DESCRIPTIVE LETTERS FROM AN EXILE

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7254, 10 October 1910, Page 5

DESCRIPTIVE LETTERS FROM AN EXILE

GLIMPSES OF JAPAN THE LITTLE BROWN MAN AT HOME. No- IS. By RANDOLPH BEDFORD. (All Rights Reserved). We got away from Japan -without deKtroying any sampans. It mast be _ this miraculous luck which makes the Chinese so superstitious. Formosa. Japan s new colony, is giving trouble to the solemn little people who imitate the white man. and then shout that they did it themselves; for the Formosan js a fighting man and wants to keep his land for himself. It is the greatest camphor producer in the world, and is a Japanese Government monopoly, practically farmed out as most "Government monopi). lies" are. Formosa is still troubled with curates on the sea, and organised hands of murderers on land, and the job ot subjugation in not so easy as tbe victory over Russia, the disorganised country which beat itself. People who know way that tbe Japanese fleet was about to' retreat when the Russian fleet took flight first; but you cannot toll the Jap. that, Every day has boon Malckins Day with him since tho Russian ships went down. There remain to them a burden of debt, tbe honor of demanding an indemnity, and petting it, and a tremendous poverty. Will such Poverty koop such insufferable megalomaniacs at ponce when there is loot to be had. I < *°The pictures and the poetasters—that -rushing old gentleman. Sir Edwin Arnold. and that neurotic Pierre Lote, and the scholarly Lafcadio Hearn—who recanted at the end—have, painted Japan ns a fairy garden of wistaria and the Japanese os merry, careless, beanhtiii children; a place of beautiful pe us lifts and other home comforts. I have seen the geisha, and heard _ her damnable whining to the accompaniment of a maddening one-stringed vmlm and i can onlr describe the myth of her to th fact that travellers who are new to travelling find a new lie for ©very mile. The first ladies I saw in Japan were engaged as wharf lumpers, anti they were about up to the 30b. I think of some graceful ladies of my own land who can work, who are not all out of proportion, long-bodied and short-legged, like French hens, who do not toddle as these comely caricatures of women do. I had to abandon another supershhon, 1007that Japan is a finely fruitful tropic land. All its produce is torn from it with the edge of the hoe. and at the nickpoint; population is crowded like maggots in a cheese First Formosa then Corea have to be colonised with the surplus population, and that calls for much money. They would like to buy or steal the Phillipines. but they must wait for money to purchase or for sh ips and steel. They would like to be the extra Asiatic power as great as anv European nation imperially rich in islands—-I orrnosa to Australia—and debts keeps them back. But debt h? not everything Vanity tells them the flattering tale of conquest, they believe themselves invincible and such a people will not allow poverty to (keep them modest. Fujiama looks ns the colored postcards show it—dark ravin-ed and whiteiopped, and foothills of cryptomena green. COMMERCIAL METHODS. Tobacco is a Government monopoly, so there is a 300 per cent, duty, on any . tobacco good enough for the white man lo smoke. The Jap himself smokes something which looks like seaweed and smelts like dog's hair. I paid -£1 6s for lib of imported English tobacco, and all the overcharge was that of the Gorernment, for tno price was printed on the Government seal. Matches are also ?. Government manufacture, and they are the worst matches in the world. This is nothing against Government ownership—it is only another way of stating tiie slip-shod and mean service which characterises the work of the Jap-—the dishonesty of bad material as part of the universal system of sharp practice. They have a differentiated tariff for Australia and other non-treaty ports, and I begin to wonder why we don't put an export duty on wool—which o,H the world must have and cannot do without, except the United States, which has- no laws against adulteration of fabrics. and sells as "wool" plain shoddy. I was very glad to hear to-day of a sharp practice which in the result hurt the practitioner. Camphor is a Government monopoly, and this has forced chemists to try for synthetic camphor. Japan controls the world's camphor trade, and Samuels and Co, are the Government's agents. Samuels' contract had nearly expired, and a member of the Government asked for a bribe of .£IOO,OOO to secure the renewal. He was asked to wait five days so that tho firm might cable its principals in London. In that five days they "brought forward all the camphor that existed, and the Government sold a lot which had no existence except on the tree. The Government had to buy back from Samuels to supply Samuels, and at the end of the five days Samuels told the member of the Government that they intended lo resign the contract as they could not afford the bribe. The Japanese sugar trust bribed many members of the Japanese Parliament, and six of them were so shocked in their sense of honor at being found out that they committedtiuioido, and 20 were imprisoned. At the time an automobile company promoter had been blackmailed bankers of Tok ; o, but the sugar tru'd: exposure scared them, and they made restitution. And here is a case where an Australian firm was the sufferer. Bowden Bros, were appointed agents in Yokohama for the Imperial Marine Insurance Co. of Tokio. no risk to be greater ] than .£2OOO per ship, except by special ] permission. This was granted, in many 3 cases the only stipulation being that tho goods so insured must be carried bv ; a Japanese steamer. Bowdens, with ( permission, took a risk of J&1173 over t goods on til© Futani Mam. which be- \ cam© a total loss on a reef in the Philippines. And on that first loss th© In- j huranee Co. refused to pay, and excused * themselves thus: —"Amount is absolutely , .unimportant in business sense, and any ‘ excess is only # what obtained; our tacit ' agreements quit© independent to vessel's c arrival." Their English i© as defective I as their sense of honesty, Bowdens \ took action against tho company in New ] South Wales, and got a verdict and th© v Imperial Insurance Company of Tokio ' defeated th© Full Court of Now South - Wales by closing its Australian office 5 and taking its assets away. Bowdens < can't get any redress from the Japanese 1 courts. Th© company has had the premiums. yet will not pay the J 32000 to which they limited tho risk, except ] by the "special permission" which was u given. No foreign insurance company ■ can start business in Japan until it 1 deposits .£IO,OOO in Japanese bonds, and c that is* liable to the judgment of Japan- < eso courts. But we don't know enough to insist on a similar regulation in Aus- * tralia. And tho Tokio company admits ; that it is a thief and a welsher; admits j it cheerfully, but won't pay a sen. which 1 is tho 100th part of two shillings. And with this flagrant dishonesty goes ' a loud morality—in speech—and a wondrous sense of honor—in theory—and to support it. a belief in the absolute * invincibility of the Japanese arms. They * talk in tho spirit of the Japanese pearl ! diver at Broome, on the nor'-west coast of Australia, said he, "Japan fight *

Britain, United States Australia—beat aIJ. all one day." The native paper speaks of "Australia with its proverbial natural treasure to be exploited.' (I quote the .Jap’s words.) These islands are at present in the monopolistic possession of European powers, but the very climatic conditions arc against largo influx of white settlers. Japanese have given proof of their capability in the pearl fishery on Thursday Island. They certainly have given proof of their capability as pearl thieves, and as to their climatic fitness Japan has the climate of France, and so th© Australian climate cannot bar tho European. But any excuse is good enough if you are determined to steal something Thcv feed their vanity always. Prince Tokogawa visited the House of Representatives at Washington, and the Speaker gave him lunch, whereat the Japanese papers burst out wildly thus "Such treatment as Congress gave to the Prince is without parallel in the last 20 years." To these people politeness is an expression of fear. OTHER CHARACTERISTICS. Th© papers also state how much more great is Japan than ancient Rome. Her* is a statement on the subject: "Xho simplicity of Japanese civilisation is tho nation’s greatest glory and tho sureet guarantee of its ever increasing greatness." Simplicity! Frock coats and patent leather boots and senu-starvation in order to drees like the white J ™an, and then somo nasty remarks about ancient Rome. There is no justice for tho white man in Japan. The other day a Mr Cohen, sent for by his wife to protect her from tho Coolie house boy, who had threatened her, was struck by the Coolie, whom ho then thrashed and ejected. Mrs Cohen had previously sent for a policeman who refused protection- These facts were placed before tho court, and - the court fined the white man .£lO for striking tho Coolie in self-defence. Add to this unscrupnlousness a lust : for military glory, a povert y that cali<? for conquest to alleviate it, and a vanity of the sort used in the old Surreyside drama, ; when one British sailor defeats 12 Frenchmen, and they become a menace. If tho rumoured understanding wtth Russia is correct, Japan will get Vladivostock. or th© ms© of it, for a jumping off place to the United States. The Chinese know the Jap. and actively distrust him, and their opinion is worth taking, without question. They us© the British treaty for its prestige, yet give no preference to British trade, because, as Count Komura says:—"Britain is freetrade, and has, therefore nothing of value to give away." Their "chivalry" is fox the limelight. We hear ranch of their civilised action in th© Russo-Japanese war. but the Kowshing affair is not forgotten, when they sunk a British ship with. 1000 Chinese troops aboard, and killed, with machine guns th© men struggling in the t water. And their private life—the glaring immodesties, indecent intimacies, tho want of reticence iji all those things in which all but the lowest white men observe 1 reticence, prevent them thinking in the European way. wear they frock coats and patent leather boots ever so lavishly. Diplomacy and newspaper platitudes cannot blink th© real facts of life and its competitions. Ere long th© whit© and colored man will b© out on business, because the white is too rich and the colored man is too poor- In ten years, China will probably advance further than Japan lias done in twenty-five, and while that giant is awaking, and about to order universal military service. India is already awake, and stretching iteeli. ihe energies of regeneration may keep them quiet on their own affairs, but th© man who studies the growing insolence of the alien and his aping of the white wavs knows what must be in the alien 6 minds. Tho Jans are not in Hawaii for nothing; there arc as many in the Philippines as were in Manchuria before the war all soldiers with service. And peaceful occupation is expected from people who are naturally soldiers and naturally thieves. There is no such thing as commercial honesty: in iolao recently 3000 shopkeepers were fined at one shot for using false weights. And the Government's attitude in a contract is the same. I met the pioneer manufacturer in Japan ot dry photo plates. He' made a contract with the Government for ten. years, and at the end of five years they broke the contract because they had learned to make the plates themselves. Then they ruined him with two years’ litigation, which i-ave him no satisfaction in the end. Ifiiey imitate imported labels and trade marks absolutely, and the injured one must hear it. I met here also another who used to run a mai.l contract on the Bogan in New South Mates and is sorry he left it. He also has been ruined bv trying for justice on the Japs who ruined him. And as a result, the white population in Japan goes steadily down, and happily may disappear altogether soon from a country where a cooli© may slap a white man. or insult a white woman with absolute impunity so far as the law is concerned. It is worse than Russia can he—tho Russia which Japan is alleged to have beaten, ‘but which really boat itself with rotten food and clothes and rifle ammunition so bad as to be little more dangerous than a cracker. Ono faro provided by law for the whits man to pay in a rickshaw, and about ten per cent, of the amount for the same service to the coolie. And in the same breath they demand equal rights in America, and have so binned that sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. Roosevelt, as to get. it. This is the political side of the most impudent and conceited country on earth. The other side of it has smears of pink that are cherry bloom, and old men flying kites, and coolies with grass overcoats, and shops of ivory and squat, pot-bellied bronzes, and an old wistaria vine dropping an amethyst ram of bloom over a now wall. And next, article. will get on to tbe pictures of this surprising country.