MIKADO MUTSUHITO.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 13021, 11 November 1905, Page 1 (Supplement)

MIKADO MUTSUHITO.

\lf King Henry VHL, instead of dying in \547, had continued to live on by some ': .."icle, and: to reign over England right up ."j'-hivresent moment, he would have.wit- , t% iviiireater changes in England than nessed no gr* fi ■-._ , ■ ■°... . ~ . ■•-: .^v•■-•> v it n,M *<&«3Jutsuhito in his realm of has the Mikado^lvuuj.v.^.-. Japan. ' '"■ \'.:j-~ .iw 3 in When the latter ascended j c: - 1867 he came,to reign over a feudal people> the counterpart of , ourselves in the Middle Ages. Railways, telegraphs,; post offices were utterly unknown. Bows and arrows, 'spears and swords still constituted the principal armament of his armies.' The vessels of his navy were high-sterned, lateensailed junks. ; , Under, pressure, a port or two had a few years previously been thrown open to foreigners, but from the interior of the country all outsiders were rigidly excluded. On the Japanese coasts were no lighthouses. Mariners who presumed to sail her uncharted seas did so at their peril. '..'"■;'"■./•/.. , ; The Mikados were rulers in name only. The real power was in the hands of the hereditary nobles and clan chiefs, who maintained huge armies of professional fighting men, called samurai, by whose aid , they were enabled to terrorise the nominal emperors much as the' English barons terrorised King John. : But Mutsuhito was made of different stuff from the weak and vacillating son of Henry 11. Although only fourteen , when he ! ascended the throne, he soon showed that he meant to grasp the : substance of a ' power which had been filched from his immediate ancestors by a turbulent and too powerful aristocracy.:. ' Naturally, the latter objected, and a sanguinary civil war was the result. M'utsuhito emerged from the struggle ruler in fact as well as in name, every single leader arrayed against him having either.died in battlo or perished by his own hand when defeat was assured. Forty thousand of the samurai fell with their clan chiefs. *

As soon as peace was assured the youthful Mikado started upon his self-imposed task the modernisation of Japan. He moved his capital to Tokio, so as to be within easyreach of the sea. He ransacked the world for foreigners of ability to come to his country and teach his people the lore of the centuries. Japanese youths of good family, thousands of them, were sent to Europe and America to learn and to observe. From America, from England, ' from Germany, from France were engaged experts of repute to create for him and his subjects a new army and a new navy on the most modern and up-to-date lines. : ;; , But all this was years ago. The pupils have long since outstripped their teachers. They have conducted a war as /never war has been conducted before since the world began, and they have shown a magnanimity in the hour of victory such as has no parallel in history. : Y _ '.:' -V. That this latter 7 was "possible, was due to the personal influence of Mutsuhito, which is. unbounded. Other Mikados have been revered. This one is beloved. Every Japanese ''householder reserves a. special apartment (tokonoma) for his Emperor, as a mark of esteem aad regard., i