The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-08-13
JApAN's DoAEsrlc ENEMIES.

JAPAN UOvsES IN LlSEthAS'
Mr.. Clough whose interesting views
Of the war were printed in yesterday
naner. took note of fact which the
public should keep in mind when weigh
ing the value of information about the
Japanese campaign that has been
brought from the foreign colonies OF
Tananese ports. He said that he found
there, especially at Yokohama, strong
anti-Japanese feeling due, in large part
to the ..cockyness" OF the natives. TINS
feeling. it might be added, has existed
among resident foreigners, excepting
missionaries for a generation and II
easily takes form of criticism not FAR
removed from the seditious and always
disrespectful TO the Japanese charac-
ter. 1t is also prolific of false news.
Ten years ago the utterances of all
the English journals of Japan, save
one. were rudely critical of the con-
duct of the Chinese war. For fort
night after Port Arthur fell. these
papers refused to believe it and ridi-
culed the story as Japanese bompast.
Every chance they had to deride Japa-
nese strategy, to minimize the effect
of victories. to spread rumors of de-
feat to ridicule the military claims OF
the little brown men, was eagerly
seized. and throughout the war the
cause of China had no more effective
fcT, of
the japanese Empire. Toxic chafed
under the criticism. but that was the
time of treaty ports and within their
charmed circle japanese law could only
enter with tied hands.
The abolition of the treaties a few
years ago has muzzied the foreign press
and now the English papers of Toxic,
Yokoharnss and Kobe are remarkably
discreet. But the coIonists are stili
bitter and their feelings are accentu-
afed by the natural growth, among
Japanese who are more than holding
their own against a grea45white power,
of a feeling of racial dfg&ty. Always,
since colonies were started in Japan,
the white man has treated the jap as
a grounding. AT first the little brown
man did not resent it an6 even made
human horse of himself to drag the
stranger around in a two-wheeled gig
Tor few cents an hour. The more
50cfIe he was the woIse he was treat |
ed. Gradually his self-respect assert |
English and Americans say. Now ne |
declines TO be insulted on his own soil. |
He has not, it is true, dropped his
ricksha, bat he has acquired wider |
er, is no longer master, the coolie Is
no longer a slave. Naturally all this /
angers the white resident and he longs |
as Mr. Ciough says, for a Russian VIC
tory and lets his imagination play upon
Japanese losses.
And thus it is that every steamer |
from Japan brings tales of disaster. |
According to the Siberia's passengers, |
Japan has only two battleships left; |
her credit is nearly exhausted; her
soldiers have been slaughtered at Port !
Arthur; her humiliation is just beyond. |
II is easy to anyone who has ever been |
in Yokohama and Kobe to see, on all
these stories. the hallmark of alien
rumor and prejudice. The old treaty |
ports seeths with the kind of gossip |
Honolulu used to have in its. days of
Notwithstanding but wholly ire
sponsible yarns of the curbstone and
the bar. They are tissues of nlisrepre-
sentation for the most part. great !
spider webs of calumny in which even
a small ay of truth is only occasionally
caught. -,