WHAT IS HAPPENING IN JAPAN.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9191, 21 March 1908, Page 2

WHAT IS HAPPENING IN JAPAN.

(By F. A. McKENZIE, "Daily Mail" Special Correspondent to the Far East.) The train from Seoul to Fusan was five hours late. It had broken down twice. The locomotive, badly cleaned and badly handled, was scarce able to drag its load, and carriages had been discarded to lighten it. Some of us, standing in the Korean station — wet, cold, and miserable — were passing caustic remarks about Japanese engine-drivers and of the way they muddled and misused their engines. A quiet Scotsman turned on us with a single question. "Do you ever reflect," he asked, "on the . wonder that these people can do as well as they do?" " Think of it," ho continued. • " The driver was probably two years ago an agricultural labourer in a village, and had never seen an engine. He is running thjjs train, badly it is true, but he is running it, and in twelve months' time he will be handling it well. What man of another nation could have done the same?" The quiet Scotsman had touched the heart or the problem. The casual visitor to Japan to-day sees great and glaring faults. But when he has stayed longer in the country and gone deeper into its problems his wonder is not that ther c are faults, but that development has reached 6uch a stage as to make the faults noted. A MIBACTJI.OTrS TRANSFORMATION. It is barely thirty years since Japan was still torn in the struggle between feudalism and. modernity. The men who to-day are managing cotton mills wore, in their younger manhood, two swords and fantastio armour. Yesterday the kiheitai (irregular soldiers) walked through their districts armed to the teeth, terrorising peaceful farmers; now the same kiheitai work their ten hours a day in the factory for fifteen ' pence. Yesterday the dainty wife sat 1 modestly at home waiting for her lord to return from his political brawls; today the same wife is busy over the spinning jenny in the factory, while her lord is doing his share in shop or warehouse. . The thing is a world miracle, and the longer one contemplates it the greater the miracle appears. What is the meaning of this new Japan? What underneath her- surface quiet is simmering there toniayP Japan has earned the reputation of saying little and striking hard. Is she preparing again, in her grim silence, to strike a new blow at fresh foes? The world breathes more freely because the prospect of early war between Japan and America has been removed. That the danger was real, and for a time acute, none who know the circumstances will deny. The departure of the Pacific Fleet did not stand alone. For nearly a year America has been straining every nerve to prepare the Philippines, Hawaii, and to a lesser degree, the Pacific Coast for defence. Diamond Head, above Honolulu, had its rocks hastily blasted and cut, and great guns slung into position. Ships, weighed down with their loads of submarine mines, were rushed to the Philippines to make the waters around Manila safe from an attacking fleet. Japan, on heT side, was equally active, although the oloak of impenetrable silence and mystery was thrown over her operations. Four new divisions were added to her Army, and each division was increased in number. The great naval yard of Kur© has been so busy that, although it is now a point of national policy to have all warships built at home, it was recently announced that the Government intended to build a new battleship on the Clyde. The immediate fear of a JapaneeeAmerican war has gone, but the problem which created the' danger remains. The present armed truce resembles nothing so much as the condition of affairs after Russia laid hold of Japan's conquests of war on the Liaotung Peninsula. Japan submitted, smiled, and waited for her hour to come. Those who see in the present agreement a final settlement know little of the East. Happily for the world, every month of peace gives fresh opportunities for devising plans for making permanent arrangements, honourable and satisfactory to both sides. Japan will not per* manently permit her people to be treated diff erentiy from Europeans. The same problem may come to the front before long in the south. A few weeks ago Mr Iwasaki, the acting Japanese Consul-General in Sydney, left Australia for Europe. Before leaving he told the Australian people frankly: " It would be idle to pretend that there are not many grave and important questions pending, which may be fraught with serious consequences to your nation and mine." There are many signs in Japan today of a steady revival of the dreaded joi — anti-foreign feeling. Strict control of the Press, and public enables this to be kept well in hand, and manifestations of it are largely suppressed; but it is there. Responsible daily journals in the leading cities have indulged freely during the last year in series of articles attacking white men in Japan, denouncing their morals, sneering at their business methods, and generally holding them up to contempt. The native comio Press, such as, for instance, the "Tokio Puck," indulges in unending series of cartoons, all making the white man appear odious. A few weeks ago an English trader was peacefully returning home in Yokohama when he was set upon by a oxovd of roughs and badly used. No one knew why, for he had done nothing to offend them. In Korea the Englishman has to walk carefully if he would avoid unpleasantness from Japanese soldiers and coolies. This same anti-white feeling shows itself in the work of two or three societies controlled in Tokio, that are making a very vigorous agitation throughout -Asia. Count Okuma's speech on India was received by the British public with incredulous surprise, and attempts were made to deny' the accuracy of the reports of it. Either these reports were accurate or a number of shorthand writers present at the meeting—men of diverse nations and views — joined in an incredibly foolish and wicked conspiracy. But Count Okuma's speech does not stand alone. I myself have read many articles printed in Japan during last summer, and reports of many speeches, severely criticising; Brie ,

tish action in India. Every educated Japanese with whom I have discussed the matter regards it as inevitable thai the revival of Asia will involve the loss of India to England. They think this, not from any hostility to us, but simply from a perhaps natural racial sympathy. THE OFIN DOOB — TO JAPANESE. Another way in which the new development of Japanese life has shown itself is in direct warfare in fields of commerce that were formerly in the hands of Europeans. When, in the summer of 1906, I cabled to the " Daily Mail " from Kobe that Japan was not observing the policy of the open door in the new lands over which she had acquired control, my statement wab received with indignant denials. Today the denials would be less emphatic. Even Japanese writers now admit that in 1906 the Manchurian market .vas practically closed to white men. They say that this was remedied in 1907, but that is not wholly true. One big syndicate of Japanese cotton mills has largely succeeded in driving American cotton goods out of Manchuria, substituting., Japanese goods for them. It has done this under Government direction and by Government assistance. The Government advanced _it money ; the Government-directed shipping lines carried the goods between Japan and "Dalny for a nominal rate; the Govern-ment-owned Manchurian railways gave this Japanese cotton special facilities. No wonder that the American manufacturer, working by himself, cannot successfully fight a Government. What applies to cotton applies almost equally to other things. In China to-day the foreign trader is confined to the treaty ports, while the Japanese axe sending their men throughout the country, doing business far in the interior, in defiance of treaty regulations. Only this autumn great foreign enterprises have had to be abandoned in Korea because the Japanese have made such regulations there that foreign capital cannot live under them. The British, mine-owner, for i instance, under the new regulations, has to put himself at the mercy of the whims of a Japanese-appointed official, who has power to confiscate the entire property whenever he pleases. Great projects are being given up in Korea for this very reason, and men are walking the streets of London to-day workless through it. There is no room for the Englishman now in Korea, they Bay. Whatever delusions the British public may have on this point, those who know the East have none. Japan talks of an open door, but her open door is one open to Japan alone, or to her favoured proteges.