The Star. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1921. THE MILITARIST PARTY IN JAPAN.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16583, 16 November 1921, Page 6

The Star. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1921. THE MILITARIST PARTY IN JAPAN.

In the cable news lately the question of Japan’s probable atitude to the peace proposals at the 11 ashingtou Conference and the probable ©fleet of Mr Har&’s assassination have figured largely. The question in Japan, says one cable, is the overcoming of the militarist opposition to the disarma ment proposals. If we consider the nature and the growth of this militarist party, it can be seen that this is no mean task. Little more than a century after the founding of Rome, the Japanese Empire came into being with the accession to the throne of the first Emperor, Jimmii Tenno. For twelve centuries, his successors were all sovereigns in reality as well as in name, but from 700 A.D. they permitted their power to fall into the hands of the leading family among the centuries, the Fuji war a, who, like the Emperors themselves, claimed divine descent. For 400 years, these Fujiwara held practically supreme authority till it was wrested from them bv a hardy race of soldiers, headed by the Shogun, or general. Successive Shoguns established a city near Tokio, which became the leading city, while Kioto, the homo pf the Emperors, was so in name only. This was the beginning of the systems pf dual government and of feudalism in Japan, which lasted from the twelfth century to the accession of the la to Emperor. The Emperor’s authority was merely nominal. Internally the country was crushed under one of the most drastic systems ot feudalism that the world has ever seen. A third of the Empii# was under the direct rule of the Shogun, and the rest of it was shared among some two hundred feudal lords, or daimios, who owed absolute allegiance in all things to the Shogun. The daimios all maintained armies of hereditary soldiers Samurai —whose allegiance was due only to their immediate feudal lords, and for whom they were ready always to sacrifice everything. The sole occupations of the samurai were arms, literature and the administration of their lords’ estates, and daimios and samurai combined to form a governing and aristocratic class of some two million souls. Beneath them, and separated by an unfathomable social gulf, was the subject and plebeian class —farmers, artisans and traders. On the part of the upper class there was the most autocratic use of despotic power. On that of the lower, virtual slavery. The great body of the people counted for nothing; they had no voice in the management of any public affairß, and their bodies and their goods were at the absolute disposal of their immediate rulers. Ah subjection made the lower classes abjectly servile, so did despotic power render the aristocratic classes hard and tyrannical. To us, the samurai of Japan have been quoted as examples of everything that is good—as chivalrous, brave, courteous, loyal, patriotic and self-sacrific-ing. They were theoretically, and in individual cases actually so, but fefir Rutherford Alcock, the first English Minister to Japan, a keen observer, a man of the world. who knew* the Japan of his day, calls them “ swashbucklers, swaggering, blustering bullies, many cowardly enough to strike an enemy in the back or cut down an unarmed and inoffensive man, but ever ready to fling away their own livesi in accomplishing a revenge or carrying out the behests of their chief.” Such was the growth and origin, and such were the ancestors of the present militarist class of Japan Although the Emperor, by aid of civil war and European pressure, came back into his own in 1866, the spirit of the Shogunatio party, the daimio and samurai, still existed. Centuries of despotic rule had ingrained qualities which no sudden revolution could erase. It is no wonder that the nations of Europe were uncertain what would be Japan’s attitude at the Peace Conference, no wonder that peace propaganda had to be distributed throughout the country. The work of centuries cannot be changed in a day.