The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-04-22
STORY OF JAPANESE NAVY.
THE WONDERFUL MARCH OF PRO
 GRESS
Since the Days of Junks to the Posses sion of the Worlds Largest Battle Shin.

sion or the Worlds Largest Ratfl
 Ship.
 It seems one of the miracles of histo
 ry that a nation which fifty years agC
 had only junks should at the naval pa.
 geant in honor of the late Queen Vic
 toria fly It's flag over the largest battle
 ship in the world. When the empress
 of India died, the Hatsuse, built at the
 Elswick works north of Newcastle
 England. was hardly ready for sea ser
 vice. Nevertheless, the mikado tele.
 graphed such orders to the Japanese le-
 gation in London, that the big ship of
 15,200 tons displacement, and named af-
 ter a little stream in Japan, sailed
 with her own officers and crew to Ports
 mouth, taking prominent part in the
 evolutions A thousand years ago
 when our fathers were barbarians, it's
 name was celebrated in classic poetry:
 Pure is Hatsuse's mountain brook,
 So pure it mirrors all the clouds of
 heaven
 To the mind of the mikado's soil ors and officers Hatsuse calls up pictures of tinkling stream, shady hooks and sheltered cottages set against glorious background of mountains that are love- ly to view and inspiring with precious associations.
 This is what has built the Japanese navy and given it soul. Here is a suggestion of the secret of Japan's pow CT. To the foreigner, filled with the white mans conceit, that power Is hid He thinks Japan Is strong because she has borrowed the inventions of the west, the forces of modern civilizations But Japan's own internal vigor Is greater than any she can borrow in a material form. Her true line of pro- gress is not in machinery, it is in inter- nal spirit and organization. Her revo- lution within during the past half-cen- tury-begun before Perry arrived-is more thorough than any visible evter- nal changes.
 The story of the Japanese navy is like that of the Phoenix It is case of ris- ing to full life out of ashes. It was for defense against her enemies that Japan in the early seventeenth century de- stroyed all her seaworthy vessels. Whatever afloat had capacity of over twenty-five hundred bushels was or dered to the flames. The ashes were blown to the winds or taken to fertilize the soil. Then foreigners were exclu- ded and the people included save as a storm might blow sailors into the Black tide and drift them to American shores. Only one coming tower to watch was left at Nagasaki. For over two centu- ries, until the American whaling fleets came too numerous in Japanese waters. Japan slept like Thornrose It was first the, whale, then, Yankees, then Perry, a that woke her up.
 Within only seven years after the first American steam war ship, the Mississippi had gone round the globe the Japanese, by themselves, navigated a steamship across the Pacific. They begpn first to buy vessels of foreign model for trade and then to arm for war, for all around were earth-hungry nations. Conquered India and hum bled China showed the Japanese what they might expect. Sham Christianity Is doubly thief, and the Japanese knew 1t. They bought first In the ship yards of the United States, through the American minister, Robert H. Pruyn This wooden fleet, secured primarily for the, service of the Tycoon, waa seized by Japanese students returning , from Europe, who set UP the very short lived Northern Sea republic" The | mikado's single ironclad, Stonewall, re- named the Adzuma, sent the rebel craft ! to the bottom, and then became the nu- cleus for the new navy of iron and steel. Tn 1894 this consisted of fifteen E tee, an seventeen wood or composite and twenty-six torpedo boats.
 When China, in defiance of treaties, claimed Corea as her appanage, she was as Russia will be, should she claim the same thing. Though China had hattie ships and the Japanese had none, telegrams from Tokio ordered the Japanese war steamers to move at full
  ports and if necessary to fight the fleet. How the lighter cruisers floating the sun banner met the heavier battle\ ships having the dragon flag aloft, and lrive them away, and then again at- .acked and blew them up with torpe- loes, utterly annihilating Chinese sea bower, is known to history. It was the nen, not guns, the superior spirit. not natter, that won.
 Out of the small mountains of silver which the Chinese paid in indemnity at he banks in London the Japanese have bought a neY fleet of battle ships as yell as cruise.s and gunboa.s. Fur hermore, they now build and equip ome of the best vessels of their size in he world in their own yards. Yokosu- "a, on Yedo bay, famous for the grave f VIII Adams, the English pilot of SIP, is the birthplace of some of the rettiest and most effective of the mailer Japanese men-of-war. Yet that most surprises naval experts is to nd the biggest of the worlds battle ] hips handled so easily by Japanese.