JAPAN OF TO-DAY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14926, 26 February 1912, Page 4

JAPAN OF TO-DAY.

NOT COVETING AUSTRALIA.

COMMERCIAL MORA

{ Mr. James E. Liddiabd, F.R.CS., who j leaves the Dominion to-day after a twoi months' visit, informed a Herald reporter in the course of. an interview that he had j been moving about the' globe since he j was a mere youngster. Last year he was I in Morocco, the year before that he was ■ in Algeria, visited Egypt, and travelled { into the southern portion of the. Sahara. I He has been a member of the Royal Geo- [ graphical Society for many years, and ! in addition he has been admitted to the National Geographical Society of America, and is one of the original members of the Japan Society, an influential body, having its headquarters in London. From Auckland to-day Mr. Liddiard goes to Sydney, thence to Queensland, and subsequently by way of Manila and Hongkong to Japan. Mr. Liddiard takes a very keen interest in Japan, and he is utterly opposed to the suggestion that that nation contemplates a warlike descent upon Australia and New j Zealand. He says it is true that Japan is bound to extend her territorial limits, and holds that she will find her true field of national enterprise on the Asiatic seaboard. Japan, he contends, seized Corea out of sheer necessity, because if Russia secured possession there her own existence as an independent nation would have been threatened. She would have been shut in, and to her the annexation of Corea was a matter of life and death. The Coreans were now much better off under the administration of Japan than they were under the corrupt administration of their own native rulers. Japan, said Mr. Liddiard, has exerted a salutary influence on China Ever since the war between the two countries China and the Chines* had been willing to learn from Japan. Many young Chinamen of the best class had been sent to Japan to imbibe modern methods and ideas, and in various Mays the smaller country had assisted to develop its bigger, but less progressive, neighbour Many reflections, said Mr. Liddiard, had been made upon the commercial morality of the Japanese, but it had to be remembered that until recently the trader had occupied the lowest place in the Japanese social scale. Under a classification, which was now being amended in some of its details, scholars were given the place of honour, military men came second, then (he agriculturists, and the traders a bad last. During the last quarter of century, however, the tendency of commercial morality in Japan had been distinctly and continuously upward. At the present time Japan possessed a system of trade guilds, which probably could not be matched anywhere iif the world. There were over 1200 of these organisations in the country, and they covered every trade and profession. The guilds dealt with questions affecting the personal character or commercial morality of their members. A trader, for example, who was convicted of fraud or any shady practice, was punished by exclusion from his guild, and this was'equivalent to the social ostracism and ruin of the offender'.