The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-02-24
THE JAPANESE Array.

japan sustains two armies and
militia; the permanent or regular army
| with it's reserves. the territorial army
the national militia and the militia OF
the islands of Hokkando. Tsushin1a,
Goto. etc. The first army is kept ready
for foreign service and numbers over
$3.50 600 officers and men, 1913 guns and
| 81 900 horses; the second, or territorial
| army numbers about 10000 officers
and men, 3l2 guns and 1850 horses
Taking all arms together, capable OF
foreign and home defence and there are,
exclusive of the Formosa garrison:
Officers. II, 735; men, 3S4, 900; guns, Ills;
horses, Sc, 400 The total arms-bearing
population, one in five, is 100000 of
patriotic, sacrificing, and cour-
ageous race.
Service is obligatory in the case Of
every able bodied male. without abso-
luteIy dependent relatives, from the
age of seventeen to forty years, but
on educational grounds many young
become volunteers, which entails only
one years service with the colors (three
months of which is in barracks like an
ordinary conscripD, and then, after
eleven and a quarter years in the
reserves, they pass into the territorial
armv.
This is the system which applies
practically to all the better classes, and
graduates of normal schools and teach
ers receive even more consideration,
doing only six weeks with the colors
and then at once passing into the ter
ritorial army. Everything possible is
done to make the minimum of military
service convenient to the secondary
scholar, the graduate and the teacher,
but no one who is physically fit can en-
tirely escape, and if he tries to do so he
is placed, as punishment, on the same
level as the conscript.
The mass of the army is composed
of men drawn by lot at the rate of
$4,000 a year, and $4,000 others are
drafted into the two bodies of super
the first entailing seven
and one-third years service, and the
second only fifteen months, after which
he men in both sections join the great
territorial army.
Every year over 100000 youths quail
Y by age for regular military service,
md nearly 200, 900 begin to serve either
With the colors or as supernumaries.
ne ordinary conscript who has to go
With the colors, passes three years in
he permanent, or regular army, four
ears and four months in the first reg
lar reserves, five years in the second !
eserves, or landwehr, and then enters
he depot service for 1-3, or 1-3
ears, according to circumstances, even
ually passing into the territorial ar
~, for the remaining years up to the
ge of forty.
The Japanese have demonstrated the {
ossession of all the qualities which
0 to make good soldiers except one
nd this one they have had no oppor-
Unity to show. They are fanatically ]
they have no sensation of I
ar in battle, seeming neither to dread /. >
cath nor to value life; they are al +
avs aggressive and fertile in expe- f
lent, Born a feudaI race, among e
HON obedience of servant to lord was :
grained, they submit willingly to dis
pline, obeying the orders of their
hcers and asking no questions; a race :,
pedestrians, they march further and +
ster in given time than the troops i
any other nation; and being of sim [
e wants, they are not encountered in y
ampaigns with baggage and provis- +
n trains. The one open question e
bout them is whether they would s
and a long series of reverses. hang I
lg on with bulldog tenacity when +
seemed to be going wrong. v
hey have never been put to that test t
It and it remains to he undergone. {