhat marred of recent years by the influx of those persons
colloquially known as "globe trotters," the railway extensions to
which I have referred, and the erection of large hotels run on
European lines. Nikko, the incomparable, with its glorious scenery and
its still more glorious temples, the meandering Daynogawa, the
beauteous Lake Chiuzenji, on which a quarter of a century or so ago a
European provided with a passport and having his headquarters at a
neighbouring tea-house might gaze at his leisure, and meditate in a
glorious silence broken only by the sound of the ripples of the water
or the cry of the birds from the neighbouring woods, all are now
vulgarised. The personally conducted tourist is there and very much in
evidence. He wanders carelessly, often contemptuously, through the
ancient temples, regarding temples, scenery, river, lakes, merely as
"something to be done." The change was, I suppose, inevitable, but the
change is one that I think is in some respects to be regretted. The
tourist brings money and spends it freely, and the country no doubt
reaps the advantage thereof, but the effect on the Japanese brought
into contact with the European under such conditions is not, in my
opinion, always, or often, beneficial.
I have not much to remark in regard to the fauna of Japan. The
domestic animals are comparatively few. The fact of the inhabitants
not eating animal food has led to their paying little or no attention
to the breeding of those animals which are largely in request in
foreign countries. Horses, however, are fairly plentiful, though
small. Japan, as I have elsewhere remarked, has been handicapped in
the organisation of her cavalry by the lack of a proper supply of
suitable horses, and she has recently despatched a commission to
Europe to effect purchases with a view of putting this matter right,
and improving the breed of horses in the county. Oxen and cows were
till recently entirely, and are still largely, used for purposes of
draught only. Sheep and pigs have been introduced from abroad, but
they have not been generally distributed, and in many parts of Japan
have never been seen.
The wild animals of Japan are neither numerous nor important. The
black bear and the wolf still exist, chiefly in the Northern Island,
but it is certain that at no far-distant date they will, unless
artificially preserved, go the way of all wild animals in civilised
countries. The red-faced monkey is there, the only kind found in
Japan, and snakes exist, but they are for the most part harmless. The
art of the country will have familiarised Europeans with the presence
of the crane and the stork, which play such a prominent part therein.
Indeed the wild birds of the country are more numerous than the
animals. I am not aware whether geological research in Japan has been
sufficiently extensive or systematic to ascertain whether, and if so
what, any species of animals have ever existed there other than those
at present found in the country. It certainly is in some respects
extraordinary that a country so close to the Asiatic Continent and
possessing such a variety of climates should, as regards the animal
kingdom from the standpoint of the zoologist, be put down as
distinctly poor. The fact, or supposed fact, to which I have
previously referred, that the Japanese islands are the summits of
mountain ranges which many thousand years ago had their bases
submerged by the rising of the sea or had gradually settled down
beneath the surface of the ocean, may, of course, account for the
poverty of Japan in regard to the animals therein. I must leave other
pens than mine to descant on that interesting if highly speculative
matter. Be that as it may, if the fauna of Japan is poor, the country
certainly makes up for it by the variety and magnificence of its
flora--a flora which deserves to be studied, and which has done so
much to brighten not only the appearance of the country but the lives
of its inhabitants.
CHAPTER III
THE JAPANESE RACE AND ITS LANGUAGE
There are, I have always thought, two ways in which any race should be
considered if it is desired to form a correct idea in regard to it,
viz., from an ethnological and philological standpoint. No race
deserves to be closer studied in these matters than the Japanese.
Indeed, I am of opinion that it is impossible to arrive at any clear
or correct opinion concerning it without having, however slightly,
investigated its racial descent and the language which, among Eastern
dialects, has so long been as great a puzzle to the philologist as has
Basque among the European languages. Respecting the origin of the
Japanese we know practically nothing--at any rate nothing authentic.
The native legends and histories afford us neither guide nor clue in
the matter. These legends and histories tell us that the Japanese are
descended from the gods, but I am quite certain that the modern
Japanese receives that fact (?) with something more than the
proverbial grain of salt. According to the old legend Ninigi-no-Nikoto
was a god despatched by his grandmother the Sun-goddess to take
possession of Japan, and the land was peopled by him and his
entourage. This god-man, it is stated, lived over 300,000 years; his
son, Hohoderni, attained to twice that period of longevity, while a
grandchild, Ugaya by name, reached the respectable old age of 836,042
years. Ugaya was, it is stated, the father of Jimmu, the first
Emperor. It is not necessary to seriously notice fables or legends or
poetic imagery, or whatever these tales may be deemed to be, although
I may remark that the divine descent of the sovereign of Japan has, so
far as I know, never been formally repudiated, and it is still
explicitly, if not implicitly, held.
Dr. Kaemfer, whose great work I have already referred to, propounded
therein the somewhat fanciful theory that the Japanese are really the
direct descendants of the ancient Babylonians, and that their language
"is one of those which Sacred Writ mentions the all-wise Providence
thought fit to infuse into the minds of the vain builders of the
Babylonian Tower." According to his theory, which to me seems
absolutely ludicrous, the Japanese came through Persia, then along the
shores of the Caspian Sea and by the bank of the Oxus to its source.
From there, he suggests, they crossed China, descended the Amoor,
proceeded southwards to Korea, and found their way across the
intervening sea to the Japanese islands. Another theory, which has
found many supporters, is that the Japanese are descended from the
Ainos, the hairy race still to be found in the island of Yesso. An
advocate of this view seeks to bolster up his faith by the evidences
of an aboriginal race still to be found in the relics of the Stone Age
in Japan. "Flint arrows and spear-heads," he remarks, "hammers,
chisels, scrapers, kitchen refuse, and various other trophies are
frequently excavated, or may be found in the museum or in homes of
private persons. Though covered with the soil for centuries, they seem
as though freshly brought from an Aino hut in Yesso. In scores of
striking instances the very peculiar ideas, customs, and superstitions
of both Japanese and Aino are the same, or but slightly modified."
[Illustration: THE SWEET SCENT OF THE CHERRY BLOSSOM
FROM A PRINT BY HIROSHIGE]
This seems to me to be no evidence at all. Flint arrows, spear-heads,
hammers, and so on are to be found in every part of the world. Mankind
all over the globe seems to have evolved its civilisation, or what
passes for it, in very much the same way, viz., by process of
experiment. Another authority has asserted that the short, round
skull, the oblique eyes, the prominent cheek-bones, the dark, black
hair, and the scanty beard all proclaim the Manchus and Koreans as the
nearest congeners of the Japanese. This authority considers it
positive that the latter are a Tungusic race, and that their own
traditions and the whole course of their history are incompatible with
any other conclusion than that Korea is the route by which the
immigrant tribes made their entry into Kiushiu from their original
Manchurian home. While accepting this theory with some reservations, I
may remark that I altogether fail to see what the "whole course" of
Japanese history has to do with the matter. Japanese history, as I
have previously observed, is almost altogether legendary, and proves
nothing except the credulity of those who have accepted it as
statements of fact. Ethnology, I admit, is a most interesting field
for speculation. It is one in which the mind can positively run riot
and the imagination revel. The wildest theories have been put forward
in regard to many of the world's races, and philological arguments of
the thinnest possible kind have been used to bolster them up. For
example, one very able writer on this matter has broached a theory
respecting the origin of the Japanese, and supported it by what seems
to be very plausible evidence. He assumes, on what grounds I know
not, that there was a white race earlier in the field of history than
the Aryans, and that the seat of this white race was in High Africa.
That it was from Africa that migrations were made to North, Central,
and South America, as well as to Egypt, and subsequently to Babylonia
and, apparently, to India. In due course, according to this authority,
Syria and Babylonia were conquered by the Semites, while the Aryans
became masters of Europe, Asia Minor, and India. The suggestion is
that the conquerors of the Japanese islands and the founders of the
Japanese language and mythology were of the Turano-African type. That
these invaders intermarried with a mixed short race, and that the new
dominating Japanese race maintained and propagated their dialect of
the language and their sect of the religion, and displaced the pure
natives. The same authority suggests that when the Pacific route to
America was closed by the weakness of the Turano Africans and the
rising of cannibals and other savages (where did they rise from?) the
Japanese were isolated on the east. On their west the Turano-African
dynasties in China and Korea fell, and were replaced by natives, the
same series of events taking place as in Egypt, Peru, Mexico, &c. The
principal evidence in support of this somewhat startling theory is the
similarity between the words in use in Japanese and in certain African
languages. But if evidence of that nature is to be accepted in proof
of somewhat improbable theories, it will be possible to prove almost
anything in regard to the origin of races. I utterly reject all these
far-fetched theories. Any unprejudiced man looking at the Japanese,
the Chinaman, and the Korean will have no doubt whatever in his own
mind as to their racial affinity. Differences there most certainly
are, just as there are between the Frenchman and the Englishman, or
even the Englishman and the Scotchman, but what I may term the
pronounced characteristics are the same--the colour of the skin, the
oblique eyes, the dark hair, and the contour of the skull. These
people, whatever the present difference in their mental, moral, and
physical characteristics, have quite evidently all come from the same
stock. They are, in a word, Mongolians, and any attempt to prove that
one particular portion of this stock is Turano-African, or something
else equally absurd from an ethnological point of view, seems to me to
be positively childish. There was probably originally a mixture of
races, Malay as well as others, which has had its effect on the
peculiar temperament of the Japanese as he is to-day compared with the
Chinaman.
Of course language cannot be left out of account in the question of
the racial origin of any people, and the Japanese language has, as I
have said, long been a puzzle for the philologist. In the early times
we are told the Japanese had no written language. The language in use
before the opening up of communications with Korea and China stood
alone. Indeed there is only one language outside Japan which has any
affinity therewith, that is the language of the inhabitants of the
Loo-Choo Islands. Philologists have excluded the language from the
Aryan and Semitic tongues, and included it in the Turanian group. It
is said to possess all the characteristics of the Turanian family
being agglutinated, that is to say, maintaining its roots in their
integrity without formative prefixes, poor in conjunctions, and
copious in the use of participles. It is uncertain when alphabetical
characters were introduced into Japan, but it is believed to have
happened when intercourse with Korea was first opened about the
commencement of the Christian Era. The warrior Empress, Jungu-kogo,
is said to have carried away from Korea as many books as possible
after the successful invasion of that country. In the third century
the son of the Emperor Ojin learned to read Chinese works, and
henceforward the Chinese language and literature seem to have been
introduced into Japan. A great impetus was given to the spread of
Chinese literature by the introduction of Buddhism and Buddhist
writings in the sixth century, and the effect thereof is now apparent
in the number of Chinese words in the Japanese language. The question
as to the origin of the earliest written characters employed in Japan
is one that has produced, and probably will continue to produce, much
controversy. These are known as Shinji letters of the God Age, but
they have left no traces in the existing alphabet. There is a
remarkable difference between the written and spoken dialects of
Japan. The grammars of the two are entirely different, and it is
possible to speak the language colloquially and yet not be able to
read a newspaper, book, or letter; while, on the other hand, it is
possible to know the written language thoroughly, and yet be unable to
carry on a conversation with a Japanese. The spoken language, as a
matter of fact, is not difficult except in regard to the complicated
construction of the words. The difficulty is in reference to the
written language. There are really three modes or systems of writing:
the first consists of the use of the Chinese characters, the second
and third of two different alphabets. Although the Japanese have
adopted the Chinese characters and learned to attach to them the same
meaning as obtains in China, the construction of sentences is
sometimes so totally different that it is difficult for a Chinaman to
read a book written by a Japanese in the Chinese characters, while
the Japanese cannot read Chinese books unless he has specially studied
Chinese. It is evident from what I have said that it is difficult to
obtain a complete knowledge of the written language of Japan in its
Chinese form. There is a certain school of thought in Japan which is
enthusiastic for the replacement of the present complicated system by
the introduction of a Roman alphabet, but I feel bound to say that
this school has not made much progress, and it is not likely to be
successful. Although the present system has its disadvantages, it has
its advantages likewise. The written characters are those common to
about 450 millions of the world's people, and I think that the use of
the Chinese characters in Japan will be a factor of considerable
importance in the future history of the world, because I am convinced
that Japan is destined to exercise a preponderating influence in and
over China, and that the exercise of that influence will be greatly
facilitated by the written characters which both nations have in
common.
I may at once candidly confess that I have no theory to broach in
respect of the origin of the Japanese people or the language that they
speak. In such matters theorising appears to me to be a pure waste of
time. One has only to look round the world as it is to-day, or for the
matter of that within the confines of one's own country, to see how
rapidly the people living for long periods in a certain part of the
country develop distinct characteristics not only in physiognomy but
in dialect. It is only the existence of the printing press which has,
so to speak, stereotyped the languages of nations and prevented
variations becoming fixed, variations and dialects which in days prior
to the existence of printing presses were evolved into distinct
languages. Take the British Isles for example, any part of them,
Yorkshire, Scotland, Ireland, London, and note the difference between
the spoken language of certain classes and the language as printed in
newspapers and books. Given a nation isolated, or comparatively
isolated, for many hundreds of years, it is difficult to say to what
extent its language might be evolved or in what degree the few chance
visitors thereto may introduce words which are readily adapted to or
adopted in the language and influence it for all time. Take, for
example, a word which any visitor to China or Japan must have heard
over and over again, viz., "Joss," as applied to God. This is, as most
people know, simply a corruption of the Portuguese name for the deity.
I hope some philologist a few thousand years hence who may trace that
word to its original source will not adduce therefrom that either the
Chinese or the Japanese sprang from a Latin race.
The most ancient Japanese writings date from the eighth century. These
are Japanese written in Chinese characters, but the Chinese written
language as also its literature and the teachings of the great Chinese
philosopher, Confucius, are believed to have been introduced several
hundreds of years previously. This contact with and importation from
China undoubtedly had a marked effect in inducing what I may term
atrophy in the development of the Japanese language as also the growth
of its own literature, that is a literature entirely devoid of Chinese
influences. Indeed it is impossible to speculate on what might have
been the development of Japan and in what direction that development
would have proceeded had she never come under the influence of the
Chinese language, literature, religion, and artistic principles.
I have not the slightest doubt myself, as I have said before, that the
Japanese are of the same stock as the Chinese and Koreans. I have no
theory in regard to the origin of the Ainos, who are most likely the
aboriginal inhabitants. They are quite evidently a distinct race from
the Japanese proper, although of course there has been some
interbreeding between them.
The language of Japan naturally suggests some reference to its
literature, of which there is no lack, either ancient or modern. I
have dealt with this matter in some detail in a subsequent chapter.
The old literature of Japan is but little known to Europeans, and
probably most Europeans would be incapable of appreciating or
understanding it. It abounds in verbal artifices, and the whole habits
of life and modes of thought and conception of things, material and
spiritual, of the Japanese of those days were so totally different to
those of the European as to render it almost unintelligible to the
latter. There are, however, scholars who have waded through this
literature as also through the poetry of Japan and have found great
delight therein. In the process of translating an Oriental language,
full of depths of subtlety of thought and expressing Oriental ideas in
an Oriental manner, much, if not most, of its beauty and charm must be
lost. That is, I think, why the Japanese prose and poetry when
translated into English seem so bald and lifeless. We know by
experience that even a European language loses in the process of
translation which is, except in very rare instances, a purely
mechanical art. How much more so must be the case in regard to an
Oriental language with its depths of hyperbole and replete with
imagery, idealism, and flowery illustrations.
I have referred to the literature of modern Japan, the ephemeral
literature, in a chapter on its newspaper press. The modern
literature, whether ephemeral or otherwise, is distinctly not on
Oriental lines. The influence of the West permeates it. Distinctive
Japanese literature is, I imagine, a thing of the past, and I fear it
will be less and less studied as time goes on. Young Japan is a
"hustler," to use a modern word, and it has no time and mayhap not
much inclination for what it perhaps regards as somewhat effete
matter. It thinks hurriedly and acts rapidly, and it, accordingly,
aspires to express its thoughts and ideas through a medium which shall
do so concisely and effectively.
Whatever the origin of the Japanese race or the Japanese language,
whether the former came from the plains of Babylon, the heights of
Africa, or from some part of the American Continent, or was evolved on
the spot, one thing is certain--that the Japanese race and the
Japanese language have been indelibly stamped on the world's history.
The ethnologist may still puzzle himself as to the origin of these
forty-seven millions of people and feel annoyed because he cannot
classify them to his own satisfaction. The philologist may feel an
equal or even a greater puzzle in reference to their language. These
are merely speculative matters which may interest or amuse the man who
has the time for such pursuits, but they are, after all, of no great
practical importance. The future of a race is of more concern than its
past, and, whatever the origin of a language may have been, if that
language serves in the processes of development to give expression to
noble thoughts, whether in prose or poetry, to voice the wisdom of the
people, to preach the gospel of human brotherhood, it matters little
how it was evolved or whence it came. It is because I believe that the
Japanese race and the Japanese language have a great future before
them in the directions I have indicated that I have dealt but lightly,
I hope none of my readers will think contemptuously, with the theories
that have been put forward in reference to the origin of both.
CHAPTER IV
THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN, THEIR INFLUENCES AND EFFECTS
Most persons in this country if they were asked what was the religion
of the Japanese people would probably answer Buddhism. As a matter of
fact, though Buddhism was introduced into Japan from Korea as far back
as 552 A.D., it is not and never has been the preponderating religion
in Japan. At the same time I quite admit that it has had a marked
effect on the religious life of the people, and that it again has been
influenced by the ancient Shinto (literally, "The way of the gods")
belief of the Japanese people. This belief, a compound of mythology
and ancestral worship, was about the first century largely encrusted
by Confucian doctrines or maxims, mostly ethical, imported from China.
Of the precise doctrines of Shintoism but little is even now known. It
has apparently no dogmas and no sacred book. I am aware that there are
the ancient Shinto rituals, called Nurito, and that in reference to
them a vast amount of more or less erudite commentary has been
written. The result, however, has not been very enlightening. I think
that Kaemfer succinctly summed up the Shinto faith in reference to the
Japanese people when he remarked, "The more immediate end which they
propose to themselves is a state of happiness in this world." In
other words, if this assertion be correct, Shintoism preaches
utilitarianism. As to the origin of this religion there is very much
the same uncertainty and quite as large an amount of theorising as is
the case in reference to the Japanese race and language. The most
generally received opinion is that Shintoism is closely allied with,
if not an offshoot of, the old religion of the Chinese people prior to
the days of Confucius. Originally Shinto was in all probability a
natural religion, but, like all religious systems, it has developed or
suffered from accretions until the ancient belief is lost in
obscurity. The author of a now somewhat out-of-date book, entitled
"Progress of Japan," asserts that the religion of the Japanese
consists in a "belief that the productive ethereal spirit being
expanded through the whole universe, every part is in some degree
impregnated with it and therefore every part is in some measure the
seat of the Deity; whence local gods and goddesses are everywhere
worshipped and consequently multiplied without end. Like the ancient
Romans and Greeks they acknowledge a supreme being, the first, the
supreme, the intellectual, by which men have been reclaimed from
rudeness and barbarism to elegance and refinement, and been taught
through privileged men and women not only to live with more comfort
but to die with better hope." Such a religion, however it may be
described, seems to me to be in effect Pantheism.
When Buddhism was introduced into Japan the Buddhist priesthood seems
to have made no difficulty about receiving the native gods into their
Pantheon. Gradually the greater number of the Shinto temples were
served by Buddhist priests who introduced into them the elaborate
ornaments and ritual of Buddhism. The result was a kind of hybrid
religion, the line of demarcation between the ancient and the imported
faith not being very clearly defined. Hence perhaps the religious
tolerance of the Japanese for so many centuries, even to Christianity
when first introduced by St. Francis Xavier. About the beginning of
the eighteenth century there was something akin to a religious
reformation in Japan in the direction of the revival of pure
Shintoism. For a century and a half subsequently Shintoism held up its
head, and eventually, as the outcome of the Revolution of 1868, which
marked a turning-point in the history of Japan, Buddhism was
disestablished and disendowed and Shinto was installed as the State
religion. Simultaneously many thousand of Buddhist temples were
stripped of their magnificent and elaborate ornaments and handed over
to Shinto keeping; but the downfall of Buddhism was merely of a
temporary nature. Nevertheless Shinto is, ostensibly at any rate,
still the State religion. Certain temples are maintained from public
funds and certain official religious functions take place in Shinto
edifices.
Buddhism, acclimatised though it has been in Japan for thirteen
centuries, is still a foreign religion, but it has played, and to some
extent still plays, an important part in the life and history of the
nation, and it has, as I have said, materially influenced the ancient
faith of Japan and in turn been influenced by it. I have no intention
of describing, much less tracing, the history of Buddhism, whether in
Japan or elsewhere. It is a subject on which many writers have
descanted and in regard to which much might still be written. There is
no doubt whatever that Buddhism as it exists to-day, whether in
Ceylon, India, China, or Japan, is widely different from the religion
of its founder. Many of its original doctrines were purely symbolical
and poetical. These have been evolved into something they were
certainly never intended to mean. That the principles of the Buddhist
religion are essentially pure and moral no one who has any knowledge
of it can deny. It preaches above all things the suppression of self,
and it inculcates a tenderness and fondness for all forms of life.
According to Griffis, "Its commandments are the dictates of the most
refined morality. Besides the cardinal prohibitions against murder,
stealing, adultery, lying, drunkenness and unchastity, every shade of
vice, hypocrisy, anger, pride, suspicion, greediness, gossiping,
cruelty to animals is guarded against by special precepts. Among the
virtues recommended we find not only reverence of parents, care of
children, submission to authority, gratitude, moderation in times of
prosperity, submission in times of trial, equanimity at all times, but
virtues such as the duty of forgiving insults and not rewarding evil
with evil." This is a pretty exhaustive moral code, and though
Buddhism has often been taunted with the fact that its followers do
not practically carry out its precepts and live up to the level of its
high moral teaching, Buddhism is not, I would suggest, the only
religion against which such taunts can be levelled.
The history of Buddhism ever since its introduction into Japan has
been an eventful one. It has had its ups and its downs. It came into
the country under royal auspices, it has nearly always enjoyed the
royal favour, and I think its existence, during at any rate the first
few centuries it was in the country, has been due to that fact rather
than to any pronounced affection on the part of the mass of the people
for it. One Emperor, Shirakawa by name, is recorded to have erected
more than 50,000 pagodas and statues throughout the country in honour
of Buddha. Many of these works are still, after many centuries, in an
excellent state of preservation, and are of deep interest not only to
the antiquarian but to any student of the religious history of a
nation. The Buddhist priests, like the Jesuits in European countries,
during many centuries captured and controlled education in Japan and
showed themselves thoroughly progressive in their methods and the
knowledge they inculcated. Art and medicine were introduced under
their auspices and, whatever one may think of, or whatever criticism
may be passed on the religion itself, it is impossible, in my opinion,
to deny that Buddhism on the whole has had a vast and, I venture to
think, not an unhealthy influence on every phase of Japanese national
and domestic life. The strength and weakness of Buddhism have
undoubtedly lain in the fact that it possessed and possesses no
dogmatic creed. It concerned itself almost entirely with self-mastery,
self-suppression, the duty of doing good in this world without looking
forward to any reward for the same in the next. It preached
benevolence in the true meaning of that word in every shape and form.
It taught that benevolence was the highest aspiration of a noble
spirit. Benevolence was, indeed, the master virtue, the crown, the
coping stone, of all virtues. As the term is used in Buddhist
teaching, it may be regarded as the synonym of love and a close study
of the teaching of Buddhism on this subject must impress any thinking
man strongly with the idea that it was very much the teaching of
Christ in reference to the love of one's neighbour. Buddhism in Japan
at any rate has not been conservative; it has gone the way of most
religious systems, has been subject to development and has evolved
from time to time different sects, some of which have held and
preached dogmas which would, I think, have astounded, and I feel
certain would have been anathematised by, the founder of Buddhism. The
principal of the sects now existing in Japan are the Tendai, Shingon
Yoko and Ken, all of which, I may observe, are of Chinese origin.
Besides these there are the Shin and the Nichiren evolved in Japan and
dating from the thirteenth century. Respecting the metaphysics of
Buddhism and their effect on the Japanese people I cannot, I think, do
better than quote from that great authority on all things Japanese,
Mr. Basil Hall Chamberlain, whose writings have done so much, not only
to awaken an interest in Japan but to give correct ideas respecting
the life of the people. He remarks, in this connection, "The
complicated metaphysics of Buddhism have awakened no interest in the
Japanese nation. Another fact, curious but true, is that these people
have never been at the trouble to translate the Buddhist canon into
their own language. The priests use a Chinese version, the laity no
version at all nowadays, though to judge from the allusions scattered
up and down Japanese literature they would seem to have been more
given to searching the Scriptures a few hundred years ago. The
Buddhist religion was disestablished and disendowed during the years
1871-4--a step taken in consequence of the temporary ascendency of
Shinto. At the present time a faint struggle is being carried on by
the Buddhist priesthood against rivals in comparison with whom Shinto
is insignificant: we mean the two great streams of European
thought--Christianity and physical science. A few--a very few--men
trained in European methods fight for the Buddhist cause. They do so,
not as orthodox believers in any existing sect, but because they are
convinced that the philosophical contents of Buddhism in general are
supported by the doctrine of evolution, and that this religion needs
therefore only to be regenerated on modern lines in order to find
universal acceptance."
The "Reformation" of 1868 in Japan followed much the same course in
regard to religious matters as the Reformation in England. It laid
vandal hands on Buddhist temples and ornaments of priceless value. The
objective point of this religious Reformation was presumably very much
the same as that which occurred in this country, viz., a reversion to
simplicity in religion. The Shinto Temple which is invariably thatched
is a development of the ancient Japanese hut, whereas the Buddhist
Temple, which is of Indian origin, is tiled, and as regards its
internal fittings and ornamentation is elaborate in comparison with
the plain appearance of the Shinto edifice.
So far as the Japan of to-day is concerned these two religions may be
regarded as moribund, although their temples are still thronged by the
lower classes of the people. They exist because they are there, but
they have no vitality, no message for the people, and it is
questionable whether any of Japan's great thinkers or the educated
classes in the country, whichever religion they may nominally belong
to, have faith or belief in it. A man may have, or for sundry reasons
profess, a creed in Japan as in other countries without believing in
it. Custom and prejudices are as strong there as elsewhere, and it is
often easier to appear to acquiesce in a religion than to openly
reject it.
There are, I know, some optimistic persons who believe, or affect to
believe, that Christianity is in due course destined to replace the
ancient faiths in Japan. They point to what was effected by St.
Francis Xavier in the sixteenth century, and they imagine that the
Japan of the twentieth century is only waiting to finally unshackle
itself from Shintoism and Buddhism before arraying itself in the garb
of Christianity. Well, Christian missions have had a fair field in
Japan for many years past, and though many members of those missions
have been men of great piety, zeal, and learning, they have made
comparatively little headway among and have exercised extremely little
influence on the mass of the Japanese people. Indeed, the fair field
that all Christian missions without distinction have had, in my
opinion, accounts for the small amount of progress they have made.
Because all the leading Christian denominations are there--Roman
Catholicism, Church of England, Greek Church, Congregationalists,
Methodists, Baptists, Salvation Army, Society of Friends, and
others--all preaching and proclaiming their own particular dogmas and
all lumped together by the Japanese under the generic title of
Christians. The Japanese may, I think, be excused if he fails to
differentiate between them. He views and hears their differences in
dogma. He observes that there is no bond of union, and frequently
considerable jealousy among these numerous sects. Each claims to
preach the truth, and the Japanese concludes that as they cannot all
be right they may possibly all be wrong. It is only on this assumption
that it is possible to account for the little headway made by
Christianity in Japan in view of the labour and money devoted by
different religious bodies to its propagation for many years past.
There is, let me add, no marked hostility to Christianity in
Japan--only indifference. The educated Japanese of to-day is, I
believe, for the most part an agnostic, and he views Shintoism,
Buddhism, Christianity alike, except in so far as he regards the first
two as more or less national and the last as an exotic.
At the commencement of the seventeenth century the Japanese
Christians are stated to have amounted in numbers to one million. At
the present time it is doubtful if they total up to one hundred
thousand. And this despite the splendid religious organisations that
exist, the facilities that are given for the propagation of the
Christian faith, and the opportunities which were certainly not in
existence three hundred years ago. Into the causes of this comparative
failure of Christianity in Japan to-day as compared with its
marvellous progress in the sixteenth century, I do not propose to
enter. The enthusiasm of a Francis Xavier is not an everyday event,
and the Japanese of the sixteenth century was, mayhap, more impressed
by the missionaries of those days, arriving in flimsy and diminutive
vessels after undergoing the perils and hardships of long voyages,
having neither purse nor scrip nor wearing apparel except what they
stood up in, than he is by the modern missionary arriving as a
first-class passenger in a magnificent steamer and during his
residence in the country lacking none of the comforts or amenities of
life. Or it may be that the Japanese mind has advanced and developed
during the past three centuries, has now less hankering after
metaphysical subtleties, and fails to comprehend or to sympathise with
abstruse theological dogmas and doctrines. If Christianity appealed to
him as in the days of Francis Xavier as the one faith professed by the
Western world, it would probably impress him to a far greater extent
than it does at present when, as I have before said, he views
Christianity as a disorganised body composed of hundreds of sects each
rejecting, and many of them anathematising, what the others teach. He
considers there is no need for investigation until Christianity has
itself determined what is the precise truth that non-Christian
countries are to be asked to accept.
Regarding the influence of the Buddhist and Shinto religions during
the many centuries they have existed in the country on the lives of
the people, I propose to make a few remarks. Too often one hears or
reads of speakers and writers describing Japan as a country steeped in
paganism and addicted to pagan habits and customs with all (somewhat
indefinite this!) that they involve. To describe Buddhism as paganism
merely shows a lamentable amount of ignorance; nor should I be
inclined to include Shintoism in a term which, whatever its precise
meaning, is invariably intended to be opprobrious! After all, any
religion must be largely judged by its effects on the lives of its
adherents, and judged by that standard I do not think, as regards the
Japanese, either Buddhism or Shintoism ought to be sweepingly
condemned. If many of the customs and practices of both religions seem
silly or absurd; if either or both inculcate or lead to superstition,
it can at least be said of both that they teach a high moral code, and
that the average Japanese in his life, his family relations, his
philosophy, his patriotism, his bodily cleanliness, and in many other
respects, offers an example to other nations which deem themselves
more highly civilised, which possess a purer religion and too often,
with that lack of charity which is frequently the result of an excess
of ignorance, unsparingly condemn the Japanese as "pagans" or
"heathens."
[Illustration: A CHERRY BLOSSOM PARTY
FROM A PRINT BY HIROSHIGE]
CHAPTER V
THE CONSTITUTION--THE CROWN AND THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT
A Constitution, if we are to accept the dogmatic assertions of those
who have written with a show of learning on the subject, ought to be
evolved rather than established by any parliamentary or despotic act.
The history of the world certainly tends to prove that paper
Constitutions have not been over-successful in the past. There
assuredly has been no lack of them in the last century or so, and
although some, if not all, of them have been practically tried, a very
few have attained any considerable measure of success. The English
Constitution has long been held up to the rest of the world by writers
on Constitutional history as a model of what a Constitution ought to
be, for the somewhat paradoxical reason that it is nowhere clearly, if
indeed at all, defined. It is largely the outcome of custom and usage,
and it is claimed for it that on the whole it has worked better than
any cut-and-dried paper Constitution would have done.
Nevertheless there does not appear to be any good and valid reason why
a Constitution should not be as clearly defined as an Act of
Parliament. Undefined Constitutions have worked well at certain
periods when there was a tacit general consent as to their meaning,
but they have not always been able to withstand the strain of fierce
controversy and the coming into existence of factors which were
undreamt of when these Constitutions were originally evolved, and
definitions or additions or amendments thereto have, accordingly,
become necessary.
The promulgation of a Constitution for Japan in February, 1889, was an
event of great interest to the civilised world. There were, of course,
at the time a large number of persons who prophesied that this
Constitution would go the way of many others that had preceded
it--that it would, in fact, be found unworkable and, being so found,
Constitutional Government in Japan would eventuate, as it had
elsewhere, in the resumption of autocratic rule as the only
alternative to anarchy. It is pleasing to be able to record that these
prophecies have, after nearly eighteen years' experience, not been
fulfilled, and that the Japanese Constitution, well thought out and
devised as it was, seems not only likely to endure but is admirably
adapted to all the circumstances and needs of the country.
In order to fully comprehend the events that gradually led up to the
establishment of Constitutional government in Japan, and the precise
place of the Crown and aristocracy in that government, it is, I think,
essential to make a rapid review of past events in that country.
In ancient times the Mikado was both the civil ruler and the military
leader of his people. Under him there were exercising authority
throughout the land about 150 feudal lords. Feudalism of one kind or
another prevailed in Japan until 1868. Towards the end of the
sixteenth century the feudal principle was apparently on the decline.
In the year 1600, however, Tokagawa Iyoyasu, with an army composed of
the clans of the east and north defeated the combined forces of those
of the west and south at the battle of Sakigahara and proclaimed
himself Shogun. The feudal lords of the various clans throughout the
country then became his vassals and paid homage to him. The Tokagawa
family practically governed the country till the Revolution of 1868,
when the present Emperor took the reins of government into his own
hands and finally abolished feudalism and with it the authority of the
Daimios. Many persons even now believe that the Shogun, or Tycoon as
he was usually called in Europe, was a usurper. As a matter of fact he
received investiture from the Mikado, and his authority was, nominally
at any rate, a derived one. At the same time there is no doubt that
the real power of the State was in his hands while the _de jure_ ruler
lived in the capital in complete seclusion surrounded by all the
appanages and ceremonial of royalty.
Up to the year 1868 Japan was divided into numerous provinces governed
by Daimios, or territorial lords, each of whom maintained large
standing armies. They were all subject to the Shogun, while retaining
the right to rule their particular provinces in ordinary matters. In
1868 the Shogun fell, and there can be little doubt his fall was to
some extent brought about by the concessions which had been made to
foreign Powers in regard to the opening of the country to foreign
trade. In 1868 the Shogun repaired to Kyoto, the first time for 250
years, and paid homage to the Mikado. Feudalism was then, as I have
said, abolished, the Emperor took the reins of authority into his own
hands, formed a central Government at Tokio and reigned supreme as an
absolute monarch.
"The sacred throne was established at the time when the heavens and
earth became separated." This has long been an axiom of Japanese
belief, but it has been somewhat modified of late years, even the
assertion of it by the Sovereign himself. A leading Japanese statesman
who has written an article on the subject of the Emperor and his place
in the Constitution has asserted that he is "Heaven descended, sacred
and divine." I do not think that the modern Japanese entertains this
transcendental opinion nor, indeed, do I find that the Emperor himself
has of late years put forward any such pretensions. For example, in
the Imperial proclamation on the Constitution of the Empire on
February 11, 1889, the Emperor declared that he had "by virtue of the
glories of our ancestors ascended the Throne of a lineal succession
unbroken for _ages eternal_." Whereas in the Imperial Rescript
declaring war against China on August 1, 1894, he contented himself
with asserting that he was "seated on a Throne occupied by the same
dynasty from _time immemorial_." The italics are mine, and the
difference in the pretensions which I desire to emphasise is certainly
remarkable.
When granting a Constitution the Emperor, as has been and probably
will be the custom of all monarchs so acting, declared that the
legislative power belonged to him but that he intended to exercise it
with the consent of the Imperial Diet. The convocation of the Diet
belongs exclusively to the Emperor. It has no power to meet without
his authority, and if it did so meet its acts and its actions would be
null and void. In this respect the Diet is on precisely the same basis
as the English Parliament. According to the Constitution the Emperor,
when the Diet is not sitting, can issue Imperial ordinances which
shall have the effect of law so long as they do not contravene any
existing law. The article authorising these ordinances defines that
they shall only be promulgated in consequence of an urgent necessity
to maintain public safety or to avert public calamities, and all such
ordinances must be laid before the Diet at its next sitting, and in
the event of the same not being approved they become null and void.
To my mind, one of the most interesting portions of the Constitution
is that which lays down succinctly and tersely the rights and duties
of Japanese subjects. In this section there are contained within about
fifty lines the declaration of innumerable rights for which mankind in
various parts of the world during many hundreds of years fought and
bled and endured much suffering. Just let me mention a few of them. No
Japanese subject shall be arrested, detained, tried or punished unless
according to law. Except as provided by law the house of no Japanese
subject shall be entered or searched without his consent. Except in
the cases provided by law, the secrecy of the letters of every
Japanese subject shall remain inviolate. The right of property of
every Japanese subject shall remain inviolate. Japanese subjects shall
enjoy freedom of religious belief. Japanese subjects shall enjoy
liberty of speech, writing, publication, public meetings and
associations. Japanese subjects may present petitions. We have in
these few brief provisoes the sum total of everything that, in effect,
constitutes the liberty of the subject.
The Diet of Japan, like the Parliament of Great Britain, consists of
two Houses--a House of Peers and a House of Representatives. The House
of Peers is composed of (1) the members of the Imperial family, (2)
Princes and Marquises, (3) Counts, Viscounts and Barons who are
elected thereto by the members of their respective orders, (4) persons
who have been specially nominated by the Emperor on account of
meritorious service or by reason of their erudition, (5) persons who
have been elected, one member for each city and prefecture of the
Empire, by and from among the taxpayers of the highest amount of
direct national taxes on land, industry, or trade, and who had
subsequently received the approval of the Emperor. It will be seen
that the members of the Imperial family, the Princes and Marquises,
have an inalienable right to sit in the House of Peers, the latter
rank on attaining the age of 25 years. In regard to Counts, Viscounts,
and Barons there is no such right. Those ranks, like the Peers of
Scotland and Ireland, meet together and select one-fifth of their
number to represent them in the House of Peers for a term of seven
years. Any subject over thirty years of age nominated by the Emperor
for meritorious service or erudition remains a life member. Those
returned by the cities and prefectures remain members for a period of
seven years. It is provided by the Constitution that the number of
members of the House of Peers who are not nobles shall not exceed the
number of the members bearing a title of nobility.
The question of the necessity for the existence of a second chamber
and the composition thereof has been keenly debated in this and other
countries of recent years. It seems to me that in this matter Japan
has hit upon the happy mean. She has combined in her House of Peers
the aristocratic or hereditary element in a modified degree with the
principle of life membership by which she secures the services and
counsel of the great intellects of the land, and such as have done the
State good service in any capacity. At the same time she has not
excluded the representative element from her second chamber--a fact
which must largely obviate any possibility of the House of Peers
becoming a purely class body. A second chamber so constituted must
obviously serve an extremely useful purpose in preserving an
equilibrium between political parties, in preventing the rushing
through and passing into law of hastily considered measures. For the
composition of her second chamber, Japan has taken all human means
possible to obtain whatever is representative of the stability, the
intellect, the enterprise and the patriotism of the country.
The composition of the House of Representatives, which answers to our
House of Commons, is as interesting as that of the Upper Chamber. When
the Constitution was first promulgated the principle of small
electoral districts obtained, one member being elected for each
district. This system was found or believed to be faulty, and hence,
after some years' experience, large electoral districts combined with
a single vote have been instituted. It may be interesting to relate
that both systems, the large and the small districts, were drafted by
an Englishman, Mr. Thomas Hair. Cities whose population exceeds 30,000
are formed into separate electoral districts while a city with less
than 30,000 inhabitants is, with its suburbs, constituted a district.
The number of members allowed to each district depends on the
population. For a population of 130,000 or under one member is
allowed, and for every additional 65,000 persons above the former
number an additional member is allotted. The number of members in the
House of Representatives is 381, or little over half that of which our
House of Commons consists. The population of the two countries is
almost identical, and experience serves to show that the number of
Members of Parliament in Japan is sufficiently numerous for all
practical purposes and that any material addition thereto would be
more likely to impede than to accelerate the wheels of legislative
progress. Neither the Japanese Constitution nor the Electoral Law
makes any provision for the representation of minorities, that aim of
so many well-meaning persons in different countries. In Japan the
majority rules as everywhere, and minorities must submit.
Manhood suffrage is not yet a _fait accompli_ in Japan. Under the
present law to qualify a Japanese subject to exercise the franchise he
must pay 15 yen (about 30s.) or more, indirect taxation. Only a
Japanese subject can vote at elections. No foreigner has any electoral
rights, but if he becomes a naturalised Japanese subject he obtains
all the privileges appertaining to that position.
Each House of Parliament in Japan possesses a president and
vice-president, who are elected by the members. The president of each
House receives an annual allowance of 4,000 yen (about £400) and the
vice-president 2,000 yen (about £200). The payment of Members of
Parliament is in vogue in Japan. The elected and nominated, but not
the hereditary, members of the House of Peers, and each member of the
House of Representatives, receives an annual allowance of 800 yen
(about £80). They are also paid travelling expenses in accordance with
the regulations on the subject. It may be interesting to state that
there is a clause in the Constitution which enacts that the president,
vice-president, and members of the two Houses who are entitled to
annual allowances shall not be permitted to decline the same! It says
much for the estimate of patriotism entertained in Japan when the
Constitution was promulgated that such a clause as this should have
been considered necessary.
Debate in both the Japanese Houses of Parliament is free and the
proceedings public. There will be no occasion for the uprising of a
Wilkes in Japan to obtain permission to publish Parliamentary Debates.
The Constitution, however, contains a proviso for the sitting of
either House with closed doors upon the wish of the president or of
not less than ten members, the same being agreed to by the House, or
upon the demand of the Government with or without the consent of the
House. When in the former event a motion for a secret sitting is made,
strangers have to withdraw from the House and the motion is voted on
without debate. The proceedings of a secret meeting of either Chamber
are not allowed to be published.
The Japanese Constitution, which is certainly a document containing
not only provisions of an epoch-making nature but most elaborate
details in regard to even minor matters, includes in seven or eight
lines one or two excellent rules in regard to what is termed "The
Passing of the Budget." Under these rules, when the Budget is
introduced into the House of Representatives the Committee thereon
must finish the examination of it within fifteen days and report
thereon to the House, while no motion for any amendment in the Budget
can be made the subject of debate unless it is supported by at least
thirty members.
The Constitution of Japan, as I have remarked, contains a vast amount
of detail. The framers of that Constitution seem to have been endowed
with an abnormal amount of prevision. In fact they foresaw the
possibility of occurrences and made provision for those occurrences
that nations which are, or which consider themselves to be, more
highly civilised have not yet taken any adequate steps to deal with.
For example, Article 92 of the Constitution enacts that in neither
House of Parliament shall the use of coarse language or personalities
be allowed, while Article 93 declares that when any member has been
vilified or insulted either in the House or in a meeting of a
Committee he shall appeal to the House and demand that proper measures
shall be taken. There shall, it is decreed, be no retaliation among
members. The Constitution also contains several salutary regulations
in reference to the disciplinary punishment of members.
The establishment of a Parliament in Japan has produced parties and a
party system. I suppose that was inevitable. In every country there
is, and as human nature is constituted there always will be, two
parties representative of two phases of the human mind: the party in a
hurry to effect progress because it deems progress desirable, and the
party that desires to cling as long as possible to the ancient ways
because it knows them and has had experience of them and looks askance
at experiments--experiments for which that somewhat hackneyed phrase a
"leap in the dark" has long done service. I have no intention, as I
said in the Preface, of dealing at all with Japanese politics. There
is no doubt a good deal of heat, and the resultant friction, evoked in
connection with politics in Japan as elsewhere. Perhaps this young
nation--that is, young from a parliamentary point of view--takes
politics too seriously. Time will remedy that defect, if it be a
defect. At the same time, I may express the opinion that, however
severe party strife may be in Japan, and though the knocks given and
received in the course thereof are hard and some of the language not
only vigorous but violent, the members of all parties have at heart
and as their objective point the advancement of Japan and the good of
the country generally.
The Japanese Constitution, though not a very lengthy, is such an
all-embracing document that in a hurried survey of it, it is possible
to overlook many important features. It provides for the establishment
of a Privy Council to deliberate upon important matters of State, but
only when consulted by the Emperor. It enforces the responsibility of
the Ministers of State for all advice given to the Emperor and decrees
that all laws, Imperial ordinances and Imperial rescripts of any kind
relating to affairs of State, must be countersigned by a Minister of
State. The Constitution also defines the position, authority, and
independence of the judges. That Constitution contains a proviso
all-important in reference to the upright administration of the law, a
proviso which it took years of agitation to obtain in this country,
that no judge shall be deprived of his position unless by way of
criminal sentence or disciplinary punishment. All trials and judgments
of the court of law are to be conducted publicly. Provision is made,
when there exists any fear of a trial in open court being prejudicial
to peace and order or to the maintenance of public morality, for the
same to be held in camera. I may add, before I take leave of the
Constitution, with a view of showing how all-embracing as I have said
are the various matters dealt with therein, that it defines and
declares that the style of address for the Emperor and Empress shall
be His, Her, or Your Majesty, while that for the Imperial Princes and
Princesses shall be His, Her, Their, or Your Highness or Highnesses.
In regard to no matter connected with Japan have I found so large an
amount of misconception prevalent as in reference to the position of
the Emperor of that country. The divine descent which is still
sometimes claimed for the sovereigns of Japan and which has never, so
far as I know, been officially repudiated, has caused some persons to
regard the Emperor from a somewhat ludicrous standpoint. In this very
prosaic and materialistic age, when very few persons have profound
beliefs on any subject, the spectacle of one of the sovereigns of the
earth still claiming a divine origin is one that appeals to the
ludicrous susceptibilities of that vague entity "the man in the
street." It is not well, however, that people should criticise
statements in royal proclamations or in royal assertions too
seriously. Even in this country there are documents issued from time
to time bearing the royal sign manual which every one regards as
interesting but meaningless formalities--interesting because they are
a survival of mediæval documents which meant something some hundreds
of years ago and still remain though their meanings have long since
lapsed. And yet there are persons in this country who peruse such
documents and know that they are simply words signifying practically
nothing, who severely criticise the assertion of a long-used title by
the Japanese Emperor upon issuing a royal proclamation. I am not aware
whether his Imperial Majesty or his Ministers of State implicitly
accept his divine descent, but this I do know--that those persons who
regard the present Emperor of Japan as a State puppet, arrogating more
or less divine attributes, are labouring under a profound delusion.
There is no abler man in Japan at the present moment. There is no
abler man among the sovereigns of the world. In fact, I should be
inclined to place the Emperor of Japan at the head of the world's
great statesmen. He is no monarch content to reign but not to govern,
concerned simply about ceremonial and the fripperies and gew-gaws of
royalty. He is a constitutional sovereign certainly. He has always
shown the deepest respect for the Constitution ever since its
promulgation, and never in the slightest degree attempted to infringe
or override any portion of it. At the same time he is an effective
force in the Government of Japan. There is nothing too great or too
little in the Empire or in the relations of the Empire with foreign
Powers for his ken. He, in a word, has the whole reins of government
in his hands, and he exercises over every department and detail of it
a minute and rigid supervision which is, in my opinion, largely
responsible for the efficiency of the internal administration of the
country as also for the place that Japan holds among the Great Powers
of the world.
I cannot leave a consideration of this subject without referring to
the assistance rendered to the Emperor by, as also to the debt Japan
owes to, some six or seven great men in that country whose names I
shall not inscribe here because to do so would be to some extent
invidious, several of whom do not, as a matter of fact, hold any
formal position in the Government of the country. The wisdom of these
men has been a great boon for such a country as Japan, and if she is
not now as sensible of it as she ought to be future ages will, I feel
sure, recognise the debt that Japan owes to them. Some persons with an
intimate knowledge of Japan have told me that it is not, after all, a
constitutional State but in effect, though not in name, an oligarchy.
This word has in the past often had unpleasant associations, and one
does not like to apply it in reference to the Government of a
progressive and enlightened country. Still the word strictly means
government by a small body of men, and if in those men is included
the larger part of the wisdom of the country, and they exercise their
power solely and exclusively for the benefit of the country, I am not
certain that such a form of government is not the best that could be
devised. Of course, humanity being as it is, an oligarchy, has its
dangers and its temptations. I will say, however, of the wise men of
Japan, the men to whom I have been referring and who whether in office
or out of office have exercised, and must continue to exercise, a
marked and predominant influence on the government of the country,
that their patriotism has never been called in question, and no one
has at any time suggested that they were influenced by self-seeking or
other unworthy motives, or had any aspirations save the material and
moral advancement of Japan and her elevation to a prominent position
among the Great Powers of the world.
CHAPTER VI
THE PEOPLE--THEIR LIFE AND HABITS
After all, the life of the people is the most interesting, as I think
it is the most instructive, matter connected with any country. It is
assuredly impossible to form a clear or indeed any correct idea in
regard to a nation unless we know something of the manners and
customs, the daily life, the amusements, the vices of its people.
Unless we can, as it were, take a bird's-eye view of the people at
work and at play, at their daily avocations in their homes, see them
as they come into the world, as they go through life's pilgrimage,
and, finally, as they pay the debt of nature and are carried to their
last resting-place in accordance with the national customs, with the
respect or the indifference the nation shows for its dead.
If one is to arrive at a correct idea regarding the life and habits of
the Japanese people it is, I think, essential to get away from the
ports and large towns where they have been influenced by or brought
much into contact with Europeans, and see them as they really are,
free from conventionalities, artificialities, and the effects of
Western habits and customs which have undoubtedly been pronounced in
those centres where Europeans congregate.
The house in Japan does not play the important part it does in this
country. When a man in England, whatever his station in life may be,
contemplates taking a wife and settling down, as the phrase goes, the
home and the contents thereof become an all-important matter and one
needing much thought and discussion. In Japan there is no such
necessity. A Japanese house is easily run up--and taken down. The
"walls" are constructed of paper and slide in grooves between the
beams of the floor which is raised slightly above the ground. The
partitions between the rooms can easily be taken down and an
additional room as easily run up. The house is, as a rule, only one
storey high. The carpets consist of matting only, and practically no
furniture is necessary. A witty writer on Japan has aptly and wittily
remarked that "an Englishman's house may be his castle, a Japanese's
house is his bedroom and his bedroom is a passage." The occupant of
this house sits on the floor, sleeps on the floor, and has his meals
on the floor. The floor is kept clean by the simple process of the
inhabitants removing their boots, or what do duty for boots, and
leaving them at the entrance, so as to avoid soiling the matting with
which the floor of each room is covered. This is a habit which has
much to commend it, and is, I suggest, worthy of imitation by other
countries. After all, the Japanese mode of life has a great deal to be
said in its favour. It seems strange at first, but after the visitor
to the country has got over his initial fit of surprise at the
difference between the Japanese domestic economy and his own, he will,
if he be a man of unprejudiced mind, admit that it certainly has its
"points."
The bulk of the population is poor, very poor, but that poverty is not
emphasised in their homes to the same extent as in European countries.
The house--a doll's house some irreverent people term it--with paper
partitions doing duty for walls, white matting, a few cooking
utensils costs only a few shillings. It can, as I have said, be taken
down and run up easily, and enlarged almost indefinitely. The
inhabitants sleep on the floor, and the bedding consists not as with
us of mattresses, palliasses, and other more or less insanitary
articles, but of a number, great or small, and elaborate or otherwise,
in accordance with the means of the owner, of what I will term quilts.
The Japanese pillow is a fearful and wonderful article. I can never
imagine how it was evolved and why it has remained so long unimproved.
It is made of wood and there is a receptacle for the head. The
European who uses it finds that it effectually banishes sleep, while
the ordinary Japanese is apparently unable to sleep without it. In
most houses, however poor, a kakemono, or wall picture, is to be seen.
It is usually the only decoration save an occasional vase containing
flowers, and of course flowers themselves, which are in evidence
everywhere. Light is, or used to be, given by a "lamp," a kind of
Chinese lantern on a lacquer stand, the light being given by a rush
candle. I am sorry, however, to say that these in some respects
artistic lanterns are being generally replaced by hideous petroleum or
kerosene lamps, not only ugly but a constant source of danger in these
flimsy houses.
The most important accessory of nearly all Japanese houses is the
bath-room, or wash-house, to use a more appropriate term. The hot bath
is a universal institution in the country, and nearly every Japanese
man and woman, whatever his or her station in life, washes the body
thoroughly in extremely hot water more than once daily. The Japanese,
as regards the washing of their persons, are the cleanest race in the
world, but many hygienic laws are set at defiance possibly because
they are not understood. A gradual improvement is, however, taking
place in these matters, and the cleanliness as regards the body and
their houses, which is such a pleasing feature of the people, will no
doubt extend in other directions also.
Japanese houses are habitable enough in warm weather, but in
winter-time they are, as might be expected, exceedingly cold,
especially as the arrangements for warming them are of an extremely
primitive nature. Those complaints which are induced or produced by
cold are prevalent in the country.
The food of the people is as simple as their houses, and as
inexpensive. A Japanese family it has been calculated can live on
about £10 a year. A little fish, rice, and vegetables, with incessant
tea, is the national dietary. The people living on this meagre fare
are, on the whole, a strong and sturdy race, but it is questionable if
the national physique would not be vastly improved were the national
diet also. I have touched on this matter elsewhere, so I need not
refer to it further here. Tobacco is the constant consoler of the
Japanese in all his troubles. Why he smokes such diminutive pipes I
have never been able to understand. They only hold sufficient tobacco
for a few whiffs, and when staying in a Japanese house the constant
tap, tap, tap of the owner's pipe as he empties the ashes out prior to
refilling it reminds one of the woodpecker.
There are doubtless some persons, especially those persons who
consider that to enjoy life a superabundance or even a plethora of
material comforts are necessary, who, after reading a description of
the home and fare of the Japanese peasant, will assume that his life
is a burden and that he derives no enjoyment whatever from it. Nothing
could be more erroneous. There is probably not a more joyous being on
the face of the globe than the Japanese. His wants are few, and in
that fact probably lies his happiness. He does not find his enjoyment
in material things, but he has his enjoyment all the same, and I think
on the whole that he probably gets more out of life and has more
fitting ideas regarding it than the Englishman who considers an
abundance of beef and beer its objective point.
To me one of the most pleasing features of Japan is the fondness and
tenderness of the Japanese of all ranks and classes for children. The
Japanese infant is the tyrant of Japan, and nothing is good enough for
it. The women, as most people know, carry their babies on their backs
instead of in their arms. A baby is, however, not so for very long in
Japan. Very young Japanese girls may be seen carrying their little
baby brothers and sisters behind their backs, and thus learning their
maternal duties in advance. The position of women in Japan, married
women, is not so satisfactory as it ought to be. The laws in regard to
divorce are, I think, too easy, and a Japanese possesses facilities
for getting rid of his wife which does not tend to the conservation of
home-life. The custom, which was at one time universal, of women
blackening their teeth, has largely diminished, and will no doubt in
due course become obsolete. The idea which underlay it was that the
woman should render herself unattractive to other men. There was no
object in having such an adventitious attraction as pearly teeth for
her husband, who might be presumed to know what her attractions really
were. The Japanese woman in her education has inculcated three
obediences, viz., obedience to parents, obedience to husband, and
after the death of the latter obedience to son. Although the Japanese
girl comes of age at 14 she cannot marry without her father's consent
until she is 25.
The dress of the Japanese people is so well known that it is not
necessary for me to describe it. The kimono is, I think, a graceful
costume, and I am very sorry that so many women in the upper classes
have discarded the national dress for European garments. Japanese
women who wear the national costume do not don gloves. If their hands
are cold they place them in their sleeves, which are long and have
receptacles containing many and various things, including a
pocket-handkerchief, which is usually made of paper, and sometimes a
pot of lip-salve to colour the lips to the orthodox tint. The poorer
classes, of course, do not go in for such frivolities. Talking of
paper handkerchiefs reminds me of the innumerable uses to which paper
is put in Japan; it serves for umbrellas and even for coats, and is
altogether a necessity of existence almost for the great mass of the
people.
I have referred to the lack of what may be deemed material comforts in
Japan, as also to the fact that the Japanese are a joyous race but
that their enjoyment is not of a material nature. They are, in fact,
easily amused, and their enjoyment takes forms which would hardly
appeal to a less emotional people. In the large towns the theatre is a
perennial source of amusement. I have referred to the theatre in the
chapter dealing with the drama, and remarked therein that the excess
of by-play, irrelevant by-play, in a Japanese drama was rather
wearisome to the European spectator. Not so to the Japanese. He
positively revels in it. The theatre is for him something real and
moving. He has, whatever his age, all the zest of a youth for plays
and spectacles. How far the Europeanising of the country, which is
having, and is bound still further to have, an effect on dramatic art,
will affect the amusements of the people and their proneness for the
theatre remains to be seen. There is so far nothing approaching the
English music-hall in Japan. Let me express a hope that there never
will be. It is a long cry from the graceful Geisha to the inanities
and banalities which appear to be the stock-in-trade of music-hall
performances in this country. These appear to meet a home want, but I
sincerely trust they will be reserved for home delectation and not be
inflicted in any guise upon Japan. The matter of music-halls suggests
some reference to the ideas of the Japanese in respect of music. The
educated classes appear to have an appreciation of European music, but
Japanese music requires, I should say, an educational process. Some
superficial European writers declare that the Japanese have not the
least conception of either harmony or melody, and that what passes for
music in the country is simply discord. It might have struck these
writers that criticism of this kind in reference to a most artistic
people could hardly be correct. Any one who has listened to the Geisha
or heard the singing of trained Japanese would certainly not agree in
such statements as I have referred to. Japanese music is like Japanese
art--it has its own characteristics and will, I am sure, repay being
carefully studied.
Festivals and feasts, religious and otherwise, which are many and
varied, afford some relaxation for the people. There are, according to
a list compiled, some 28 religious festivals, 16 national holidays,
and 14 popular feast-days. New Year's Day is termed Shihohai, and on
it the Emperor prays to all his ancestors for a peaceful reign. Two
days subsequently, on Genjisai, he makes offerings to him and all his
Imperial ancestors, while two days later still all Government officers
make official calls. These are legal holidays. The 11th of February
(Kigen Setsu) and the 3rd of April (Jimmu-Tenno-sai) are observed as
the anniversaries respectively of the accession to the throne and the
death of Jimmu-Tenno, the first Emperor. The 17th of October
(Shinsho-sai) is the national harvest festival. On this day the
Emperor offers the first crop of the year to his divine ancestor,
Tenshoko Daijin. It may be interesting to record that the 25th of
December (Christmas Day), is observed as a holiday by the Custom-house
department "for the accommodation of foreign employees."
The popular festivals are equally interesting and curious. The 3rd of
March (Oshinasama), is the girls' or dolls' festival, while the 5th of
May (Osekku), is the boys' festival, or Feast of Flags. A three days'
festival, 13th-15th of July (Bon Matsuri), is the All Souls' Day of
Japan in honour of the sacred dead. The 9th of September (Kikku No
Sekku), is the festival of chrysanthemums, the national flower, and
the 20th of November, appropriately near the Lord Mayor of London's
day, is the festival held by the merchants in honour of Ebisuko, the
God of Wealth. The Feast of Flags--the boys' festival--is one much
esteemed by the Japanese people. On the occasion of it every house the
owner of which has been blessed with sons displays a paper carp
floating from a flagstaff. If a male child has come to the
establishment during the year the carp is extra large. It is
considered a reproach to any married woman not to have this symbol
flying outside the house on the occasion of this feast. Why the carp
has been selected as a symbol is a matter upon which there is much
difference of opinion. The carp, it is said, is emblematic of the
youth who overcomes all the difficulties that lie in his path during
life, but I confess I rather fail to see what connection there is
between this fish and such an energetic youth. On this day the boys
have dolls representative of Japanese heroes and personages of the
past as well as toy swords and toy armour. On the girls' festival--the
Feast of Dolls--there is no outward and visible display. The fact of a
girl having been born in the family is not considered a matter to be
boasted of. On this feast there is a great display indoors of dolls.
As a matter of fact dolls form a very important part of the heirlooms
of every Japanese family of any importance. When a girl is born a pair
of dolls are procured for her. Dolls are much more seriously treated
than they are in European countries, where they are bought with the
full knowledge that they will quickly be destroyed. In Japan the dolls
are packed away for nearly the whole of the year in the go-down, and
are only produced at this particular festival. I may add that not only
the dolls themselves but furniture for them are largely in request in
Japan, and that this dolls' festival is really a very important
function in the national life.
New Year's festival is the great day of the year in Japan. In this
respect it approximates to our Christmas. Not only the houses but the
streets are decorated, and every town in the land has at this
particular season an unusually festive appearance. At this period
visits are exchanged, and New Year's presents are the correct thing.
On the Bon Matsuri, or All Souls' Day, the Japanese have a custom
somewhat similar to that which obtains in Roman Catholic countries on
the 2nd of November. On the first night of the feast the tombs of the
dead during the past year are adorned with Japanese lanterns. On the
second night the remaining tombs are likewise decorated, while on the
third night it is the custom, although it is now somewhat falling into
desuetude, for the relatives of the dead to launch toy vessels made of
straw laden with fruit and coins as well as a lantern. These toy
ships have toy sails, and the dead are supposed to sail in them to
oblivion until next year's festival. These toy ships, of course, catch
fire from the lanterns. Not so very many years ago the spectacle of
these little vessels catching fire on some large bay was a very pretty
one. I am afraid this feast has a tendency to die out--a fact which is
greatly to be regretted, as there is behind it much that is poetical
and beautiful.
Wrestling, as most people know, is a favourite amusement of the
Japanese, and wrestling matches excite quite as much interest as
boxing used to do in this country. Of late years English people have
taken much interest in Ju Jitsu. The Japanese style of wrestling is
certainly peculiar, and training does not apparently enter so much
into it as is considered essential in reference to displays of
strength or skill in this country. One sometimes sees very expert
Japanese wrestlers who are not only fat but bloated.
The Japanese have long been celebrated archers, and archery, though it
is largely on the wane, is much more in evidence than is the case in
this country. It is an art in which a great many of the people excel,
and archery grounds still exist in many of the towns.
Marriages and christenings have important parts in the social life of
the people. These ceremonies, however, are not quite so obtrusive as
they are in Western lands. As regards christenings, if I may use such
a term in reference to a non-Christian people, the first, or almost
the first, ceremony in reference to the infant in Japan is, or used to
be, the shaving of its head thirty days after birth, after which it
was taken to the temple to make its first offering, a pecuniary one,
to the gods. This shaving of babies is no doubt diminishing, at any
rate in the large towns. Indeed, everything in regard to the
dressing of and dealing with the hair in Japan is, if I may use the
term, in a state of transition.
[Illustration: STREET SCENE ON NEW YEAR'S DAY
FROM A PRINT BY HIROSHIGE]
Some writers on Japan have been impressed by the fact that the
Japanese appear to be more concerned about the dead than the living.
Ancestor worship plays an important part in the religious economy of
Japanese life, and, as I have shown, the All Souls' Day in Japan is an
important national festival. But the respect that these people have
for their dead is not shown only on one or two or three days of the
year; it may be deduced from a visit to any of their cemeteries. These
are nearly always picturesquely situated, adorned with beautiful
trees, and exquisitely kept in order. Indeed, the cemeteries are in
striking contrast to those of European countries. The hideous and
inartistic tombstones and monuments, the urns and angels, and the
stereotyped conventionalities of graveyards in this country are all
absent. There is usually only a simple tablet over each grave bearing
the name of the deceased and the date of his death, and occasionally
some simple word or two summing up succinctly those qualities he had,
or was supposed to have, possessed. Near each grave is usually a
flower-vase, and it is nearly always filled with fresh flowers. As I
have remarked, flowers play an important part in the lives of the
Japanese people, and with them no part is more important than the
decoration of the graves of their dead. In England flowers also play
an important part in connection with the dead--on the day of the
funeral. It is then considered the correct thing for every one who
knew the deceased to send a wreath to be placed upon his coffin. These
wreaths, frequently exceedingly numerous, are conveyed to the
cemetery, where they are allowed to rot on top of the grave. To me
there is no more mournful sight than a visit to a great London
cemetery, where one sees these rotting emblems, which quite palpably
meant nothing save the practice of a conventionality. The Japanese,
however poor his worldly circumstances may be, is not content with
flowers, costly flowers on the day of the funeral; he places his vase
alongside the grave of the departed, and by keeping that vase filled
with fresh and beautiful flowers he sets forth as far as he possibly
can his feeling of respect for the dead and the fact that the dead one
still lives in his memory.
One cannot study, however cursorily, the lives of the Japanese people
on the whole without being convinced of the fact that there is among
them not only a total absence of but no desire whatever for luxury.
The whole conception of life among these people seems to me to be a
healthy and a simple one. It is not in any way, or at any rate to any
great extent, a material conception. The ordinary Japanese--the
peasant, for example--does not hanker after a time when he will have
more to eat and more to drink. He finds himself placed in a certain
position in life, and he attempts to get the best out of life that he
can. I do not suggest, of course, that the Japanese peasant has ever
philosophically discussed this matter with himself or perhaps thought
deeply, if at all, about it. I am merely recording what his view of
life is judging by his actions. He, I feel confident, enjoys life. In
some respects his life no doubt is a hard one, but it has its
alleviations, and if I judge him aright the ordinary Japanese does not
let his mind dwell overmuch on his hardships, but is content to get
what pleasure he can out of his surrounding conditions.
One very pleasing characteristic of the Japanese men and women to
which I have already referred is the habit of personal cleanliness.
In every town in the country public baths are numerous, and every
house of any pretensions has a bath-room. The Japanese use extremely
hot water to wash in. The women do not enter the bath immediately upon
undressing, but in the first instance, throwing some pailsful of water
over the body, they sit on the floor and scrub themselves with bran
prior to entering the bath, performing this operation two or three
times. Men do not indulge in a similar practice, and I have never been
able to understand why this different mode of bathing should obtain in
reference to the two sexes. In houses possessing a bath-room the bath
consists merely of a wooden tub with a stove to heat the water. The
bath is used by the whole family in succession--father, mother,
children, servants. Shampooing also forms an important part of the
Japanese system of cleanliness. It is not, as in this country,
confined to the head, but approximates to what we term massage, and
consists in a rubbing of the muscles of the body--a fact which not
only has a beneficial effect physically, but is also efficacious in
the direction of cleanliness.
Nearly every house in Japan possesses a garden, and the garden is a
source of perpetual delight to every Japanese. He is enabled to give
full vent therein to his love of flowers. Some critics have found
fault with Japanese gardens on account of their monotony. Miniature
lakes, grass plots, dwarfed trees, and trees clipped and trained into
representations of objects animate and inanimate are the prevailing
characteristics. A similar remark might, however, be made in regard to
the gardens of, say, London suburban houses, with this exception--that
the Japanese gardens show infinitely more good taste on the part of
the cultivators of them. These little gardens throw a brightness into
the life of the people which it is impossible to estimate.
In the chapter which I have devoted to the religions of the Japanese
people, I have remarked that religion appears to be losing its
influence upon the educated classes of the country, who are quickly
developing into agnostics. No such remark can, however, be made in
reference to the great mass of the Japanese people. For them religion
is an actuality. Take it out of their lives and you will take much
that makes their lives not only enjoyable but endurable. As a writer
on Japan has somewhat irreverently observed, the Japanese "is very
chummy with heaven. He just as readily invokes the aid of his
household gods in the pursuit of his amours as in less illegitimate
aspirations. He regards them as kind friends who will help, rather
than as severe censors who have to be propitiated." The spiritual
aspect of the Deity has not, I think, entered at all into the
conceptions of the ordinary Japanese. His ideas in regard to God or
the gods--his pantheon is a large and a comprehensive one--are
altogether anthropomorphic. Every action of his life, however small,
is in some way or other connected with an unseen world. In this
matter, Buddhism and Shintoism have got rather mixed, and, as I have
elsewhere said, if the founder of Buddhism were reincarnated in Japan
to-day, he would find it difficult to recognise his religion in some
of the developments of Buddhism as it exists in Japan. Nevertheless,
this anthropomorphic idea of God, however it may fit the Japanese for
the next world, undoubtedly comforts him in this. The religious
festivals, which are numerous, are gala days in his life, and the
services of religion bring him undoubtedly much consolation. But he
does not of necessity go to a temple to conduct that uplifting of the
heart which is, after all, the best service of man to the Creator.
Every house has its little shrine, and although some superior persons
may laugh at the act of burning a joss-stick, or some other trivial
act of worship, as merely ignorant superstition, I think the
unprejudiced man would look rather at the motive which inspired the
act. If this poor ignorant native burns his joss-stick, makes his
offering of a cake, lights a lamp in front of an image, or takes part
in any other act which in effect means the lifting up of his soul to
something higher and greater than himself that he can now only see
through a glass darkly, surely he ought not to be condemned. At any
rate I will pass no condemnation on him. Outside the accretions which
have undoubtedly come upon Buddhism and Shintoism in the many
centuries they have existed in Japan, I desire once more to emphasise
the fact, to which I have previously made reference, that both these
religions have had, and I believe still have, a beneficial effect,
from a moral point of view, on the Japanese people. There is nothing
in their ethical code to which the most censorious person can raise
the slightest objection. They have inculcated on the Japanese people
through all the ages, not only the necessity, but the advisability of
doing good. Buddhism, in particular, has preached the doctrine of
doing good, not only to one's fellow-creatures but to the whole of
animate nature. These two religions have, in my opinion, placed the
ethical conceptions of the Japanese people on a high plane.
In my remarks on the people of Japan I do not think I can more
effectually sum up their salient characteristics than has been done by
the writer of a guide to that country. "The courtly demeanour of the
people," he says, "is a matter of remark with all who visit Japan, and
so universal is the studied politeness of all classes that the casual
observer would conclude that it was innate and born of the nature of
the people; and probably the quality has become somewhat of a national
characteristic, having been held in such high esteem, and so
universally taught for so many centuries--at least, it seems to be as
natural for them to be polite and formal as it is for them to breathe.
Their religion teaches the fundamental tenets of true politeness, in
that it inculcates the reverence to parents as one of the highest
virtues. The family circle fosters the germs of the great national
trait of ceremonious politeness. Deference to age is universal with
the young. The respect paid to parents does not cease when the
children are mature men and women. It is considered a privilege as
well as an evidence of filial duty to study the wants and wishes of
the parents, even before the necessities of the progeny of those who
have households of their own."
I do not think that it is necessary for me to add much to these wise
and pregnant remarks. The more one studies the Japanese people, the
more I think one's admiration of them increases. They have, in my
opinion, in many respects arrived, probably as the result of the
accumulated experience of many ages, at a right perception and
conception of the philosophy of life. Judged from the highest, and as
I think only true, standpoint, that is the standpoint of happiness not
in a merely material but in a spiritual form, they have reached a
condition that but few nations have yet attained. They may provoke the
pity of the man who believes in full diet and plenty of it, and who
fails to comprehend how a people living on a meagre fare of fish and
rice can be contented, much less happy, but the Japanese in his
philosophy has realised a fact that happiness is something other than
material, and that a man or woman can be largely independent of the
accidentals of life and can attain a realisation of true happiness by
keeping under the, too often, supremacy of matter over mind in the
average human being.
CHAPTER VII
TRADE--COMMERCE--AND INDUSTRIES
Nothing is perhaps so strongly indicative of the progress that Japan
has made as the record of her trade and commerce. I have no intention
of inflicting on my readers a mass of figures, but I shall have to
give a few in order to convey some idea as to the country's material
development of recent years. Japan, it must be recollected, is in her
youth in respect of everything connected with commerce and industry.
When the country was isolated it exported and imported practically
nothing, and its productions were simply such as were necessary for
the inhabitants, then far less numerous than at present. When the
Revolution took place trade and commerce were still at a very low ebb,
and the Japanese connected with trade was looked upon with more or
less of contempt, the soldier's and the politician's being the only
careers held much in esteem. For innumerable centuries the chief
industry of Japan was agriculture, and even to-day more than half of
the population is engaged thereon. Partly owing to religious
influences, and partly from other causes, the mass of the people have
been, and still are in effect, vegetarians.
The present trade of Japan is in startling contrast with that of her
near neighbour China, which, with an area about twenty-three times
greater, and a population nearly nine times as large, has actually a
smaller volume of exports. All the statistics available in reference
to Japan's trade, commerce, and industries point to the enormous and
annually increasing development of the country. Indeed, the trade has
marvellously increased of recent years. Since 1890 the annual value of
Japan's exports has risen from £5,000,000 to £35,000,000, the imports
from £8,000,000 to £44,000,000. That the imports will continue in
similar progression, or indeed to anything like the same amount, I do
not believe. Japan of recent years has imported machinery, largely
from Europe and America, and used it as patterns to be copied or
improved upon by her own workmen. Out of 25 cotton-mills, for example,
in Osaka, the machinery for one had been imported from the United
States. The rest the Japanese have made themselves from the imported
pattern. There were also in Osaka recently 30 flour-mills ready for
shipment to the wheat regions of Manchuria. One of these mills had
been imported from America, while the remaining 29 have been
constructed in Osaka at a cost for each of not more than one-fifth
that paid for the imported mill.
Shortly after peace had been declared between Russia and Japan, the
Marquis Ito is reported to have said to Mr. McKinley: "You need not be
afraid that we will allow Japanese labourers to come to the United
States. We need them at home. In a couple of months we will bring home
a million men from Manchuria. We are going to teach them all how to
manufacture everything in the world with the best labour-saving
machinery to be found. Instead of sending you cheap labour we will
sell you American goods cheaper than you can manufacture them
yourselves." The Japanese Government seems to some extent to be going
in for a policy of State Socialism. The tobacco trade in the Empire is
now entirely controlled by the Government. The Tobacco Law
extinguished private tobacco dealers and makers, the Government took
over whatever factories it deemed suitable for the purpose, built
others, and now makes a profit of about £3,000,000 sterling annually,
while the tobacco is said to be of a superior quality and the workmen
better paid than was the case under private enterprise. How far Japan
intends to go in the direction of State Socialism I am not in a
position to say. Many modern Japanese statesmen are quite convinced of
the fact that the private exploitation of industry is a great evil and
one that ought to be put a stop to. On the other hand, there are
Japanese statesmen who are firmly convinced that the State control of
industries can only result in the destruction of individual initiative
and genius, with the inevitable result of reducing everybody to a dead
level of incompetence. In this matter Japan will have, as other
nations have had, to work out her own salvation. In the process of
experiment many mistakes will no doubt be made, but Japan starts with
this advantage in respect of State Socialism, precisely as in regard
to her Army and Navy--that her statesmen, her leading public men, her
great thinkers, have no prejudices or preconceived ideas. All they
desire is that the nation as a whole shall boldly advance on that path
of progress by the lines which shall best serve to place the country
in a commanding position among the Great Powers of the world, and at
the same time to promote the happiness, comfort, and prosperity of the
people.
The Japanese are great in imitation, but they are greater perhaps in
their powers of adaptation. They have so far shown a peculiar faculty
for fitting to Japanese requirements and conditions the machinery,
science, industry, &c., necessary to their proper development. Japan
is without doubt now keenly alive, marshalling all her industrial
forces in the direction of seeking to become supreme in the trade and
commerce of the Far East. The aim of Japanese statesmen is to make
their country self-productive and self-sustaining. We may, I think,
accordingly look forward to the time, not very far distant, when Japan
will cease to import machinery and other foreign products for which
there has hitherto been a brisk demand, when she will build her own
warships and merchant steamers, as she now partially does, and
generally be largely independent of those Western Powers of which she
has heretofore been such a good customer.
At the present time the chief manufactures of the country are silk,
cotton, cotton yarn, paper, glass, porcelain, and Japan ware, matches
and bronzes, while shipbuilding has greatly developed of recent years.
The principal imports are raw cotton, metals, wool, drugs, rails and
machinery generally, as well as sugar and, strange to say, rice. Japan
exports silk, cotton, tea, coal, camphor and, let me add, matches and
curios. The trade in the latter has assumed considerable proportions,
and I fear I must add that much of what is exported is made
exclusively for the European market. According to the latest figures,
the country's annual exports amounted to about £35,000,000, and its
imports to about £44,000,000. I venture to prophesy that these figures
will ere long be largely inverted.
Silk is the most important item of Japan's foreign trade. The rearing
of silkworms has been assiduously undertaken from time immemorial, or
"the ages eternal" according to some Japanese historians. Like so many
other arts and industries of the country, silkworms are believed to
have been introduced from China. For some time prior to the opening of
Japan to European trade and influences the silk industry had rather
languished owing to the enforcement of certain sumptuary laws
confining the wearing of silk garments to a select class of the
community, but so soon as Japan discarded her policy of isolation from
the rest of the world the production of and demand for silk rapidly
increased, and the trade in it has now assumed considerable
dimensions. Strange to say, silk is still in Japan what linen was at
one time in the North of Ireland--a by-industry of the farmer, a room
in his house being kept as a rearing chamber for the silkworms, which
are carefully looked after by his family. According to official
returns, there are rather more than two and a half million families so
engaged, and nearly half a million silk manufacturers. The largest
part of the silk exported goes to the United States of America.
Closely allied with the production of silk is the mulberry-tree, the
leaves of which form the staple food of the silkworm. This plant is
cultivated with great care throughout the country, and indeed there
are many mulberry farms entirely devoted to the culture of the tree
and the conservation of its leaves.
Rice, as I have elsewhere stated, forms the principal article of food
of the Japanese people. Japan at present does not produce quite
sufficient rice for the consumption of her population, and a large
quantity has, accordingly, to be imported. The danger of this for an
island country has been quite as often emphasised by Japanese
statesmen as the similar danger in respect of the wheat supply of
Great Britain has been by English economists. Many practical steps
have been taken on the initiative of the Japanese Government in the
direction of improving the cultivation of rice, the irrigation of the
fields, &c. As time goes on no doubt the food of the people will
become more varied. Indeed, there has been a movement in that
direction, especially in the large towns. A nation which largely lives
on one article of diet, the production of which is subject to the
vicissitudes of good and bad harvests, is, it must be admitted, not in
a satisfactory position in reference to the food of its people.
If rice is the national food, tea is emphatically the national
beverage, despite the large consumption of saké and the increasing
consumption of the really excellent beer now brewed in Japan. Like
most other things, the tea-shrub is said to have been imported into
Japan from China. Almost since the opening of the country, the United
States has been Japan's best customer in respect of tea, and she has
from time to time fallen into line with the requirements of the United
States Government in regard to the quality of tea permitted to be
imported into that country. For instance, when, in 1897, the United
States Legislature passed a law forbidding the importation of tea of
inferior quality and providing for the inspection of all imported tea
by a fixed standard sample, the Tea Traders Association of Japan
established tea inspection offices in Yokohama and other ports, and
all the tea exported from the country was and still is passed through
these offices. The tea is rigidly tested, and if it comes up to the
required standard is shipped in bond to the United States. The quality
of the tea is thus amply guaranteed, and it, accordingly, commands a
high price in the American Continent. The value of the tea exported to
the United States amounts to something like £1,200,000, and there are
no signs of any falling off in the demand for it. Canada is also a
good customer of Japan for the same article, but Great Britain and the
other European countries at present take no Japanese tea. I do not
know why this is the case as the tea is really excellent, and it has,
as regards what is exported, the decided advantage of being inspected
by experts and the quality guaranteed. The tea industry is undoubtedly
one of great national importance, the total annual production
amounting to about 65,000,000 pounds, the greater portion of which is,
of course, consumed in the country.
I have already referred to the importance of Japanese arboriculture,
and to the steps taken by the Japanese Government in reference to the
administration of forests and the planting with trees of various parts
of the country not suitable for agriculture. The State at the present
time owns about 54,000,000 acres of forests, which are palpably a very
great national asset. I may mention that the petroleum industry is
growing in Japan. The quantity of petroleum in the country is believed
to be very great, and every year new fields are being developed. The
consumption of oil by the people is considerable, and it is hoped that
ere long Japan will be able to produce all that she requires. The
petroleum is somewhat crude, providing about 50 per cent. of burning
oil.
Tobacco, as I have elsewhere remarked, is now a State monopoly, and
forms a considerable item in the State revenue. The quality has much
improved since the manufacture of it has ceased to be a private
industry. The Japanese are inveterate smokers, and the intervention of
the State in this matter, although it has been criticised by political
economists in the country and out of it, and is undoubtedly open to
criticism from some points of view, has, I think, been justified by
results. The making of sugar from beetroot has been attempted in
Japan, but the results have not been over-successful. The efforts in
this direction are, however, being persisted in, and it is hoped that,
especially in Formosa, the beet--sugar industry may develop in
importance.
The manufacture of paper in Japan has long been an important national
industry. Paper has been and still is used there for many purposes for
which it has never been utilised in European countries. Originally it
was largely made from rice, and the mulberry shrub has also been used
for paper manufacture. The rise and development of a newspaper press
in Japan and the impetus given to printing has, of course, largely
increased the demand for paper. This is being met by the adaptation of
other vegetable products for the purpose of making paper, and it seems
quite certain that Japan will be totally independent of any
importation of foreign paper to meet the great and greatly increasing
demand for that article in the country.
Salt is, I may remark, a Government monopoly in Japan. No one except
the Government, or some person licensed by the Government, is allowed
to import salt from abroad, while no one can manufacture salt without
Government permission. Salt made by salt manufacturers is purchased by
the Government, which sells it at a fixed price. This particular
monopoly has only recently been established, and the reason put
forward for it is a desire to improve and develop the salt industry
and at the same time to add to the national revenue. Whether a
monopoly in what is a necessary of life is economically defensible is
a question, to my mind, hardly open to argument. That the revenue of
the country will benefit by the salt monopoly is unquestionable.
As might have been expected, the opening up of Japan to Western
influences has induced or produced, _inter alia_, some Western forms
of political and social and, indeed, socialistic associations. The
antagonism between capital and labour and the many vexed and intricate
questions involved in the quarrel are already beginning to make
themselves felt in Japan. It was, I suppose, inevitable. Labour is an
important factor in an industrial nation like Japan, and there is
already heard the cry--call it fact or fallacy as you choose--with
which we are now so familiar in this country and on the Continent,
that labour is the source of all wealth. Japan will no doubt, like
other countries, sooner or later have to face a solution of the
problems involved in these recurring disputes and this apparently
deep-rooted antagonism between the possessors of wealth and the
possessors of muscle. Already many associations have been established
whose aim and object is to voice the sentiments of labour and assert
its rights. Indeed, there is a newspaper, the _Labour World_, the
champion of the rights of the Japanese workmen. So far the law in
Japan does not regard with as tolerant an eye as is the case in this
country labour demonstrations and the occasionally reckless oratory of
labour champions. The police regulations forbid the working classes
embarking in collective movements and demonstrating against their
employers in the matter of wages and working hours. A suggestion of a
strike of workmen is officially regarded with an unfriendly eye, and
strikes themselves, picketing, and various other Western methods of
coercing employers to come round to the views of the employed, would
not at present be tolerated in Japan. No doubt these Western devices
will assert themselves in time. The attempt to keep down the effective
outcome of labour organisation in a country with an enormous labour
population is not likely to be successful for long. Socialism is
making great progress in Japan, and the State has, whether consciously
or not, given it a certain amount of countenance by the steps it has
taken in reference to the tobacco and salt industries, &c. The extent
to which newspapers are now read in Japan--a matter I refer to more
fully in another chapter--will undoubtedly tend to mould public
opinion to such a degree that no Government could afford to resist it.
[Illustration: RICE PLANTING, PROVINCE OF HOKI
FROM A PRINT BY HIROSHIGE]
The trade, commerce, and industries of Japan appear to me to be, on
the whole, in a healthy and flourishing condition. In them, and of
course in her industrious population, Japan possesses a magnificent
asset. The country is rich in undeveloped resources of various kinds,
the people are patriotic to a degree, and I feel sure that the
additional burdens which the recent war with Russia has for the time
entailed will be cheerfully borne. I am confident, moreover, that
under the wise guidance of the Emperor and her present statesmen Japan
will make successful efforts to liquidate her public debt, to relieve
herself of her foreign liabilities, and generally to proceed
untrammelled and unshackled on that path of progress and material
development that, I believe, lies before her, and which will, I am
sure, at no far-distant date place her securely and permanently in the
position of one of the Great World Powers.
CHAPTER VIII
JAPAN'S FINANCIAL BURDENS AND RESOURCES
There are a good many people, some so-called financial experts among
the number, who are of opinion, and have expressed themselves to that
effect, that the financial position of Japan is an unsound one. They
depict that country as weighed down with a load of debt, mostly
incurred for her warlike operations against Russia, and the revenue as
largely mortgaged for the payment of the interest on that debt. Some
of these experts have told us that the facility with which Japan was
able to raise loans on comparatively moderate terms in the European
money-markets, and the rush that was made by investors to subscribe to
her loans, are matters which must have a baneful effect on the rulers
of Japan. These latter, we are assured, found themselves in the
position not only of being able to raise money easily, but of
positively having to refuse money which was forced upon them by eager
investors when the Japanese loans were put upon the market. The result
was, so it has been said, to encourage extravagance in expenditure and
to lead Japan to suppose that whenever she wanted money for any
purpose she had only to come to Europe and ask for it. The financial
experts who so argue, if such puerile assertions can be dignified by
the name of argument, talk as if Japan were like a child with a new
toy. The Japanese statesmen--in which term I of course include the
Mikado, one of the world's greatest statesmen--are by no means so
simple as some of these financial experts would have us believe.
Indeed, I will go further, and venture to assert that the statesmen
are far more astute than the experts. The former emphatically know
what they are about, financially and otherwise, and they are assuredly
in no need of any Occidental giving them a lead in the matter. If I
desired to adduce any evidence on that head I need only point to the
_Financial and Economical Annual of Japan_, published every year at
the Government printing office in Tokio. This exhaustive work deals
with the different departments of Government. The section I have
before me, which is for the year 1905, treats of the Department of
Finance and it certainly serves, and very effectively serves, to show
that the Japanese are not, as they so often have been depicted,
children in matters of this kind. This Government handbook is not only
exhaustive but illuminative. Published in English, everything of which
it treats is explained in simple and concise language. There is an
entire absence of that official jargon which tends, even if it is not
intended, to render Government publications in this country
unintelligible to the ordinary reader. The plain man who peruses this
Japanese year-book can at least understand it, and he will, among
other things, grasp the fact that the Japanese have got the whole
question of finance in all its ramifications at their fingers' ends.
The total National Debt of Japan in 1905 amounted to 994,437,340 yen,
or, roughly, £100,000,000 sterling--a sum which the publication I have
referred to works out to be at the rate of 19.548 yen, or about 39s.
per head of the population. Of the debt some £43,000,000 was incurred
to defray a part of the cost of the war with Russia. As an indication
of the estimate of the credit of Japan within her own territory as
well as abroad, I may record the fact that the Exchequer Bonds which
were issued in the country in 1904 and 1905 for the purpose of
defraying the extraordinary expenses of the war were largely
over-subscribed, the first issue to the extent of 452 per cent., the
second 322 per cent., the third 246 per cent., and the fourth 490 per
cent.--a record surely! Abroad Japan's loans were no less successful.
The three issues made in Europe during the war were literally rushed
for by the investing public, with the result that whereas in May,
1904, Japan offered for subscription a loan of £10,000,000, the issue
price being £93 10s. and the rate of interest 6 per cent., in March,
1905, despite the fact of two previous loans and the exhaustion of the
country incidental to a long and expensive war, she was able to place
on the market a loan of thirty millions at 4½ per cent. interest, the
issue price being £90.
A National Debt which amounts to less than £2 per head of the
population compares very favourably with that of Great Britain, which
totals up to something like £19 per head, leaving out of account the
immense and yearly growing indebtedness of our great cities and towns.
Furthermore, almost the whole of the National Debt of this country, as
of the European Powers generally, has been incurred not only for
unproductive, but as a matter of fact for destructive purposes. The
vast loans of Europe have been raised for the purpose of waging bloody
wars, some at least of which history has pronounced to have been
gigantic, not to say wicked, blunders. Much of the National Debt of
Japan, on the contrary, has been incurred for useful, productive, and
even remunerative purposes--improving the means of transport,
constructing railways, &c. The various loans outstanding up to the
year 1887, on which Japan was paying very high rates of interest, as
much as 9 per cent. on one foreign loan, were in that year converted
and consolidated by the issue of a loan bearing interest at the rate
of 5 per cent. per annum--a proceeding which materially improved
Japan's financial position and demonstrated that her credit stood
high.
The war with China in 1894-5 necessitated fresh borrowing to the
amount of over £12,000,000. Subsequent loans were issued in order to
extend the railway system of the country and so develop its trade, for
such public works as the establishment of a steel foundry, the
extension of the telephone system, the introduction of the leaf
tobacco monopoly, for the development of Formosa and, another most
important matter, the redemption of paper-money. In the early days of
her expansion Japan suffered greatly from the evils of inconvertible
paper-money and strenuous efforts had for a long time been made by the
Government for the redemption of the paper-money and the improvement
of the general financial condition. In 1890 it was found that the
reserve fund kept in the Treasury for the exchange of paper-money of
1 yen and upwards was insufficient to meet the demand. To meet this
emergency, the maximum amount of convertible bank-notes issued by the
Bank of Japan against securities was increased from 70,000,000 yen
(£7,169,927) to 85,000,000 yen (£8,706,340), of which sum 22,000,000
yen were advanced to the Government without interest. This sum added
to the original reserve fund of 10,000,000 yen (£1,024,275) was
employed for completing the redemption of paper-money of 1 yen and
upward. Subsequent loans for the purposes of the war with Russia I
have already referred to. Besides funded Japan has also, like this
country, had experience of unfunded debt in the shape of Treasury
Bills, temporary loans from the Bank of Japan, &c. Financial
operations of this kind are, however, I imagine, necessary for all
Governments to meet current expenses. To briefly recapitulate Japan's
indebtedness and borrowings generally up to the end of March, 1905,
these amounted to, in all, £140,045,030, of which sum £38,187,369 has
from time to time been paid off, leaving a balance of £101,857,661
owing by the nation.
When we consider that for this large, but not unduly large, sum Japan
has waged two considerable wars, and raised herself to the position of
a great naval and military Power, that she has developed and organised
a magnificent Army, provided herself with a strong, efficient, and
thoroughly up-to-date Navy, has constructed railways and public works,
and generally has placed herself in a capital position to work out her
own destiny free from the fear of foreign interference, I altogether
fail to see how she can be accused of financial extravagance. There is
certainly no extravagance in the administration of her finances.
London might, I suggest, learn much from Tokio in this matter. The
system of financial check and thorough and rapid audit of public
accounts is in Japan as near perfection as anything of the kind can
be. Though the late war did produce, as I suppose all wars do,
peculation, most of it was discovered and the punishment of the
culprits was sharp and decisive. There was no opportunity for
financial scandals in the campaign with Russia such as occurred during
the South African War. Every country, of course, produces rogues, and
war seems, _inter alia_, to breed roguery on a large scale, but in the
Japanese methods of finance the checks are so effective that roguery
in the public services has a bad time of it in war as well as in
peace.
As I have already remarked, I am of opinion the debt of Japan is by no
means excessive, especially in view of the fact that a large part of
it has been devoted to purposes which are profitable. The debt works
out, as I have shown, at something under £2 per head of the
population, and that population is steadily increasing. That Japan is
well able to pay the interest on her debt there can be no question
whatever, and that when the present debt becomes due for redemption
she will be able to raise the necessary funds for that purpose on
terms even more favourable than those at which she has hitherto placed
her loans I am confident. I must emphasise the fact, since so many
persons seem to be oblivious of it, that this is no mushroom South
American Republic borrowing money merely for the purpose of spending
it on very unproductive and occasionally very doubtful objects, but a
Great World Power sensible of its obligations, sensible likewise of
the policy and necessity of maintaining the national credit, and
confident that the national resources and the patriotism of its people
will enable it not only to bear the present financial burdens but even
greater, should these be found necessary for the defence of the
country or for its development.
The ability of a nation as of an individual to discharge its debts
depends of course upon its resources. No man possessing even a
perfunctory knowledge of the resources of Japan would surely venture
to express alarm at the increase in her debt and scepticism as to her
being able to meet the annual interest on that debt as well as the
constantly increasing expenses of administration. The resources of the
country have, in my opinion, as yet scarcely been realised, and
certainly have not been anything like fully developed. And when I use
the word resources I do not employ it as it is so often employed in
respect of minerals, although the mineral wealth of Japan is
considerable. Her resources, as I estimate them, are to be found in
her large and rapidly increasing population--a population perhaps the
most industrious in the world, persevering, enterprising, methodical,
and performing, whatever be its appointed task, that task with all its
might as a labour of love, in fact, not as the irksome toil of the
worker who is a worker simply because he can be nothing else. It is
this great industrial hive which in the near future will supply China
and other Eastern countries with all, or nearly all, those articles
they now obtain elsewhere. What I may term the European industries of
Japan have of recent years been largely developed or evolved. Take,
for example, an item, insignificant in one way--that of matches. In
1904 matches to the value of 9,763,860 yen, or, roughly, one million
sterling, were exported, and, strange to relate, European clothing to
the value of 287,464 yen.
The glib people who talk about Japan biting off more than she can
chew, and with a light heart borrowing money she will find a
difficulty in repaying, have apparently not grasped the fact that
Japan possesses many very eminent financiers who have quite as much,
if not more, claim to be considered financial experts than some of
those gentlemen who pose in that capacity here in England. The
Japanese financiers have, moreover, the advantage of an intimate
knowledge of their own country and its potentialities. The Japanese
Government has always had the benefit of the advice of these
singularly able men, and the result has been that its financial
operations of recent years at any rate have invariably been well
organised and skilfully and economically effected. I cannot speak too
highly of the capacity shown by the Japanese in everything relating to
banking. The Banks--of course I refer to the National Banks and not to
the European Banks having branches in the country--have very quickly
attained a high status in the International Banking world, and are
undoubtedly on a very firm financial basis. And there are many great
houses in Japan which, although not ostensibly bankers, cannot be left
out of consideration in any remarks on this head. They occupy a
position somewhat analogous to that of the Rothschilds in this
country. Let me take for example the house of Mitsui, the name of
which constantly crops up in Japanese finance.
The history of this ancient house has much that is picturesque about
it, reminding one of the old merchant princes of Venice. The family
originally belonged to the Jujiwara clan, and its origin is traced
back to a certain Mitsui who lived as a feudal lord in the fifteenth
century. At the time of the fall of the Ashikaja Shogun he lived in a
state of perpetual war, and the god of war was not propitious to him.
He retired to a neighbouring village and became the overlord of the
district. He was succeeded by his son, who removed to Matsusuzaka,
where he settled down as a private citizen and man of business, and
laid the foundations of the present Mitsui house. In the middle of the
sixteenth century his descendant became a merchant. His son moved to
Kyoto, where he started a large goods store, which is represented in
Tokio to-day by the Mitsui Hofukuten. Subsequently, at the beginning
of the seventeenth century, a member of the same house invented and
introduced the system of retailing for cash, which was an absolute
revolution of business methods at that time in Japan. In addition to
that he organised an excellent system for the remittance of money from
one part of the country to the other, as also a carrier's
business--two very remarkable facts when one remembers in what a
primitive and elementary condition of development the monetary
business of Japan was at that period. In the year 1687 the Mitsuis
were appointed by the Government purveyors and controllers of the
public exchange, and in recognition of the excellent manner in which
the duties were performed, they were given the grant of a large estate
in Yeddo.
In 1723 the head of the family, carrying out the verbal wishes of his
father, assembled his brothers and sisters and then and there drew up
in writing a set of family rules which have ever since been
practically the articles of association of the house of Mitsui. These
rules embodied on business-like lines and in business-like language
the principle that the family and not the individual forms the
ultimate union in Eastern life. It was not one or the other of the six
brothers of which the family consisted when these rules were drawn up
that was to trade, but the whole family as one unit. There was to be
unlimited liability as far as the property of each one was concerned,
and the profits of all were to be divided. This agreement is the
identical one under which the great house of Mitsui is run to-day.
Under it the family prospered exceedingly, so that when Japan decided
to take on some portion of Western civilisation, the Mitsuis acted as
the principal financial agents of the Government, and it was mainly
owing to the enormous financial resources of the house placed by them
at the disposal of the Government that the country was enabled at the
period of the revolution to pass successfully through what might have
been a most disastrous crisis. As some reward for the great services
rendered at the time, the present head of the house was created a
peer. Since the opening of Japan to Western influence the business of
the Mitsuis has enormously increased, and has been extended in various
directions. In 1876 their money exchange business was converted into a
Bank on the joint stock system, but with unlimited liability as far as
the Mitsui family was concerned. In the same year, for the purpose of
engaging in general foreign trade, the Mitsui Bussan Kwiasha was
formed, better known in Europe and America as Mitsui & Co. In 1899 the
family acquired from the Government the concession of the Meike
coal-mines, and there was then formed the Mitsui Kaishan, or Mining
Department, which has the management of this mining concession
together with many others which have since been acquired.
To-day the house of Mitsui consists of eleven families under a system
of joint liability bound together by the old rules drawn up close upon
two centuries back. The wealth of the collective families is
unquestionably great, and the confidence of the people of Japan in
this great financial firm is shown by the immense amount of money it
holds on deposit. In one or other branches of their varied businesses
they give employment to a very large number of persons. They have
initiated an exceedingly interesting system of insurance for their
employees. Each is allowed 10 per cent. interest on his wages up to
three years on condition of its being deposited in the Mitsui Bank,
with the proviso that the sum shall be forfeited in case of the
embezzlement of any of the Company's money. During the late war, as
well as in that with China, the Mitsui house had immense transactions
with the Government in providing war material, steamers for transport,
supplies, &c., and their magnificent organisation enabled them to
carry out their various undertakings without the slightest hitch. I
may also add that the name of Mitsui headed the various charitable
funds which were started in the country in connection with the war. I
am sure that this necessarily imperfect sketch of this famous Japanese
house will convince my readers of the fact that in finance, as in
other respects, Japan has already shown a capacity for holding her own
with Western nations.
I have headed this chapter "Japan's Financial Burdens and Resources,"
but I am not quite sure that the word "burdens" is not a misnomer.
Japan appears to me--and I may claim to have studied the matter with
some little attention--to have no financial burdens, if burdens be
taken to mean something that is inconveniently felt, that is difficult
to carry. There is here no people weighed down under the crushing
incubus of debt. There is a springiness and alertness, a go-ahead
energy about the nation--symptoms not usually connected with the
carrying of burdens. Japan seems to me to be in somewhat the same
position in regard to finance as France was after the close of the war
with Germany when the former nation found itself saddled with a
tremendous debt incurred for war expenditure and the indemnity which
had to be paid to the conquering nation. The fact, however, as we all
know, instead of depressing the French people seems to have put the
whole country on its mettle, with the result that the heavy interest
of the enormous debt was easily met and effective steps taken to
reduce the principal. The borrowings of Japan in Europe in the future
are likely to be small, because she will be able to obtain what she
needs at home, and provided she is not drawn into any war she will
find her expanding revenue sufficient not only for the current
expenses of administration as well as for the interest on her debt,
but over and above all this enabling her year by year to provide a
sinking fund which will in due course materially reduce even if it
does not entirely extinguish the national indebtedness. In my opinion
Japan can look forward to its financial future with equanimity. In
regard to its financial past it has the satisfaction of thinking that
heavy in one sense though its financial obligations be they have not
at any rate been squandered for unworthy purposes.
CHAPTER IX
EDUCATION
In England a vast amount was last year heard respecting education.
Speakers on platforms and writers in newspapers and other periodical
literature day by day and week by week for many months kept pouring
forth words, words, words on this matter. It is not my intention to
refer at all beyond what I have said to the somewhat lively education
controversy in England which even as I write is by no means ended. Any
such reference would be out of place in a book of this kind, and even
were it not I confess I have no inclination whatever to rush into this
particular fray. But it seems to me a curious fact that other
countries, Japan amongst the number, have long since settled, and
apparently settled satisfactorily, a problem which here in England is
still under discussion, acrid discussion, and is yet quite evidently
far from being permanently solved. The provisions and arrangements a
nation has made for the education of its youth are, to my mind, an
excellent test of the precise standard to which its civilisation has
attained; because the future of a nation is with its youth, and that
future must largely depend on the extent to and the manner in which
its youth have been taught not only all those subjects which are
commonly classified as knowledge but their duties and responsibilities
as citizens. Judged by this test, Japan has every right to rank high
among the nations of the world. And it can also be said of her in this
matter that the education of her people is no new thing. It is not one
among the many things she has learned from the West. Education was in
vogue in Japan when that country was isolated from the rest of the
world. Certainly Japan's contact with Europe and America has vastly
improved her educational system, enabling her, as it has done, to
utilise to the full the great advance there has been in scientific
knowledge of every description during the last half-century or so.
But, as far back as the seventh century, if history or tradition be
correct, an educational code was promulgated in Japan. Certainly this
code was limited in its application to certain classes, but education
was gradually extended throughout the country, and even in days
somewhat remote from the present time every member of the Samurai
class was expected to include the three R's, or the Japanese
equivalent of them, in his curriculum. The ordinary Samurai was, in
fact, as regards reading and writing an educated man at a time when
British Generals and even British Sovereigns were somewhat hazy in
regard to their orthography and caligraphy.
Soon after the Revolution of 1868 a Board of Education was instituted
in Japan, and the whole educational system of the country--because one
had existed under the rule of a Tycoon--was taken in hand and
reorganised. Three years later a separate Department of Education was
formed at a time almost synonymous with the setting up of School
Boards in England. As soon as it got itself into working order the
Education Department despatched a number of specially selected
Japanese to various European countries as well as to the United States
of America to inquire into and report upon the system of education in
existence and its suitability for adaptation or adoption in Japan.
When these representatives returned from their mission and sent in
their reports a code was compiled and the Mikado, in promulgating it,
declared the aims of his Government to be that education should be so
diffused throughout the country that eventually there might not be a
village with an ignorant family nor a family with an ignorant member.
It was a noble ideal, and I may remark that, though of course it has
not been realised in all its fulness and probably will not be for very
many years to come, it has been to a larger extent attained than a
somewhat similar ideal which the late Mr. Forster is supposed to have
entertained in reference to the effect of the Education Act which
established a system of compulsory education for England and Wales.
In succeeding years various changes were made in the system of
national education, and in 1883 that which now exists was brought into
force. This is in effect compulsory education. Since education was
first organised on any plan in Japan the number under instruction has
steadily risen, and at present more than 90 per cent. of the children
regularly attend school. In 1873 the number was 1,180,000; it is now
over 5,000,000. There are about 29,000 primary schools, of which about
6,500 are higher primary schools with a million pupils. The total cost
of the primary schools is somewhere about £3,000,000.
The question will no doubt be asked, What kind of education do these
5,000,000 pupils receive, and to what extent is it adapted to make
them good citizens of a great Empire? The subjects taught in the
ordinary primary schools embrace morals, the Japanese language,
arithmetic and gymnastics. One or more subjects, such as drawing,
singing, or manual work may be added, and, in schools for females,
sewing. In the higher primary schools the subjects of instruction
include morals, the Japanese language, arithmetic, Japanese history,
geography, science, drawing, singing, and gymnastics, and, in schools
for females, sewing. Besides these agriculture, commerce, and manual
work, as well as the English language, are optional subjects. The
moral lessons taught in these schools, I may remark, are not based
upon any particular religious doctrines or dogmas, but are entirely
and absolutely secular.
Children have to be 6 years of age before commencing their scholastic
education, and have to remain at school until they have attained 14
years. The parents or guardians of children are compelled to send them
to school to complete, as a minimum of education, the ordinary primary
school course. Education in the higher primary schools is not
compulsory, and it is, accordingly, a pleasing fact that 60 per cent.
of those children who have passed through the ordinary schools
voluntarily go to the higher primary schools.
Every municipal or rural community is compelled to maintain one or
more primary schools sufficient, as regards size and the number of the
staff, to educate all the children in the district. The establishment
of higher primary schools is voluntary, and that so many of them are
in existence is ample proof that the benefit of higher education is
fully appreciated in Japan. Instruction in all the schools is
practically free. No fee may be charged save with the consent of the
local governor, and when one is imposed it must not exceed the
equivalent of 5d. per month in a town school and half that sum in a
rural school.
As regards secondary education, it is compulsory for one school to be
established in each of the forty-seven prefectures into which Japan is
divided. The course of study at the secondary schools extends over
five years, with an optional supplementary course limited to twelve
months. The curriculum of the secondary school embraces morals, the
Japanese and Chinese languages, one foreign language, history and
geography, mathematics, natural history, physics and chemistry, the
elements of law and political economy, drawing, singing, gymnastics,
and drills. The course of study is uniform in all Japanese schools.
Candidates for admission to the secondary schools must be over 12
years of age, and have completed the second year's course of the
higher primary school. There are about three hundred of the secondary
schools in existence--a number, as will be seen, six times as large as
that obliged to be established by law. The pupils number over a
hundred thousand and the cost approximates £500,000.
There are also 170 high schools for girls besides normal schools in
each prefecture designed to train teachers for the primary and
secondary schools. The course of study in these schools is for men
four years, for women three years. The whole of the pupils' expenses,
including the cost of their board and lodging, is paid out of local
funds. There are also higher normal schools designed to train teachers
for the ordinary normal schools. It will thus be seen that there is a
systematic course of education for what I may term the common people
in Japan, extending from the higher normal to the ordinary primary
school.
There are besides in Japan higher schools, the object of which is to
prepare young men for a University education. The expense of these
schools is entirely borne by the State. Japan prides herself, and
justly, in being unique in the possession of such schools. The course
of study in them extends over three years and is split up into three
departments. The pupils select the particular department into which
they desire to enter, and their selection, of course, depends on the
precise course of study they intend to take up on entering the
University. The first department is for those who propose to study law
or literature, the second for those who mean to go in for engineering,
science, or agriculture, and the third for aspirants as medical men.
Candidates for admission to these schools must be over 17 years of age
and have completed the secondary school course.
A reference to these higher schools naturally leads up to the Imperial
University of Tokio, as well as the kindred University at Kyoto. There
are six colleges in the former, viz., law, medicine, engineering,
literature, science, and agriculture, while Kyoto University possesses
four colleges, viz., law, medicine, literature and science, and
engineering. When the Imperial University was established almost all
the Professors therein were Europeans or Americans, but there has been
a material alteration in this respect, and now the foreign Professors
are few. Most of the Japanese instructors have, however, been educated
abroad. The course of study extends over four years in the case of
students of law and medicine, and three years in the case of students
of other subjects. There is not the same freedom in regard to study as
exists at Oxford, Cambridge, and some other more or less leisurely
seats of learning. In the Japanese Universities the students have to
enter upon a regular prescribed course of study with some few optional
subjects. The Universities confer degrees in law, medicine,
engineering, literature, science, and agriculture. The examinations
leading up to and for the degrees are much more severe than those in
any University in this country, with the possible exception of that of
London. It may interest my readers to learn that the largest number of
degrees are taken in law, the smallest in science. We have heard a
great deal of recent years respecting technical education in Great
Britain, which many persons suggest is at a very low ebb. For what is
in one sense a new country, Japan seems to have taken steps to provide
an excellent system of technical education. There are a small number
of State higher technical schools, agricultural, commercial, and
industrious. Technical schools of lower grades are maintained by
prefectures and urban bodies, and they receive grants in aid from
national funds. There are in all about four hundred technical schools
in the country. The few facts respecting education in Japan which I
have put as tersely as possible before my readers, should, I think,
convince them of the fact that in regard to this all-important
question Japan has made and is making vigorous efforts--and efforts
all of which are in the right direction. It must be remembered that in
the education of her youth she has to face difficulties which are
altogether unknown in this as in other European countries. One of
these difficulties is the fact that Japanese literature is more or
less mixed up with Chinese literature, and, accordingly, it is
necessary for the Japanese to learn Chinese as well as Japanese
characters, and also to study the Chinese classics. Another difficulty
is the one I touched on in my remarks on the Japanese language, viz.,
the difference between the written and spoken languages of Japan. In
old times the written and spoken languages were no doubt identical,
but Chinese literature influenced the country to so great an extent
that the written language in time became more and more Chinese, while
the spoken dialect remained Japanese. The consequence is that the
written language is more or less a hotch-potch of Chinese characters
and the Japanese alphabet. Whether it will be possible to overcome
these obvious difficulties remains to be seen. Several remedies have
been proposed but none has so far been adopted. One remedy was the use
of the Japanese alphabet alone for the written language, another the
introduction and adoption of the European alphabet. Manifestly the
difficulty of effecting such a change as the adoption of either of
these plans would involve would be enormous. Still the retention of
the present complicated system is without doubt the great obstacle in
the way of educational progress in Japan, and it speaks eloquently for
the patience and pertinacity of the youth of that country that they
have effected so much in so short a time in view of the difficulties
that have had to be encountered.
The strong points of the youth of Japan in the matter of education
are, in my opinion, their great powers of concentration and their
indomitable application to study and perseverance in whatever they
undertake. Of their powers of absorption of any subject there can be
no question. It has been urged, as against this, that the Japanese
possess the defect not uncommon among people of any race, viz., that
the capacity for rapidly assimilating knowledge is to some extent
counteracted or rendered abortive by an incapacity to practically
apply that knowledge. I may say for myself that though I have often
heard this objection urged I have not seen any indications of this
lack of ability to practically apply knowl
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