THE CRAZES OF THE JAP

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 160, 8 July 1899, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE CRAZES OF THE JAP

THE LATEST IS "OUP NOBLE SELVES AND OUR GPEAT DOINGS."

Japan is the land par excellence of crazes, of ephemeral fads and crotchets. Her people have been called by observers more ambitious of smartness than of veracity—the French of the East; but the' title does scant justice—to the French. The Gaul is a temperate, immobile, steadfast man, of relentless and unswerving purpose, compared with the average of this nation of weathercocks.

The Japanese blow hot and cold, front friendships and enmities, change their clothes, their politics, their creeds, alter everything down to the very names of their towns, with such startling rapidity that the dazed foreign observer at times hardly knows where he —and the nation—stands.

Already the craze—hot and strong ■while it lasted —for an AngloJapnnese entente has pretty well died out. The Japanese papers are laughing heartily at the absurdity of the whole thing, pointing out the impossibility of countries with interests so conflicting ever making common cause, and hinting even ithat the points of contact between Japan and Great Britain are not numerous or important.

It: is only history repeating itself. Japan's- life as a modern nation has been one succession of crazes, great and small. The whole country went mad over the

MIGHTY QUESTION OF RABBITS 'in'lß73. : Rabbits were unknown in Japan, and when they were first introduced every up-to-date Japanese yearned to be the possessor of a lopeared pet. The craze lasted a year. Extravagant prices, as much as £150 apiece, wgje paid for choice speci-'ine'hs.,''Then'''<-ame a' reaction.' Babbits could be had at three a penny.

There have been many other fads, for cock-fighting, bicycling, whist, Waltzing, German manners, customs, and institutions, mesmerism, wrestling, joint stock companies. From the effects of the last the country is still Buffering. Some time ago Christianity was the "fashioh." Now bitter hostility is being shown to the Christians. The native papers are continually recording noisy demonstrations at Christian meetings. The Western religion is denounced by Buddhist lecturers, eager to profit by the state of public opinion, as anti-national and seditious. Those who remember with what favour Christianity was looked on some years ago, when'it seemed not unlikely that Japan" might be suddenly Christianised by imperial edict some fine .morning, will appreciate

THE GREATNESS OP THE CHANGE.

Even linguistic reform is viewed With disfavour. It is not very long ago since one enthusiast actually proposed that the whole Japanese language should be abolished as incompatible with progress, and that English should be substituted for it!

Now even those modern^ reformers who would simplify or do away with the clumsy character writing are frowned on as unpatriotic, and the Diet refused the other day to vote a few dollars for a commission of inquiry into the question. I have seen extracts from school text books which show that the young idea in Japan is instilled with notions of the barbarism and superstition of foreign nations, and is told that Japanese morality is fEtr superior to that of the West —a quaintly amusing idea. All these things may be trifles, but they indicate pretty fairly the current of public opinion.

The officials, it must be conceded, do not encourage this spirit. The few cool heads who have the care of the country are wise enough not to foster a tendency which may lead to very dangerous places. But even officialdom has. been influenced by the prevailing illiberality of feeling. There is not i a European filling any post which can possibly—it is not a question of comparative efficiency—be filled by a Japanese* Englishmen—only a very few — formed Japan's navy. Englishmen founded her mint. Englishmen have had the chief hand in her railways. Her system of education came

DIRECT FROM AMERICA. Her fist law code was the work of a Frenchman. Germans founded her medical schools.

I Everything modern in the country has been achieved under the direction of the foreign employee, but the chorus of congratulation she has received from Sir Edward Arnold and equally acute and masculine observers has caused Japan, to have a little lost her head and actually come to believe that she has accomplished of ncr own initiative the whole vast task of her Europeanisation.

: Japan's present cock-sureness of attitude does not promise so well for her future advance as did the patient docility which distinguished her early pupilage.. At the best things are now at.a standstill;' at the worst there may be said to be absolute retrogression in some ways. The country, may outlive the craze, as it has outlived other crazes, but it is the most foolish and most mischievous of the whole series of national caprices.—Yokohama correspondent of the "Daily Mail.'