MARQUIS ITO.

Evening Star, Issue 11682, 14 February 1902, Page 1

MARQUIS ITO.

The Marquis Ito deserves the highest fame bis country can give him. Be has been ranked'with Gladstone ar,d Bismarck, and whateve rthere may be of merit in the comparison, the Marquis is unquestionably one of the world's wise men. It was he who foresaw the invasion of tie West, and saved Japan from the doom which has bung so long over Chira. In Tokio his name is hailed as that of the saviour of his country, the fxamer of its Constitution, the leader of progressive Japan. All his political Hfe the Marquis Ito has been meeting Europe half way. He resisted party government, but accepted it, and became" the first party Premier when the European system became inevitable. In the same way he has accepted the political systems of the West as the foundations of "the new Japan, and he has. indeed, cone a great deal farther. He is a Protestant, and he has gone so far in his Europeanising as to say that the Japanese must adopt Christianity, just as thev have adopted the swallow-tail coat! The Marquis must have looked back lately upon his first visit to London as if it were a dream. He came to England with a fellow-count to learn, navigation. * Navigation" was the only word either of them could speak in English, and somehow the two boy counts were bundled on to the vessel as'common seamen, and expected to work their way to London. It was all an, absurd mistake, of course, but the two victims of it had no alternative but to accept the situation; and, as if that irony were not enough, they were rendered helpless on arriving in London bv the failure of their friends to meet them. Finding themselves alone on the ship after the other passengers had left, tbey resolved to stay there over-night, and together they explored the dark streets for something to eat. To be asking for bread in a language in which you can only say "navigation" is not the happiest situation conceivable on a cold and rainy night, but. by i»irrting to a bread loaf in a baker's window tbey were ao*e. to sefcure the wherewithal to keep off hunger, and after a night in the docks they were met by their friends. That was the first introduction to LMKkm ol the man who mot the King in December at Marlborough Hwwe.— English paper.