AMERICA AND JAPAN

Evening Post, Volume XCIV, Issue 112, 8 November 1917, Page 6

AMERICA AND JAPAN

Even in the brief paragraph to which our cabled report was necessarily confined, the reception of the Japanese Mission by the American Senate two months ago ■was one of the most picturesque incidents of the war. The fraternising of the leaders of American democracy with the accredited representatives of the democracies of Europe engaged in the same struggle was a natural and an easy thing, but the fraternising of 'East arid West at Washington—of a Minister from the Mikado, who is m many respects as absolute a monarch as the Kaiser, with the representatives of a democratic Power whose interests have often clashed with his—was another matter. According to the calculations 'of German diplomacy, which Bethmann"Hollweg has described as flawless, the antipathy of Japan and the United States for one another was much keener than' that of either of them for Germany, Even after America had begun to arm, the omniscient clairvoyants of the Wilhelmstrasse could see that her preparations were only half directed against Germany. . She was really using her little tifi with Germany as a pretext for making herself strong enough to deal in due course with the Eastern Power which Zimmermann's masterly Mexican diplomacy was preparing to anticipate the blow. Though few people outside of Berlin and Bedlam were simple enough to take such nonsense seriooaly, the long-standing friction between the United States and Japan in regard to immigration and kindred issues was notorious, and no Australasian could fail to appreciate the air of constraint that was likely to mar the heartiness of Viscount Ishii's reception at Washington.

That, the ceremony did not suffer in any -way from the cause in question may be attributed in the main to the changed perspective which a war that threatens the existence of every non-German Power has produced, but also in no small degree to the statesmanship, the tact, and the eloquence of the Mikado's envoy. After referring to his difficulties in addressing, " in a language in which I have but little command, trained leaders of thought and masters, of argument and oratory," he proceeded to shame the best of them by the skill with winch, he accomplished his task. The passage in which, while making no attempt to conceal the differences between the Japanese "passion of loyalty to our Emperor and our flag" ajid the Americans' "passion for liberty and loyalty to their flag,", he claimed for both ideals not merely a lack of inconsistency but an essential harmony in their co-operation against a common foe, was a masterpiece-of logical and rhetorical skill:

"Blind loyalty, without rational con.sciousness of the responsibility of self, is but another name for slavery, while a right of liberty ill-conceived, ignoring the mutual human affection and respect for the rights of every man which form the essence of true loyalty, must be tantamount to anarchy, These two passions— passion of loyalty and passion of liberty— are they not really one? Is not the same control working in both cases —the intense desire to be true to -our innermost selves and to the highest and best that has been revealed to us? You must be free .to be Americans and we must be free 'to be Japanese. But our common enemy is not content with this freedom for the nation or the individual; ho must force all the world to be German, too."

Could Mr. Asquith..or "Mr.Jßaifour, 31. Painleve- or M. Viviani, speaidng without the embarrassment of a foreign tongue and a foreign audience, have more admirably expressed tho synthesis of appar-ently, WMifllotJHg. Weaia,iind;,tha 4un-

damental unity in which East and West have combined for mutuaf protection against a peril which threatens the wholo world ? Viscount Ishii's pororation in Ma address to the House of Representatives was a triumph of another kind. It was as follows:— " We havo been climbing a mountain towards tho stars by different and sometimes devious pathways, but noar the summit our roads shall join. Wo shall puss safoW through the dangerous places. POur bES sliaU not havo been sW our sacrifice shall not have been made, m vain, for we shall be among the nations of a. world living in a brotherhood of peace. Will ij not then be a source of intense national pride to each of us to remember this d»v which must ensure a- permanent maintenance <,£ these renewed pledges oE comradesnip ana of co-operation?" Is it any exaggeration to say that this modest stammerer in a foreign speech, as he asks us to regard him, here attains to an eloquence which is rarely reached by those who have been practising it all their lives? Viscount Ishii's peroration recalls what The Times describes as " the lyric note " of Mr. Lloyd George's finest efforts—the poetical touch which is more congenial to the passionate eloquence of France, and which Mr. Lloyd George obviously owes to the exuberance of his Celtic temperament.

It is a long drop from these heights to the prosy details of the business which is the normal concern of statesmen, and we must content onrselves with a passing reference to the fact that in this sphere also Viscount Ishii appears to have scored a striking success. A treaty has been signed in which the United States recognises Japan's special interest in China and reaffirms the open-door policy. Instead of being embroiled in Mexico, the two Powers have adjusted their differences on the mainland of Asia and given an admirable retort courteous to the sinister designs of Germany. Japan is in this war, as her Minister said to the American Senate, because she does not regard treaties as mere scraps of paper. She may be trusted to observe this treaty also, and may probably be led by it to increase her services to the cause of the Allies.