The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1906-06-24
Japan as a Model.

M h. CHARLES Il. RUSSELL points out Every
i Il body's magazine that Japan has taken hold
of her trusts in the that socialists in this
try consider logical She has trusted the trusts, max
ing the government the supreme trust Of the lot
Specific illustrations of this economic tendency he
furnishes in the relation of the government to the
tobacco, beer and -four trades. Formerly the Amer
lean tobacco trust did fourishing business IN Japan
It had invested 1000 900 in branches Offices shops
and works, when it occurred to the government that
might well have the profit the trust. So the
government went into the tobacco business passed
law that no cigars cgarets should be sold which
had not first been offered to the government agent and
placed duty Of $50 per cent foreign manufactures
Of tobacco The American trust disappeared In the
same way the government assumed control Of the
brewery business, eliminated what Mr.. Russell calls
'stupid competition with the result that. Japan
doubled her beer export in year. Japan raises
little wheat, not enough for home consumption. She
has for years imported flour from the United States
But when the Japan took notice OF the fact
that Russia had lease from China OF wheat hela
in Manchuria containing more arabic acres than all
Japan The Japanese government revoked that lease
Mukden succeeded to it itself and Is today spottng
that territory with -four mills and developing wheat
growing. Presumably the government will own the
supply of -four as 1t now owns the supply OF beer,
tobacco and other things.
The tone of Mr. Russel's essay is extremely sym
pathetic He evidently believes that the way to make
people great and happy is to syndicate the business
of the country up to the point where the government
can protably take hold Of it and then absorb them
into the state He intmates that Japan is astute
in her operations that with ideas of stupid
competition cannot get hold of any Of the oriental
medately abolish all private business and begin over
again the Japanese model initiating the imitator7
Mr.. Russell does not explicitly order this, but the
trend of his logic is such that the conclusion is in
escapable that this is what he expects.
The Japanese government may be doing several
things of novel character in the way Of government
monopoles, but it will take more than one euogy Of
the system to convince even thinking Japanese that
this is the way to build nation Meanwhile, as
Japan is borrowing nation and as the lending people
exercise their fancy with regard to extending
credit may be that Japan is paying for her sport
in the realm of private business in the money markets
Of the world. 1t is true that she did pay higher
rate of interest while her armies winning
examped victories than did her antagonist whose
troops were everywhere retreating in disorder. The
Japanese had moral credit and nothing
but the that England her ally and that
she would have to pay out in some sort of fashion
to have any credit at all. A government whose
only claim to credit is the assumption that probably
her big brother will make her pay and which goes into
81 all sortssof enterprises which not governmental
and in which the losses profits, the chances rather
favorng losses belong to the realm Of private specula
ton suffer further depreciation Of credit, shown
in rising interest rates.