NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20639, 11 August 1930, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

JAPAN'S INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS. "If asked what feature of Western life the Japanese had most enthusiastically adopted, one would be inclined to reply that it was not law, not representalive government, not mechanism, or even science, but trade and industry," says a contributor to the Round Table. "We perhaps are fatigued after many generations of industrialised existence. The interests of European populations are diffused, and we have an uneasy feeling that manufacture and commerce threaten to occupy our lives as an end rather than a means. But the Japanese are assailed by no such misgivings, they are spurred by a fresh enthusiasm for the triumph of the factory and the shop. So it has come about that, while in the West they aro being praised for their arts and their chivalry, or blamed for their militarism, or their imitaliveness, or the inferior quality of their goods, they were makng progress in industry and trade, and their success has taken us by surprise. It is not necessary to elaborate this theme, for a glance at statistics will show the growth of their competitive power. . . The Japanese have the quality known as 'drive'; a habit of co operation, which enables them to organise carefully, not brilliantly; and they are dealing with the corruption which disfigures the early stages of representative government. If Japan's future depended only upon the character of her own people, it would be bright enough. But her fortunes must in great measure be controlled by developments in the great continents on either side of her. Meanwhile, though she cannot fairly be considered an aggressive Power in a political or a military sense, she is tho more to be regarded as a dangerous commercial rival."

INDIA'S DEBT TO RRITAIN. "No one of either race ought to be so foolish as to deny the greatness of the contribution which Britain has made to Indian progress," says the Simon Commission in its report. "It is not racial prejudice, nor Imperialistic ambition, nor commercial interest, which makes us say so plainly. It is a tremendous achievement to have brought, to tho Indian subcontinent, and to have applied in practice tho conceptions of impartial justice, of the rule of law, of respect for equal civic rights without reference to class or creed, and of a disinterested and incor ruptible Civil Service. These are essential elements in any State which is ad vancing toward well-ordered self-govern-ment.. In his heart, oven the bitterest critic of British administration in India knows that India has owed theso things mainly to Britain. But, when all this is said, it still leaves out of account tho condition essential to the peaceful advance of India, and Indian statesmanship has now a great part to play. Success can only bo achieved by sustained goodwill and co-operation, both between the great religious communities of India which have so constantly been in conflict and between India and Britain. For tho futuro of India depends on tho collaboration of East and West, and each has much to learn from the other. We have grown to understand something of the ideals which are inspiring the Indian national movement, and no man who has taken part in working the representative institutions of Britain can fail to sympathise with the desire of others to secure for their own land a similar development. But a constitution is something moro than a generalisation; it has to prevent a constructive scheme."