The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-08-26
ANOTHER VIEW OF JAPAN.
ROSe-COlOTed Glasses Have Given
Americans Wrong IMPRESSIONS.

Such is the OPINION of 'Ex-Attache,"
Who Gives His Reasonable Char
acter of the Average Japanese Mer-
chant-"Japs as They Really Are"
Ex-Attache. in New York Tribune.
There seems to be such q general dispo-
sition in the United States TO sympathize
with the japanese pigmy bantam in the
fight which it has picked with the huge
Shanghai rooster, and with character
istic American chivalry to side with the
smaller and weaker of the combatants,
that public opinion here appears in dan
ger of becoming blinded TO the rights and
wrongs Of the case. A few remarks upon
the subject coming from one who has
spent considerable time in both China
/ and Japan, not as a mere tourist, but as
resident, may possibly prove of timely in
terest, and enable the reader, even at the
sacrifice of some Of his pet illusions, to
form a more just and correct opinion as
| to the merits of the affair
In the first place, it is to the Japanese
that belong the responsibility Of having
started a war fraught with such grave
and inevitable results to the country as
! lead to the conviction that the mikado,
| like Napoleon III in 1870, has been forced
/ to attack China in the hope of aVertlng a
revolution at home. Both he and his ad-
visers must have known from the outset
that there was no possibility of ultimate
| success their only hope of escaping de-
! feat Of the most disastrous character lay
| in the chance of an Intervention on their
| behalf of one or more of the foreign
powers. Now, there are only two govern
ments who can dispose of sufficient force
! to interfere in the tight and to arrest its
! progress, namely, Russia and Great
| Britain, whose svmpathies and interests
are altogether in favor of the Chinese,
and who have everything to gain, both
commercially and politically, by espous-
ing the cause of the Flowery Kingdom
rather than that of the Empire of the
/ Rising Sun. We may, therefore, look
! for a war which will be fought
/ out to the bitter end without foreign In-
! terpositiOn, and which is certain to ter
inmate in the eventful victory of the
! Chinese, whose resources are ineXhausti-
| BILE, whereas those of the Japanese are
exceedingly limited. 1t IS a war that is
! bound to bring changes in Japan, the eX-
! tent of which no one can predict or fore
! see. And while il is possible that the
| mikado may succeed in retaining posses
sion of his throne. yet either defeat or
the equally humiliating and improbable
intervention of some European power in
| his behalf could not fail to bring about a
! sweeping reaction from the progressive
| and ultra-western policy which has
hitherto prevailed in Toxic to former
| Oriental barbarism and an abandonment
of all those foreign innovations and forms
| of civilization that are so bitterly resented
| by the people at large.
| Notwithstanding all that has been said
and written TO the contrary, our views as
! TO what constitutes civilization are not
| popular IN Japan With the exception of
few thousand natives who have travelled
! abroad, and who are indebted for their
| present advantages of fortune and rank
| TO their knowledge of foreign WAYS and
methods, the vast body of the people,
some 1000 900 in number, is just as bit
| terly opposed to everything foreign-nay
| even more So-than in 1867 when the
| present emperor recovered his temporal
/ sovereignty from the tycoon by the help
of the revolutionary party, which had as
its war cry, Death to the Foreignersl"
! If anything, foreigners are even still more
unpopular now than then; for there
are 100 cases for every one that existed in
those days. 1t is the foreigner who is
! held responsible for the enormous in
crease in the taxes and in the prices of
| the necessaries Of life, as we'll as for the
advent of innumerable fresh maladies and
troubles of every kind. The mobiles and
! Samurai deplore the loss OF their privi-
/ leges and of their exemption
from the necessity of drudg-
| ing for their livelihood. The artisan
looks back with regret to the day when
! he was able to work only as ana when he
/ Liked; the agricultural laborer and peas
ant hold the foreigner responsible for the
! heavy increase of the onerous land duties.
while the immense body of priests and
monks bitterly resent the attempts made
! to convert the people to Christianity. In
, fact, the foreigners are regarded as the
root and origin of all evil, and the popular
feeling for several years past has been to
the effect that the sooner they get out the
better 1t will be for Japan. This is the
basis of the programme of the powerful
political party which styles itself ''Old
Japan" and which is the Japanese
counterpart of Russian Panslvaism 1t is
party that possesses the sympathieS of
considerably over b, 000,0 600 of the Japa-
nese population, and it was with the OBJ
ject Of dicerting' the attention and
thoughts of the anti-foreign element from
considerations Of domestic and internal
policy that the mikado was forced to seek
as frivolous preteXt as that selected by
Napoleon III. for declaring a totally
groundless war upon the Chinese.
For my part-and there are many ac-
qualnted with Japan and China who are
of the same opinion the reversion of the
Japanese to their former WAYS, manners
Shs'He'AAA'
ton, rather than of regret All that civ
ili2ation has done for them has been to
deterorate their art TO destroy what
ever religious belief and moral restraint
they possessed, and to deprive them of
those old fashioned forms of convention
ahty, courtesy and honor which rendered
the Japanese nobleman, gentleman and
even peasant of twenty years ago. so in
tinitely more attractive than he is to-day.
Whenever | compare the Jap of the pres
emit mean what we are pleased to call
the civilized Jap--with the Jap of two
decades gone by, | call to mind the re-
mark of Prosper Merimee, once made
concerning the Egyptian Prince Achmet,
the brother of Khedive Ismail: La ma
ture Ia fait sanglier; Ia civilization la
rendu cochon "A boar by nature, civil
cation has rendered him a hog. There
is something noble and chivalrous even
about the wild boar; there is nothing ad.
mirable about the occupant of the sty.
And so it is with the oldtlme Samurai, or
Daimio on the one hand, and on the other.
the Japanese gentleman of the "nouvelle
conche,' whose civilization is mere veneer
of the most superficial and shallow nature.
having no foundation nor raisou d'etre.
Civilization, as we understand it, is based
~ on Christianity, and is the result of a