THE JAPAN OF TO-DAY.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 10505, 13 July 1910, Page 2

THE JAPAN OF TO-DAY.

DAWN OF A NEW ERA. (Daiiv Mail Tokio Correspondent.) The Japan of to-day is a country emerging from crisis into hope. Five years have now passed since the treatv of Portsmouth was signed, bringing to an end a war under the influence of which, in the form of heavy taxation greater in proportion to their ability to bear it than that borne by any other nation, the Japanese people are still struggling. Under the optimistic influence of the .war's successes there came a commercial "boom," and despite the experience, of only a decade previously, following the Japan-China war, the times scenied highly prosperous. > Companies were floated, each of whose capital stock was reckoned in millions, I where, prior to the war few dared to l talk in thousands. There was a mushroom growth of these companies. Leopie without a penny to their names blossomed out as company promoters. Huge sums went into directors' pockets representing premiums that had been paid to purchase merely the right to subscribe to shares. In a lew months an arr'TCgatc of over a thousand million yen of stock was floated upon the public which if it had been called upon to produce a tenth of the money, would have been unable to meet its obligation. For over a year this "boom continued, until, toward the close, oi: 1907, a. succession of commercial scandals, together with the wave of depression which swept over the whole world at this time, brought about the crisis from which the country is only now beginning to recover. With a population greater by onefifth than that of England, but with only a tenth of the trade, Japan had no reserves against a period oi depression, and her vital power was seriously afl'ected. Trade had been marked by a. continuous decline in the past three years, and this means much to a. young country, where, a steady growth is essential to normal development. But the turning point has arrived, and the exhibition is its outward and visible sign. The reaction has taught caution, but a new era lias already begun, and Japan is today once more a nation of hope and strenuous activity. Almost boundless markets he at Japan's very doors, and already the foreigner is beginning to feel the effects ot her competition. What is to stop her from becoming the England of the East in other than naval matters:-' One factor she has to contend with, however, which may prove serious—her progress must be maintained in markets where keen competition already exists, where Americans, Germans, French, and English struggle for the mastery. Go wherever she will in Korea, Manchuria, the Middle Kingdom, and beyond, few markets are uuexploited. But trade must be built up, and it is being steadily built up with the aid of the State. Politics ami commerce go hand in hand, and in order to secure the latter the Japanese Government does not hesitate to help the merchant in ways, direct and indirect, which are difficult for the British mind to appreciate. This is a phase of commercial enterprise that the British are yet strangers to; but it must be realised that the Japanese Government is, tir.st and foremost, military and commercial, and Japanese merchants part of a machine. It is not tor nothing that the Japanese have studied foreign systems for forty years; the result is the conviction that progress will be. rlI the surer if if is State-aided and State-directed. .As in trade, so in other departments of Japanese life, this is a time of reiloctiuii and consolidation. The Japanese people are now finding themselves,

as it were. after a generati<m of uncertain and feverish struggle in the ruts of "Western civilisation —at one period mad after foreign fashions, at another showing tlieir dislike and contempt for all things foreign. While in the great cities the inUuenee of Western life has had its elfect, the mass of the nation remains unchanged. The wife .still follows behind her husband in the street, walking at a short distance in llio rear, because it is the custom to do .so. Hut the caxiom is deeply significant. Tile time lias arrived when the- value of the .Japanese woman's training is to be hually tested. Her life hitherto has bee": .severely domestic, and she lias i. .er been far from her natural protoch, . either lather, brother, or husband. ii: the changes of the times are driv-

ii: licr into the factory, into the hi;; i es, and into the isehools. This divorce from the homo is one of the direct .results of the growth of industrialism and the Westernisation of the country. The movement is but a recent one. The life-blood of the factories, the products of which compete with those of other nations in the Asiatic markets, is the young female operative, wlio.se pitiable pay and hard conditions of life are bur the direct results oil international competition in trade. She is a- victim 10 the economic necessity of clie'ap production. Despite a new omiil ••■( foreign la.-.Vi, the average man in .Japan si ill takes a strictly Oriental view of woman. No one can be more conscious of her humiliating legal position than the educated •Japanese, woman, who in these latter days lias come under so much refining influence in the modern school. She recently made an attempt to remedy iter disabilities in the form of a petition to the Diet. This document was signed by a hundred of the foremost women of Tokio praying that the marriage laws be altered. The petition, was duly read in the Diet, and it provoked nothing but laughter. Yet in many ways women are taking a more prominent part in the life of the country year by year, and tlicir influence is surely growing. No radical element such as is represented by the Suffragettes at home has yet made its appearance; but we are not unacquainted with the Socialist woman agitator. The best example, however, of the woman's movejiieiit is seen in such a society as the iioshin'Club, wliich was formed recently with the object of carrying out the precepts of the Imperial lioshin Rescript, commending loyalty and exhorting tiie people to thrift. Loyalty to the Emperor and the encouragement of thrift are the mainsprings of this society, and, while there is nothing in it of a. radical nature, there can be no doubt tliat the members of tin's body, all women of the better classes, realise the need for improvement in the, status of women generally and are quietly working in that direction. When it is considered Hint the men outnumber the women by about one million, that the marriage rate and birth rate are steadily decreasing, and that divorces and stillbirths arc much higher in this country than in Europe, it will be apparent that there are many problems demanding attention. The task of extracting and Mending that which is best in West and East is in progress in Japan to-day. We who know the Japanese know that they will ultimately succeed. You who study the panorama of their national life as it is displayed at the Japanese 'Exhibition in London will iind there the qualities —pluck. patieh'ee, inventiveness, discrimination —wliich ensure for the nation a great future.