The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1906-06-30
JAPAN AS A MODEL.

Mr.. Charles E. Russell points out in
Everybodys Magazine that Japan has
taken hold of her trusts in the man
ner that socialists in this country con-
slider logical She has trusted the
trusts, making the government the SUI
preme trust of the lot. Specific illus
trations of this economic tendency he
furnishes in the relation of the gov
eminent to the tobacco, beer and
| -four trades Formerly the American
tobacco trust did a fiOurishing bust
ness in Japan. 1t had invested $12,-
OOO,00 in branches, offices, shops and
works, when it occurred to the gov
the profit as the trust. So the govern
ment went into the tobacco business,
passed a law that no cigars or cigar
cites should be sold which had not
first been offered to the government
agent and placed a duty of $50 per
cent on foreign manufactures Of to-
bacco The American trust disap-
peared In the same way the gov
eminent assumed control of the brew
cry business, eliminated what Mr..
Russell calls stupid competition"
with the result that Japan doubled
her beer export in one year. Japan
raises a little wheat, not enough for
home consumption. She has for years
imported flour from the United States.
But when the war came Japan took
notice of the fact that Russia had a
lease from China of a wheat field in
Manchuria containing more arabic
acres than all Japan. The Japanese
government revoked that lease at
Mukden, succeeded to it itself and
is today spotting that territory with
flour mills and developing wheat
growing. Presumably the government
will own the supply of flour as it now
other things.
The tone of Mr.. RusseIl's essay is
extremely sympathetic. He evidently
believes that the way to make a peo-
pie great and happy is to syndicate
the business of the country up to the
point where the government can prof
itably take hold of it and then absorb
it into the state. He intimates
that Japan is so astute in her opera
tons that we with our ideas of stupid
competition cannot get hold of any of
the oriental trade What are we to
do about it unless we Immediately
abolish all private business and be-
gin over again on the Japanese model,
| initiating the imitator? Mr.. Russell
| does not explicitly order this, but the
trend of his logic is such that the
conclusion is unacceptable that this is
| what he expects.
The Japanese government may be
doing several things of novel char
acter in the way of government mo-
nopOlies, but it will take more than
one eulogy of the system to convince
even thinking Japanese that this is
! the true way to build a nation. Mean
| ton and as the lending people exer-
else their own fancy with regard to
extending credit, it may be that Japan
is paying for her sport in the realm
of private business in the money mar
| kets of the world. 1t is true that she
did pay higher rate of interest while
her armies were winning unexampled
victories than did her antagonist,
whose troops were everywhere re-
| treating in disorder. The Japanese
government had no moral credit and
nothing but the assurance that Eng
land was 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 all sorts of enter
prises which are not governmental,
and in which the losses or profits, the
to the realm of private speculation,
must suffer further depreciation Of
credit. shown in rising interest rates.