The Evening Star MONDAY, JANUARY 9, 1905.

Evening Star, Issue 12396, 9 January 1905, Page 4

The Evening Star MONDAY, JANUARY 9, 1905.

Them: was one cable message which in the elation that followed upon Japan's Honorou Japan's magnificent achieveDcad - meat and the detailed record

of General Stoessel'3 last ■stand in Port Arthur is likely to be passed over. And yet we think it worthy of comment, reflecting as it did the sentiments of the people o'f Dai Nippon towards their brethren who, having borne the heat and burden of the day, finally gave to the cause of their common country all that was left them to give—themselves. The cable in question road thus:— * Admiral Togo declined the Tokio Municipality reception on the ground that the time was not ripe. He attended the funeral services of those lolled at Port Arthur and read a eulogy on them. That Admiral Togo should Lave declined a formal reception at this stage in the history of the campaign is In harmony with all we know of tho unassuming modesty of the man and of the Japanese people. Not the least- among the many suTprismg phases of the national character that Japan has shown to the world during the last twelve months is her unostentatious bearing in the hour'of victory. Even as there was no undue boasting before the first shot was fired, so also there has been no scattering of bejewelled swords and titles, no recklessness of assertion, and no official selection of particular individuals for national hero-worship. Admiral Togo's refusal of the Tokio Municipality's offer is therefore in keeping with that individual self-effacement which, as far as can be learned, is a distinct feature of the statesmen, warriors, soldiers, sailors, and people of Japan. Rivalries, doubtless, exist there as elsewhere, and personal ambitions are not unknown; but, speaking generally, the trend of the known evidence is in favor of an intense individual self-renunciation, in the cause of the common weal unparalleled in the history of modern warfare. The explanation is perhaps simple. With Japan Religion and Patriotism are synonymous terms. In Russia, Europe, and in the United' States they are not. There a man may be and is a genuine Christian, though in the opinion of his fellows a poor patriot. In Japan tie terms cannot be so distinguished. Shintoism, the national faith, is not religion as we understand it. It w ethical rather than spiritual, and its ethics have as their foundation principle "My country." Dai Nippon is the God of the people, to serve and honor whom is their highest privilege. Christendom, expresses its faith in formal creeds and theological systems. Japan does not. Her theology is patriotism, but it is a patriotism inspired by what, in other peoples, would belong to the spiritual realm. Hence we in the colonies, as well as our fellowsubjects throughout the Empire, have only the faintest glimmer of its realitv. So animated and so impelled, the little Jap faces death with a smile upon his lips. He crawled over, his own dead and dying on tho Port Arthur heights as joyously as though he were working in his rice fields at home. Such an army, of necessity, is resistless. It was failure to recognise this "asset" that led military critics astray. Port Arthur could never be taken by assault, fhey said. "Japan," declared one English writer, "might just as well sail and try to take Gibraltar or Cron"stadt as attempt to reduce Port Arthur "by assault." In one sense, however, the critics were correct. Put in another form, they meant to say that no ordinary European or American army governed by ordinary esprit de corps could take it, and with this as their major premise their conclusion was as logical as it was natural. "Yet though all this be thus, Be those men praised of us Who have loved and fought and sorrowed and not sinned For fame, or fear, or gold, Nor waxed for winter cold.

Nor changed for changes of the -worldly wind-" These lines may be fitly applied to Russian and Japanese alike; perhaps more so to the soldiers of the Czar than to-those of the Mikado. The Russian has nothing but his Czar to fight for—a Czar who denies him and his fellows the common rights of humanity. Yet in winter's frost and summer's heat the Russian soldier stubbornly, heroically, and hopelessly holds on. *But it is to 'the men of Japan who suffered, fought, and fell that we more especially tarn at this hour. Thorough in this branch as in all else connected with the campaign, hardly a man has fallen but bis name has been reported by the authorities in Tokio to his relations and friends. And in the few days snatched from his ceaseless vigilance of many awful months in the Yellow Sea, Admiral Togo found time to pay his tribute to the memory of the men whose deeds, if not their names, will for ever bo enshrined in the hearts of their

countrymen. "How sleep the brave, who sink to rest By,all their country's wishes blessed! »'* * * »- ■ W ' » " .

By fairy hands their knell is rung; By fonris unseen iheir dirge is sung j Then Honor comes, a pilgrim grey, To .bless the turf that wraps their clay; And Freedom shall awhile repair, To dwell, a weeping hermit, there!" It is incidents euoh as these, and the host of aspirations to which they giro birth, that mitigate the horrors of war, and bid us.not despair of tho future of the human race.