The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1905-12-12
BISHOPS ESTIMATE
OF JAP CHARACTER
LOOKS FOR GREATER THINGS IN
FUTURE THAN IN THE PAST
DOES NOT APPROVE OF INTER
MARRYING WITH BRITISH.


The following article by Bishop Will
liam Awdry on the character of the
Japanese, has been published in the
London Times:
1T may be timely to say something
about Western misapprehensions Of
Japanese character, for they may lead
to disappointment on both sides and to
certain degree of estnngement un-
less they are corrected.
Let me not be misunderstood. 1 love
honor, and believe in the japanese,
among whom 1 have been living for the
past nine years, and expect that their
future in many lines will be greater
than their past or their present, and
that this will be to the great good of
the world, and that the Power is for
tunate which by timely and generous
recognition has obtained not only their
alliance, but their grateful friendship.
Yet it is true that the sudden revul-
sion of feeling has come when those
who, not a generation ago. were thought
of as pretty, interesting, artistic, little
dolls or children, fantastic and whim-
morals, dishonest in business, and cruel
if you scratched through the skin,
great in little things and little in great
things" have come out on the broad
stage Of the world as great in design
as they are careful about the minutest
detail, as steady in their wide political
aims as they are ready to change any,
thing however well-established in order
to further. those aims, as capable Of
silent united, disciplined action as they
are versatile in face of a problem, or
self-abandoning in a charge with the
bayonet, as self-controlled in victory
and tender to fallen or captured enc
my as they are unsparing while the
conflict still continues.
TN all history perhaps there is moth
ing more dramatically splendid in the
way of returning good for evil than the
story of the Russian cruiser Rurik and
the Japanese Hitachi Maru and Sado
Maru. At the risk of telling what is
well known l must repeat it in outline.
1t will be remembered that last year
the Rurik, with it's comrades from Via
divostok, came out just in time to catch
these two japanese troopships crossing
to Korea.
Was it bad shooting only, or was it
unwillingness to be embarrassed with
prisoners, that led to the defenceless
troopships being pounded by a ship of
war almost exclusively above the wa
terltne for three hours before the Hita-
chi Maru was sunk with all hands, so
far as Russian aid was concerned, and
the Sado Maru, with all hands, was left
in what appeared to be a sinking condi-
ton? There can be no doubt that the
Japanese, with ample excuse, believed
this Russian savagery to be wilful. Yet
a few months later, when the Rurik
met her fate in those same waters, Ad-
miral Kamimura, though still engaged
with the enemy, detailed ships which
saved 800 of the Ruriks crew; and in
the recent battle in the Sea of Japan
the service of the Sado Maru in saving
Russian lives was conspicuous within
a few miles of the spot where she had
been left to sink with all on board
1T is only natural that in the face
of such deeds as these, and the noble
letters from Japanese soldiers and sea.
men, and the modest reports of COM
manders, who do great things them
selves and take for granted noble ideals
nobly pursued in all who serve under
them, Englishmen should suppose all
the other virtues and ideals in the jap
anese which would certainly be found
in an Englishman, who should do as
they are doing. They are so admirable
so Unexpectedly admirable-in many
things, are they not admirable in all?
Baron Suyematsu neatly touched off
the Western misjudgment, both pro and
con, of the Japanese when he said
something to this effect: Now that we
have shown that we can kill 100, 900 men
the West acknowledges us to be really
civilized. So perfectly have the leaders
of Japan kept their heads while the
world has gone wild in their praise!
THE fact is that in England men so
patriotic would certainly be noble; men
so self-retrained would almost certainly
be moral; men so self-forgetting would
surely be honest in trade; men so brave
would scorn to tell lie; men with !
such high ideals would be strongly in
dividual, they would mould their sur
roundings to themselves rather than
conform to them, whatever they may
be; they could be reckoned upon to re-
main much the same under all circum- |
stances We find conspicuously dis
played in the Japanese those virtues
which come to the front naturally |
where the theory OF life involves indivi-
dual effacement-those virtues so hard
for us individualistic Western peopGe !
to practice; and we take it for granted |
that the virtues associated with indl-
Vidual energy and salf-denendancaI
which are so easy to us as to become a |
sine qua non in one whom we esteem
Will be present also. But it is not So
The Japanese are as deficient in this
group of qualities as we are in the
others, and no one knows and regrets
this more than the real leaders Of
Japan, who know both the East and
the West. Happily, also, no people that
have met with are so glad to be told
of their defects as the Japanese, or