The Hawaiian gazette., 1904-08-16
JApANs DOMESTIC ENEMIES.

Mr.. Clough. whose interesting views
of the war were printed in yesterday s
paper, 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
japanese ports. He said that he found
there, especially at Yokohama, strong
anti-Japanese feeling due. in large part,
to the "cockyness' of the natives. This
feeling ii might be added, has existed
among resident foreigners, excepting
missionaries. for a generation and 1t
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 ii and ridi-
culed the story as Japanese bombast."
Every chance they had to derde 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
opponents than the English press 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 muzzled the foreign press
and now the English papers of Toxic,
Yokohama and Kobe are remarkably
discreet. But the colonists are still
bitter and their feelings are accentu
ated by the natural growth, among
Japanese who are more than holding
their own against a great white power
of a feeling OF racial dignity. Always
since colonies We're started in Japan,
the white man has treated the Jap as
a grounding. At first the little brown
man did not resent it and even made
a human horse of himself to drag the
stranger around in a two-wheeled gig
for a few cents an hour The more
docie he was the worse he was treat
eu. 1rduudIly MS SelI-TesptCl dSStCI-
ed itself and ne became 'cocky" as the
English and Americans say. Now he
declines to be insulted on his own soil.
He has not, it is true, dropped his
ricksha, but he has acquired wider
independence. The white employ
er, is no longer master, the coolie is
no longer a slave. Naturally all this
angers the white resident and he longs,
as Mr.. Clough says, for Russian vic
tory and let's 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.
1t 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
revolution-eXciting but wholly ire
sponsible yarns of the curbstone and
the bar. They are tissues of misrepre-
sentation for the most part, great
spider webs of calumny in which even
a small fly Of truth is only occasionally
caught.