The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-06-28
JAPANESE MARTIAL TRAINING.

ia understood as preparation in many
other military countries is the pur-
chase of arms and ammunition, the
building of ships and the primary in
struction OF large bodies of man in
drill and tactics General plans OF
warfare are also drawn UP. But after
all is said and done the real preparsa-
ton waits for an emergeney. In times
of peace the field and commissarlat
work is perfunctory, of kind that
leaves an army when war comes, IN
the shape the French We're when the
German conflict began, the British
when the Boer trouble broke out and
the Russians when the tide OF naVal
battle surged into Port Arthur with
out warning in the night.
Japanese methods of preparation are
different in that they are thorough.
Honolulu had a glimpse of them ten
wears ago when the cruiser Nanlwa
came into port with Togo in command
No crew was ever so strenuously drilled
in these waters. Every waking hour
was taken up with some phase OF the
ships discipline. No shore liberty was
allowed. even to officers, though one
of the latter was an imperial prince;
and on board. the captain interd1cted
all light reading and even games OF
sociabiuty. officers who wished to read
were referred to the ships professional
-. oh
game were told to play Kriegspiel, the
German game of tactics. When an OIL
Ger sought recreation he was told TO
take a. boats crew beyond the reef
and fire at a mark or to get another
man and fence. By measures like
these. extending to the whole fleet, the
Japanese navy has been turned into
such a terrible engine of war that it
has made playthings of the Cars
battleships.
The army has been prepared in the
same way. No one in Japan ever sees
drunken soldiers about the streets;
they are soberly attending to their du-
ties, all the time learning something.
Diversion is not encouraged among Of
fcers, who are looked to to keep them
selves on war footing. Their study of
professional books is incessant; their
conversation among themselves is not
social but military; year in and year
out they are practicing gunnery, work
ing out war problems, experimenting
with explosives, making themselves ex-
perts Back of them is the general
staff preparing for war in any quarter.
The staff even fills warehouses with
bundles of faggots TO supply fuel for
soldiers in treeless country; its secret
service men make maps everywhere
ard take coast photographs as they did
in these islands several years ago;
back in the country, far from prying
eyes, the staff tests new enginery of
war. In all ranks of the service a
fanatical patriotism, based on the State
worship which is taking the place of
the worship of ancestors is cultivated.
Contempt for death is taught; and
when there comes q, chance to test a
regiment in peace, by the gauge of
peril, that regiment is sent out, as
one was sent winter before last into
the blizzard-swept snow fields of north
ern Japan, where a whole battalion
persisted OF cold.
With the japanese warrior, his life,
not his spare moments, is given up to
preparation for battle. Most European
officers do not spend more than a third
of their time with the troops. They
are to be found on the boulevards, in
clubs, in great functions, or in gam
bling hells. They are the petted dar-
nngs of society or the broken adven-
turers of the racecourse. Drink raw
ages their ranks; sloth usurps their
strength One cannot conceive a Rus
sian army or navy officer at hard
study. It is easier to imagine him at
hard drinking. The trains that unload
ed supplies for him at Port Arthur
before the siege began, as a CORES
pondent has told US, piled up more
cases of vodka on the depot platforms
than they did cases of shells.
These are reasons why, when Jap
anese meets Russ. the latter get the
worst of it The little brown man
knows the whole alphabet of his bust
ness While the Russian knows only
part of it; the japanese keeps himself
in the best OF physical trim but the
Russian does not hesitate at the gross
is always a soldier; an officer of the
Car is half the time clubman. Sc
it was with the virile Huns and the
decadent Romans. When the former
came out of their forests the latter
Were driven shrieking from their per
fumed baths. History, which all tn,
time repeats itself, is telling a yer!