# The Japan of 1909

Published in The Independent edition dated January 13, 1909, page 93-96.
The Japan of 1909
by J. H. DE FOREST
The sad event of the latter part of the year should be mentioned first—the assassin's act of October 26, a deed that called forth the sympathy of the whole world for Japan. The assassin made a great mistake, for he killed the best friend Korea had among the Japanese; the wisest official protector of the great missionary movement in Korea; the man known throughout the world as the framer of Japan's remarkable Constitution, with its open recognition of the liberties of the people; the greatest statesman of the East; a profound lover of peace.
Strange, indeed, that such a man should have been decades an object for an assasin's weapon. At times he had to be protected from this peril at the hands of his own countryman. Then he was always in danger so long as he lived in Seoul. "I often wonder that my life has been spared so long," he recently said. At last, at the ripe age of sixty-nine, he met his fate a thousand miles from home in North Manchuria.
But really such a death was great good fortune for Prince Ito. "Vastly better than to die on his mat at home, said an aged Samurai to me with convetous expression. "He couldn't have lived much longer anyway," said another with the same envious look. Very likely he would have had a national funeral in any event, but the manner of his death made his funeral the greatest national manifestation any Japanese has ever received. And in addition to all the Imperial honors conferred upon his during his life, posthumous honors, precious to Japanese and a potent source of noble endeavor, have been bestowed by the Emperor.
How did the Japanese regard this Korean murderer? A few of the papers asserted that now was the opportunity for a more positive attitude toward the whole Korean problem, probably hinting at absolute annexation. But the more influential papers recognized that political assassination is something that all nations suffer from and freely cited such cases as that of the Japanese policeman who, twenty years ago, thru his distorted patriotism, almost killed the present Czer, when as Crown Prince he was visiting Japan; and that another Japanese did Li Hung Chang at the Shimonoseki Peace Conference. There is quite a line of Japanese assassins who took the valuable lives of such men as Okubo and Mori and others, just missing that of Okuma.
No, Japan will not take this occasion to tighten her grip on helpless Korea. The Koreans have long been inviting their political doom by their utter incapacity to deal with international problems, and have become a standing peril to the peace of the East. It was a choice between China, Russia and Japan, one of which had to protect and control that peninsula. While such an experiment of necessity brings much of profound suffering and loss and even brutality, together with the indescribable pain patriotic people feel at the loss of their country's independence, yet it is apparent that Korea never had, in education, in finance, in all that pertains to civil and criminal law, the blessings Japan has thus far given her, or rather forced her to take for the food of the world.
The fact is that Japan is more or less suspected and disliked by considerable section of people all over the world. I think the best explanation is found in a statement that the Premier Marquis Katsura made to me a year ago: "The only reason I know of for being misunderstood and disliked is our too rapid progress." And, indeed, there is nothing else that can account so well for nine-tenths of suspicions so freely bestowed upon Japan. As an ediorial in the most widely circulated paper in Northern Japan recently said: "These wide suspicions of us all come from amazement at out rapid progress, and therefore we are badly misunderstood." The real meaning of these words comes ​out much better in the blunt expression of those who dislike Japan: "She's an upstart."
In this connection it is persistently stated that while Japan talks "open door," she is shutting out foreign competition wherever she can, especially in Manchuria, where she is freely reported to be letting in millions of Japanese goods duty free; and that she is underhanded in scheming to oust the West the commercial advantages of the East. This whole subject needs a thoro ventilation, and I venture a contribution toward it. Japan certainly has a natural inside track here in the East. Her people know the conditions as Westerners do not, and are at home in the language and customs and business methods of this this populous part of the world. And they not only have natural innings, but they constantly seek to improve on what they have.
Here is an illustration of their business methods: I saw scores of young men leaving Nagasaki this summer for Shanghai. On inquiry I found they students for the Japanese "Eastern World School" in Shanghai, where they acquire a perfect knowledge of the Chinese language, both written and spoken. Then they can go anywhere in Empire, and do business directly without the intervention of native compradores. They have the financial and commercial conditions at their finger's end. And as one of them says: "In ten years it will not be the white people, but our capitalists who shall obtain the financial rights of China." Already this one school has over a hundred graduates at work in the eighteen provinces, with intimate knowledge of conditions at disposal of Japanese capitalists.
Now an open door may seem pretty well closed to foreigners who are thus handicapped. Westerners have developed a mighty trade out hare, and have built up such world centers as Shanghai, but there are more Japanese living in that emporium than all the Westerners put together. Moreover, they have a much simpler style of living, can do business on a less expensive scale, and can do it directly. They are naturally disliked. They are "upstarts."
It is the same in Manchuria, where Japanese have immediate access thru language and customs to insides of things. Such men can, of cause, get their goods put thru more expeditiously, can be quicker at buying, can find out changes in conditions more rapidly than foreigners who have to rely so much on compradores and interpreters. The natural ease with which Japanese enter into the commercial fields of the East brings them a pile of unjust curses.
This is the lesson to be learned from this year 1909. The royal welcome given to our fleet and to the Commissioners of the Pacific Coast, and the expchange of diplomatic notes of friendship between Secretary Root and Baron Takahira of a year ago, seemed to the world an intimation that there could be no more suspicion on the part of the United States toward Japan. Moreover, the welcome extended everywhere in the States to Baron Shibusawa and his company of business men would seem to prove conclusively our entire good will toward Japan. Yet thru more than half of this year there have been perpetual newspaper intimations that the United States had grave doubts over the doings of Japan in Manchuria, and the Crane incident, itself a serious diplomatic blunder productive of a large crop of suspicions, simply added fuel to the fire. What we need is protection against the natural misunderstandings arising from American ignorance of Oriental languages.
Perhaps the greatest misunderstanding of the year was the one between Japan and China over the Antung Moukden Railroad. Month after month China delayed and obstucted, affirming that all the treaty granted was the right to repair the present road, whereas Japan claimed the right by treaty to make the road a part of Manchuria-Korean system, and capable of handling merchandise and passengers in a large way. It would thus be the shortest overland route between Europe and Japan, with only a ferry of 122 miles between Shimonoseki and Korea. I have had the pleasure (?) of riding a short distance on this road with its two-and-a-half foot gauge and its eight-mile-an-hour gait, and it is easy to see that no repairs could make it a passenger route.
Anyway, after Japan had vainly en ​deavored, thru patient diplomacy, to secure China's co-operation as promised by treaty, to China's amazement Japan quietly cut off farther negotiations by nofifying Peking that the reconstruction of the road would be begun at once "without waiting for the co-operation of China."
This one act did more to arouse China from her attitude of "obstruction and procrastination" than anything since the Boxer movement. Undoubtedly the Chinese are a great and gifted people, but they have absolutely, on may say, no idea of the right way of carrying on international relations; nor does she want to learn. She is badly behind in the fulfilment of her treaty obligations with the nations, and Japan's action in this railroad affair is a sort of public warning that the policy of obstruction is unfitted to the international life of the twentieth century.
I have no doubt but the Japan consulted her ally and some other Powers before giving this ultimatum to China. and that Japan had ample approval of her act. Right here is one great difference between these two Eastern nations. Japan has from the first studied most carefully every phase of international law, and so she virtually never makes a mistake, whether it be in sinking an enemy's ships before any declaration of war, or in the practical treatment of that delicate problem of extraterritoriality. But China from the first has spurned international law, and consequently is always in hot water in her treaty relations It would meana new China if Peking would employ and be guided by an able international lawyer, as Japan always has done even to this day. It would save her endless humiliation and millions of money. and would with her a respect and confidence worthy of the great historic nation she is.
As to internal affeirs, Japan has had one of those generous crops of rice, 275,000,000 bushls. that make the farmers feel poor. This magnificent harvest is worth about $300,000,000, but the price having fallen nearly one-quarter, producers get a poor reward for their toil, and so business is generally dull.
This year is, we must confess, exceptionally unfortunate in the exposure of corruption in high places. The most astonishing discoveries were in connection with Nippon Suger Refining Company, a $6,000,000 trust, whose 50 yen stock was quoted at 80 yen, and whose dividends were 15 per cent., went to the bad, and dragged down in the mudsome twenty members of the Diet who have been condemned to fines and terms of imprisonment. It was a bad shock to the moral and financial world of Japan. This was folled by the exposure of rottenness in the Marine Products Company, whose president, a Lieutenant-General, has just been deprived of all titles and decorations, and condemned to seven years of imprisonment.
It is a strange coindence that this same year should bring to light similar scandal in the United States over same stuff, sugar. It brings a bitter sense of shame to this Bushido land to have the world know that among her statesmen and soldiers are men of such pitiable moral weakness, men who have fallen from the lofty ideals of the Samurai. There is a similar feeling of shame in Christian America that among our princely merchants there are some who carry out gigantic swindles, and in our municipal governments there is so much of abominable graft.
But in one respect Japan's feeling of shame produces a peculiar public sentiment as to the duty of the defaulters. They should commit suicide! The old Bushido sentiment is yet strong, and the story of the two presidents vividly illustrates it. The Suger Trust president was a fine spaciemen of a gifted and upright Japanese, who from inexperience with the financial world fell into unexpected disgrace. Baron Shibusawa had urged him to take the presidency of the company, and then when he committed suicide the Baron is said to have openly called him a fool, which blunt expression brought down on him a torrent of abuse. The papers then took up the question, one for. one against, suicide, but the Baron, so far as I know, was the only prominent man outspoken against suicide.
The accused soldier, however, being a Bushido-ite, was naturally expected to follow the code and do away with himself. Indeed, a member of the papers ​urged upon him this course, but he replied that having been misled by his andvisers, and not being conscious of any guilt, he felt no call to do harakiri. I think there is a rather wide feeling of disappointment that the General did not follow the ancient code, and thus save his name and family from this reproach. The fact is, Japan is midway between her old Samurai ideals and the larger and universal morality. So that the papers on both sides of this question call the General a coaward--if he does and if he donesn't. It seems that those who have studied in the West have caught the larget view and see that the old code of honor can no longer be defender! One of these men who had studied at Yale wrote a sincere and powerful protest against this Bushido solution of disgrace. but he was roundly called down by many writers of the old school, who, however, did not sign thir names to their rejoinder.
The great fire in Osaka that burned over 12,000 hourses in August, has called out another side of Japanese morality. One of the licensed quarters of the social evil, containing 744 women. was burned out, and at once the moral forces of the city, under the leadership of the Christians, made a monster move to prevent the rebuilding of these seductive houses in the heart of the city where they are a menace to the students and business men. At first the movement was laughed at as visionary and impracticable by the city authorities. But when enthusiastic mass meetings resulted in petitions signed by ten of thousands that were carried right over the heads of the city authorities to the Premier and the two Ministers of Education and of the Home Department, the moral victoruy was won. Bushido in the Tokugawa age was in many respects a noble moral code, and it actually kept the social evil out of two or three provinces in the interior. But it never would have dreamed of handling this problem in a commercial city by an appeal to the moral sentiment of the nation thru the Premier, as was successfully done in Osaka. Let the West take notice that the moral life of Japan is not to be measured by the commercial failures of this year, but by the higher moral standards that are being more and more recognized widely thru the Empire.
    SENDAI, JAPAN.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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