ONE MUST KNOW JAPAN

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 142, 18 June 1938, Page 2 (Supplement)

ONE MUST KNOW JAPAN

We Cover the World

A COUNTRY, a culture, a people, has a distinct personality. It is infinitely varied—just as the human units that make up that nation, that people; just as the historical events in its centuries of evolution; just as its mills and looms, the brushes of its artists, and the pens of its writers, or the notes of its singers, are varied. Running through all are certain unchangeable threads of colour and life, of motivation and particular psychological outlook, of traditions, religion and so much else that is unchangeable through the ages and through the generations of men and women in which they manifest themselves. * It is these permanent and enduring and continuing threads that make up the personality of a nation, a people, and a culture. I sought out Japan, sought to know and become acquainted with it as one would know an intimate friend. And because the past and the present and the future fate of Japan and China are so intertwined as to be inseparable— albeit each is most distinct unto itself— I sought out China also. This chapter, then, will tell of how I m«-, and gruw to know Japan, and to some extent China, but not much about what a great man I really am. I shall disregard all newspaper rules and training and make it very personal—show myself, perhaps, as something of a conceited ass by a continual use of the First Person Perpendicular. ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ Japan makes its first deep impression on the new arrival as he disembarks at Yokohama and travels by fast electric train or by motor car up the intervening 19 miles to the capital, Tokyo. That first impression is one of surprise that Japan is not Btranger than it shows itself. There is disappointment, for the newcomer has looked forward to seeing a land of almost painful beauty, of kimono-clad maidens under bowers of cherry or wistaria blossoms, of uniquely attractive streets lined with queerly shapen buildings and filled with trotting rickshaw men, and the perfection of a flawless Fujiyama smiling down benignly over all. Instead of this he finds a people peculiarly lacking in beauty of body and face, many gal-bed in coat and trousers that all too often fit incongruously. There are Btill buildings of pure Japanese architecture made of unpainted wood and with black or dull grey tiles, but the modern structures of steel and concrete, of brick and stone, are far more overpowering in their presence. All the way from port to the centre of the capital one is in £ maze of fkctory j chimneys, of railway tracks with speeding trains and of railway yards, of a veritable tangle of high tension wire*

that cross and criss-cross the countryside to carry the one natural resource the Empire has in abundance—its hydroelectric power. The story of Tokyo is, in gigantic miniature, the story of modern Japan, and one must know the first in order to know the other. To know the modern metropolis one must go also into its back streets and slums, into luxurious gardens of multi-millionaires and their palace-mansions, into the homes of the middle class and the tenements of the extremely poor and the temples and the shrines and bawdy-houses and the tearooms and cafes and the theatres and schools and bookshops, into the huge department stores, and even into the graveyards—most certainly into the graveyards—and the other vast multitude of structures and the varied milieux in which people live and work and play and die. Tokyo is the head of Japan, but the ancient capital of Kyoto is still the heart, and one must know both, and must know, also the mountainsides and the lovely coastline and the villages and the rice fields and the forests of cryptomeria. The greatest tragedy for Japan that it emerged into the world at large too late. If it had come out of its selfimposed seclusion a century or more earlier and had shown the same ability and the same inclinations as now, then would it have started somewhere nearer scratch in tt3 mad scramble for colonies and world trade and victorious wars of conquest and. all those other things by which the go-called great Power* have become great. Starting late, Japan has had to do in years what other nations accomplished in decades or longer, if it were to catfh up with them and hold its own. The rapidity with which this has been and is being done is one of the wonders of this modern world, and has brought with it the charge that the Japanese ar'e nothing more than .imitators, as are really all the rest of us, except that some of our imitations date so far back we forget that we did not originate fchein. The Japanese are good at forgetting, too. and much that has been borrowed from the West is now, to most Japanese, original with them and seems their own product.

The Author Born in Springfield, Missouri, Frank H. Hedges asserts that he feels more at home in Tokyo than in any other city in the world, including his home town. He went to the Far East in /920 to join ihe staff of the "Japan Advertiser," an American daily published in Tokyo. He has acted as correspondent for a number of other papers, including the London "Times," "Daily Mail" and the Washington "Post" besides the North American Newspaper Alliance, with which he is now connected. Among the most interesting assignments that have fallen to his lot, Hedges Writes, "were a trip through Japan with the Prince of Wales, the wedding of the boy Emperor of China in the Forbidden City, now Emperor of Manchukuo, the coronation of the present Emperor of Japan, an occasional Chinese War or two, and a miscellany of assassinations. earthquakes and military insurrections."

Japan turned first to making itself a great naval and military Power, believing that thus alone could it survive and seeing that other nations had prospered by this method, it "imitated" them in this respect, and how well it did so was unfolded by the results of the SinoJapanese and the Russo-Japanese wars, by the necessity of calling a world conference to limit naval building competition, by the way in which Manchuria lias been severed from China proper, and by the Chinese policy of Tokyo that has ensued. It turned also to "imitating" the economic structure of the West, and factories and mills now dot the Eight (treat Islands. Japanese products find their way into every corner of the globe, and in many are most unwelcome because they are so cheap in price and sufficiently well made that domestic products suffer in their competition with them. Truly there is no place in the world for Japan to-day unless Japan is willing - 'to stay in its place," that is, in the place assigned to it by the Western nations, which is an inferior place indeed in contrast to their own. 1 bis Japan is not willing £o do, and will not do unless kept there by force.

When first I came to Japan, in 1920. there was no official spokesman as such, hut the institution from which arose the present Information Bureau of the Foreign Office, which lie heads, existed in embryonic form. It* titular head was the Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs, hut its working head was then Yosuke Mateuoka, now President of the South Manchuria Railway Company, and a name known to all the world as a power in Japan, an ever-present "dark horse"' for the Premiership, and the nation's s|>okesinan when it so dramatically forsook the League of Nation*.

Scxt to Matsuoka my early contact of this nature was with koki Hirota, later the Premier. Hirota at that time was shy and diffident, hesitant in speaking English, anil altogether a most unimpressive person. He was likeable, but he could be stubborn, and it took a bottle or two of warm rice wine to humanise

bin) in his dealings with foreigners. Mr. Hirota rose to be official spokesman, then Minister to the Court of Queen Wilhelmina, and then Ambassador to the Soviet State. He was recalled to become Minister of Foreign Affairs. When the foundation-shaking military insurrection of February 26-29, 1936, had been put down, and Prince Konoye had refused to form a new Government, all Japan was startled by the Imperial Command to Koki Hirota to perform this task.

Mr. Hirota at once went into action. Among them were two who, because of their Liberalism, were anathema to the army, the strongest power in Japan for some years past. The army objected, and the new Premier yielded, and finally his Government was formed. This manoeuvre was a clear index to Hirota San's methods; lie is one of the shrewdest, most adroit statesmen in any country. He knew the army would object arid that he would be forced to yield; every Premier before him has had to do the same. But by naming his candidates publicly he likewise forced the army to act in the open, so that the whole nation might see and place the blame where it rightly belonged. Himself a great expert in jiu-jitsu, the Premier practises jiujitsu in political life. The first principle of that art is to yield, yield step b.v *tep, until suddenly'the opponent is

caught off his guard, whereupon a simple fillip of a muscle or so will upset and send him sprawling. This struggle between other element* in the State and the army for control is a never-ceasing one, and is a quite natural heritage out of Japan's feudal past. Of the thirteen men who have held the Premiership during my time in Japan nine are dead, and of thoae nine five have been assassinated, either while in office or after they had retired. When Premier Hirota went into power he announced that he was prepared to sacrifice himself, and every Japanese knew what he meant. This factor of direct action, of the alteration of nationa. policy by force or by the bullet of an assassin, is still of moment in Japan, and can no more be overlooked by the correspondent than can an earthquake. It strikes with equal, unexpected suddenness, and a whole situation changes in an hour. Hara was Prime Minister when I arrived in Japan, and a little more than a year later he was found dead from the bullet of a young radical fired at him in Tokyo station on the eve of the Washington Conference. Hara was a commoner—the first ever to hold the Premiership—a Liberal, and a believer in party politics. His triumph came at a time when democracy and party Government were sweeping Japan, and he was the man of the hour. With hid extinction the Foreign Minister took over his duties for a short time, and then Viscount Korekivo Takahashi stepped into the Premiership. Viscount Takahashi, who later resigned his title in'favour of his son. and so again became a commoner, was already a venerable man in 1922. although he lived another 14 yeans, only to be riddled by the bullets of rAel soldiers and slashed bv their sabres. The son of a maid in a Japanese inn and a passing soldier whose name he never knew, Takahashi came up from the very bottom, and was never ashamed of hi* origin. His accidental birth was one of the luckiest accidents for Japan, for in him the nation had a truly great and balanced leader. Assassination has played so great a part in modern Japan that it is impossible not to write of it. It is, I believe, because in that country it is still recognised as a semi-legitimate political weapon. This is due in large measure to a survival of feudal thinking, and the

man who has the courage to strike down his enemy, provided his motive is pure, becomes a hero to his fellow men. Not until a group of junior officers wearinp the Emperor's uniform sought by military insurrection to alter the whole scheme of Government under the Throne in February, 1936, did the Japanese people awaken to the danger of this psj'chology. Those young assassins were tried by court-martial, sentenced, and done to death. This should prove one of the most salutary of recent events in Japan, and henceforward political assassination must wane in popularity. The man will think more than twice before stabbing statesmen to death if he knows that he is to face a firing squad instead of becoming a national hero after a sensational trial and a few years in prison.

Yuko Hamaguchi. another of the Premiers who fell before an assassin, was a Liberal who did much for hk country. He was known a* "Lion Hamoguchi," but this was due to his leonine appearance rather than his nature. His essential democracy was well illustrated by a little e.\|»erience I had some time before his death.

The most significant and far-reaching of all assassinations or attempt* at assassination in Japan were tlio-c of February, JO3O, and the so-called Tora-

n<>lllon Incident of December 27, 1023. This Toranoinon Incident was the unsuccessful attempt of a young Japanese, Dnieuke Xamba by name, to take the life of the present Emperor, then Prince Recent. Japan was fthaken to its very foundations by this act. That any man "f pure Japanese blood could even conceive such an act was unbelievable. A Korean, yes; but not a Japanese!

The result was to arrest and reverse the policy, unquestionably paining strength at that time, of drawing the I hrone closer to the people in a human way. of replacing by the popularity that the hnglish Royal House enjoys something of the mysticism mid awe surrounding the Imperial House in Japan. If this policy had continued. I do not hesitate to state that the whole course of event* in recent years would have been different from tiie actual developments that have taken place, particularly «s regards the strong influence and power that the military have gained in directing State affaire. The Toranomon Incident, with its consequences, is one of the most fundamentally vital events that have taken place in Ja|Mn during my time here, although its true signiii catice is not generally recognised abroad, or. for that matter, even within Japan itself by the great majority. The other really "great" landmark is the abortive February military revolt.

This policy of drawing the Throne and the people together in a more intimate and more human way had been embarked upon In part because of the present Emperor's trip to England when Crown Prince, and the return visit to la|>an of the Duke of Windsor, then Prince of Wales. I the Prince of Wales throughout hi* visit to this island empire, which lasted nearly a month, and found it one of the most interesting as well as pleasant assignment* that lias ftillen to my lot. During a brief part of that trip his Majesty of to-dav was present, and the genuine friendship and liking between these twi> was striking.

backgrounds and all else for the Throne in .Japan are so totally different from a monarchy of the West that it is most perplexing to try to make the position of the Imperial House in Japan understandable, and yet it is the corner stone, not only of the Japanese State, but of Japanese psychology. Because we have no corresponding mental attitude the English language simply lacks the word* by which to express the attitude of rvverent devotion and supreme trust, of implicit and unshakable faith in the Throne entertained by the Japanese, and so we of the West all too frequently misunderstand and misinterpret. This psychological state is one which is gradually sensed by the foreigner who live* long in Japan, and one which he rnmw to respect. At times it is brought vividly to the forefront. 011 such occasions as that of the enthronement ceremonies of his Majesty Hirohito, the 124 th Emperor of his line, who now occupies the Throne. We foreign correspondents had been working for months in preparation for these ceremonies, studying the intricate ritual, its derivation and its significance, and vhen endeavouring to write it in words that would make it intelligible abroad. It was one of the most trying, and at the same time absorbing, tasks I have ever attempted, and when the time arrived for the ceremonies to take place I was no exhausted with the subject that I looked forward to them with dread. But from the moment that wc saw the colourful and dignified procession bearing the Japanese Ark of the covenant, followed by the Emperor, wind across the double bridge and out of the moat-encircled walls of the Imperial Palace on its pilgrimage to old Kyoto, very genuine emotion stirred us. Here was the heart, the soul, of a nation and a people laid l«Ae as the morning sun rose from the waters of Tokyo Bay to strike aslant a pageant that came from out the past, but that was tangibly

in the vivid present. It wae a unique experience, one impossible In this modern day and age in almost any country other than Japan. An understanding of ancestor worship and of the family system as it is eonceived in the Far East is essential to an understanding of Japan, and mors particularly of the place v * 1 .<-h th# Emperor occupies in Japanese, thought. According to orthodox Shinto mythology, the Imperial Family is directly descended from Amaterasu Omikami, the Great Sun Goddess, t lie nearest. t<. a Supreme Being in the Shinto |*i lit lie.in. All other .Japanese are descendant* of related gods who accompanied the Heavenly Grandson to this earth when h« was commanded by Amaterasu Omikami, "'The Luxuriant Land of Kced Plain* jg a land over which our descendants shall rule. Do thou, ImjK>rial Grandson, go and rule over it; and the Imperial succession shall continue unbroken nnd prosperous, co-eternal with Heaven an 4 Earth." Prince Ito, who must Ik- credited l>y the student of world history as being fine of the ablest statesmen in the closinf half of the nineteenth century, displayed his insight into Japancs* psychology and history, into the jteculiar and dangerous position into which Japan had been plunged with the coming of Commodore Perry, into the political and social institutions of the world in which Japan would henceforth have to Iho, in no better way than when he drafted the Constitution which the Kmjteror Meiji gave to his subjects. He wrote in Chapter One: The Empire of Japan shall be reigned over and governed by a line of Emperors unbroken for ages eternal. The Emperor is sacred And Inviolable. The Emperor is the head of the Empire, combining in himself the rights of sovereignty and exercising them according to the provisions of the present Constitution. Prince Ito thus. seized upon the keystone of Japanese race-life nnd ftiade it the keystone of the new political structure of the State which the times demanded. The supreme emotional hold of the Throne over the Japanese heart cannot be broken unless there is a fundamental revision of Japanese psychology, unless the Japanese commit suicide as a Japanese racial unit, and of that there is scant liktUiiiood. Neither bombs nor bullets, neither Communism nor democracy, no defeat at home or abroad, promises to destroy Japan's "line of Emperors unbroken for ages eternal." The three-cornered struggle among the bureaucrats and the militarists, at times allied and at times opposed, and the political parties, ltacked in large part by capital and in part too by labour, for the direction of the course of Empire under the aegis of the Throne constitutes the day-to-day events which we correspondents chronicle for our papers. Each of these groups, with its differing ideas and widely differing methods, is striving towards the same fundamental end—the creation of a proud and powerful place for the Empire of Japan in the front rank of world Powers. To become a great modern nation Japan is willing, to sacrifice much, but not all. Strong strains of feudalism and of medievalism survive side by side with strong currents of democracy, of industrialism, of universal education. This Empire of Japan to-day is in a state of flux, is torn within itself by conflicting emotions and by even greater conflicting ideas. A« to its ultimate goal of greatness among the nations of this earth there is complete unity among all elements, but they differ so radically aliout how to reach it. Until its own heart is stilled and pacified, until it has reached that tranquillity that its own priests and sages through the centuries have held as most desirable for all mankind. none can read aright the story of Japan—or foretell its future.