, 1904-11-23
.Ianan,s Industrial Future.

Japan's Industrial Future.
War inevitably changes the race Oh
things, and nowhere is the change fei'
40 keenly as In the nation that exerts
itself prodigiously and to which war is
a comparatively new experience. IL
seemed at one time that Japan would
score a point with Russia quickly and
be able 10 return to those peaceful ac-
tivities which have been her ambition
Now that her ruler predicts a long wal
and her energies are put to the utmost
strain the future of the people Is a
subject of interest. The late Lafcadlo
Hearn was respected by the japanese
reviewers Of his writings about their
country as "a thorough master of the
subject" His last book, Japan: An
Attempt at Interpretation deals with
the social and commercial problems
confronting the Japanese, and he takes
a gloomy view of her fitness to COM
pete with western nations. He says:
Those who write today about the ex-
traordinary capacity of the Japanese for
organization and about the democratic
spirit of the people as natural PROOF OF
their fitness for representative govern
ment In the western sense mistake ap-
-pearances for realities. The truth Is that
the extraordinary capacity of the Japa-
nese for communal organization Is the
strongest possible evidence of their unit
ness for any modern democratic form OF
government. Specifically the difference
between Japanese social organization and
local self government in the modern
American or the English colonial mean
ing of the term appears slight, and we
may justly admire the perfect self dis
cipline OF a Japanese community. But
the real difference between the two Is
fundamental, prodigious-measurable only
by thousands of years. 1t Is the dlner-
ence between compulsory and Tree CO.
operation-the difference between the most
despotic form of communism, founded
upon the most ancient form of religion
and the most highly evolved form of in
dustrial union. with unlimited individual
light of competition.
The time has not yet arrived, this Do
server declares, when Japan can safely
cast away her whole past and achieve
the results she envies in western peo-
pies. 10ere nave Deeu luuiSdIioAo
within the past ten years that Euro
pean powers have feared that Japan
might become a great factor in the
east and form an alliance with some
modern nation able to direct her des-
TIMES. Mr.. Hearn suggests the danger
of Japan's subordination to some
stronger force, but rather through con-
quest than by an alliance. To him
the domestic future Of Japan is dark.
Born of that darkness an evil dream
comes oftentime to those who love ia
pan, the fear that all her efforts are be-
ing directed with desperate heroism only
to prepare the land for the sojourn of
peoples older by centuries In commercial
experience; that her thousands of miles
of railroads and telegraphs, her mines
and FORCES, her arsenals and factories, her
docks and fleets, are being put in order
for the use of foreign capital; that her
admirable army and her heroic navy may
be doomed to make their last sacrifice in
hopeless contest against some combina-
ton of greedy states. provoked or encour-
aged to aggression by circumstances be-
yond the power Of government control.
Just at present the suspicion finds
Judgment in European minds that the
United States will manipulate Japan's
industrial future, not as the result of
armed conquest, but somehow in the
nature of a commercial guide, protect
or and partner.